Answer: During the period 1500-1800 Asian commodities flooded into the West. As well as spices and tea, they included silks, cottons, porcelains and other luxury goods. Since few European products could be successfully sold in bulk in Asian markets, these imports were paid for with silver. The resulting currency drain encouraged Europeans to imitate the goods they so admired. In Asia, there was no comparable mass importation of western goods. However, there was a great fascination with European scientific and artistic technologies. These influenced local lifestyles and inspired Asian scholars, artists and craftsmen.
The East occupied an important place in the western imagination. The reverse was also true. European objects and artefacts, sometimes reworked to suit Asian lifestyles, created a corresponding vision of a mysterious and exotic West.
Explanation: In the late 18th century any uncertainty that existed about the position of Europeans in Asia evaporated. The British solved the trade imbalance with China by flooding the country with Indian opium, damaging both the economy and the health of the people. The tensions that this inevitably created led to the Opium Wars, which sealed western economic dominance of East Asia.
In India, the collapse of the Mughal empire created a power vacuum that was filled by the East India Company. Its administrative and military machine gradually reshaped the subcontinent to suit British priorities. After the defeat of Tipu Sultan in 1799, British control of the subcontinent was assured. With this, the character of the European presence in Asia changed and rigid assumptions of East and West began to replace the more fluid boundaries between different cultures.