China, with its estimated population of nearly 400,000,000, attained to a considerable measure of civilization at a very remote period, but has made almost no progress during the Christian era, being content to retain its old ideas, methods and institutions, which its people look upon as far superior to those of the western nations. Great Britain gained a foothold in China as early as the seventeenth century, but the persistent attempt to flood the country with the opium of India, in disregard of the laws of the land, so annoyed the emperor that he had the opium of the British stores at Canton, worth $20,000,000, seized and destroyed. This led to the "opium war" of 1840, in which China was defeated and was forced to accept a much greater degree of intercourse with the world, five ports being made free to the world's commerce and Hong Kong ceded to Great Britain. In 1856 an arbitrary act of the Chinese authorities at Canton, in forcibly boarding a British vessel in the Canton River, led to a new war, in which the French joined the British and the allies gained fresh concessions from China. In 1859 the war was renewed, and Peking was occupied by the British and French forces in 1860, the emperor's summer palace being destroyed. These wars had their effect in largely breaking down the Chinese wall of seclusion and opening the empire more fully to foreign trade and intercourse, and also in compelling the emperor to receive foreign ambassadors at his court in Peking. In this the United States was among the most successful of the nations, from the fact that it had always maintained friendly relations with China. In 1876 a short railroad was laid, and in 1877 a telegraph line was established. During the remainder of the century the telegraph service was widely extended, but the building of railroads was strongly opposed, and not until the century had reached its end did the Chinese awaken to the importance of this method of transportation. They did, however, admit steam traffic to their rivers, and purchased some powerful ironclad naval vessels in Europe. [=How Japan Was Opened to Commerce=] The isolation of Japan was maintained longer than that of China, trade with that country being of less importance, and foreign nations knowing and caring less about it. The United States has the credit of breaking down its long and stubborn seclusion and setting in train the remarkably rapid development of the Japanese island empire. In 1854 Commodore Perry appeared with an American fleet in the bay of Yeddo, and, by a show of force and a determination not to be rebuffed, he forced the authorities to make a treaty of commercial intercourse with the United States. Other nations quickly demanded similar privileges, and Japan's obstinate resistance to foreign intercourse was at an end.