By 1888 Britain had secured control over northern Borneo and commanded the eastern part of the South China Sea. This was the culmination of fifty years of involvement in the area. During the 1840s and 1850s that involvement was hesitant and faltering. But after 1860 it became a definite movement toward domination of the route between Singapore and China. Two basic factors of Britain's Far Eastern policy were involved. One was the need to maintain and protect the trade route to East Asia. The other factor was the evolution of an imperial policy—the change-over from primarily a commercially based to a politically based policy.