Why did almost every European country try to take over large chunks of Africa, the pacific islands, and Asia?

I found a website that would help this question since in one of the paragraphs it asks the same exact question.

https://www.oerproject.com/-/media/BHP/PDF/Unit9/U9-Article-ImperialismandResistance-Leveled-810-2015.ashx

Hope this helped! :3

More than 4 million enslaved hunan beings in the south and they touched every aspect of the regions social, political and economic life.