The Asian Century

Besides the experience of travel itself, identify one theme or pattern that seems to be repeated throughout the test. Examples (political\ systems, economic development, religion). What significance does this theme or pattern play in shaping the ancient world? Are there any chapters/people/events that contradict your pattern or theme?’

In what ways has Asian America’s experienced “ target” status? Although Asians opportunitys has been without any roadblocks. They know what it feels like to be deined of their rights to have citizenship expect for the Filipinos. Likewise it wasn’t until the nationality Act of 1965 that Asian Americans were accepted into our country.

In When Asia was the World, Stewart Gordon investigates how trade led to the spread of religion and education/innovation. These factors were critical in Asia’s rise to dominance. Throughout the book, trade is discussed as a medium for culture to travel across large areas of land. It is this movement of new ideas that catalyzed Asia’s growth.

What made Asia one of the most influential, intercontinental, and powerful nations during the ancient world? Was it the spread of new religion? The bustling trade? Or was it the knowledge and communication spread throughout the continent? In the book When Asia was the World, Stewart Gordon analyses journals, primary text, and personal accounts of life in Asia during this time. We see the view of the world through merchants, traders, scholars, philosophers, travelers, and generals, from 500 – 1500 CE. Although this book seems like it is emphasizing the importance of travel in the ancient world, it is actually about how trade spread valuable goods, services, and knowledge that made Asia the center of civilization.

1) Nationalism, socialism, and religion have all played a major role in anti-colonial struggles and post-colonial constructions in India and Southeast Asia. Which of these three ideologies do you think was most effective for colonized peoples and why?

At this point of time, globalization has grown to be a phenomenon that is significantly important economically, politically, and culturally. The amalgamation and incorporation of the world economy around the globe has reshaped business. Not only this, it has created "new social classes, different jobs, unimaginable wealth, and, occasionally, wretched poverty" (Kiggundu 2002, p. 4) by restructuring the lives of the individuals. For some, globalization is associated to modernism and contemporary practices. Others understand it as American domination (particularly those living in Asia). On the other hand, some people believe it to be the emasculation of America (Kiggundu 2002, p. 4).

The formation of pan-ethnic and pan-minority boundaries, as well as intermarriage, also has important implications for changing racial landscapes and race relations of the United States. On one hand, newly emerging racial order along the axes of socioeconomic status and interracial attitudes and relations suggests that Asian American pan-ethnic boundaries may be shifting or being redefined altogether. On the other hand, interracial marriage patterns and the ways in which intermarried individuals discuss their mixed unions reveal that black exceptionalism in the (inter)marriage market is likely to continue.

Nowadays, United States is often associated with the term “melting pot”, which refers to the assimilation of immigrants who were initially heterogeneous with their own distinct backgrounds. Corresponding to that fact, racial discrimination has been significantly reduced within “melting pot”, in which people gradually understand the differences between them without aversion. However, back in the past, many Americans conceived of Asians as strangers. They were not willing to understand and embrace the biological and cultural differences that set Asian immigrants apart from Europeans and early Americans.

When thinking about the space of East Asian studies, we often only look at China, Japan, and Korea based on their physical boundaries on the world map. However, retaining one understanding of East Asia means we are not considering the problem of geography. In order to manoeuver with or around the problem of geography, we must constantly reinterpret and criticize the space we take for granted. The objective is not solving this problem, but to think of ways which can aid in our approach to it. Space is shaped by and for a political purpose, and our understanding of it plays out in our everyday lives. Scholars have criticized these dominant modes, and created alternate understandings. However, these new concepts should not be understood as alternatives to these dominant modes. Power may create and sustain the dominant form of geography, but the cultivation of alternate comprehensions aids in the endeavour of continuously revolutionizing its concept, as Li Dazhao does to “Spring” in his poem. By rejecting a single analyses of space to be the most correct, we begin to realize the discourse of geography is constantly criticizing and revolutionizing itself. From our understanding of this, we begin creating perspectives that make us more critically aware of our surroundings.

The 19th century model of economic exchange between the West and Asia was based in inequalities. Asia was seen as a source of inexpensive labor, while the West provided the ideas, capital, and other means to fuel commerce. Furthermore, the target consumer was assumed to be white, given that whites had more income and disposable resources than the Chinese. Today, there has been a profound reversal of this relationship. Japan, for example, is one of the world's major industrial powers, and dominates many segments of the

China and Japan are two unique civilizations that went through similar, yet vastly different changes throughout their histories. Their growth and response to other nations differed in many ways in government, lifestyle, and general well-being. One of the main causes for such difference between the countries is the way the West influenced each region, and the way China and Japan responded to this influence. China focused more on the idea of being a "status oriented" society, while Japan was more "goal oriented" based. In China, anyone had the ability to better themselves and change their status through civil examinations given by the government. Western impact however slowly changed this old age system. Japan's caste system viewed

Thus far, I have laid out some of the most important arguments in the extant literature on the East Asian Miracle with particular reference to South Korea. In this section, I integrate the preceding two sections on the existing literature and propose an alternative theory. In brief sum, the existing developmental state literature, including that specific to South Korea, argues that the developmental state causes economic growth through export-led industrialization. I reverse the order of two links in that theoretical chain. Specifically, I argue that the developmental state does not give rise to export-led growth. In fact, it is the inception of the export-led growth strategy that gives rise to the developmental state, which emerges as a

China’s culture saw some drastic changes during the 19th and 20th centuries, from the influx of new influences from the West to the more culturally sterile regime of Mao Zedong. In the early 20th century, Shanghai was a top cultural center in the East, and its achievements, although almost lost due to decades of conflict and political struggle, were preserved and built upon in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Following the social reforms, post-Mao China was ripe for reintroduction of culture, and Taiwan’s close proximity and similar origins helped smooth the transition and pave the way for China’s return from the cultural dark ages.

An interesting topic which we have yet to discuss in class is the relative development of China's technology, naval, and agricultural industries, at the time, in comparison with the west, and how it affected China’s position in the world throughout the 19th and early 20th century. Why didn’t China’s technological achievements propel it to become a global power in the later half of the millennia (before 1950). One interesting example is the comparison between Christopher Columbus's expedition vessel versus the Chinese Navies Zheng He “treasures ships”. For many centuries, the Chinese had had reached, and were operating at the pinnacle of technological achievement at the time. This leads the question - if Zheng He/s exploration efforts had not

Asian economies that have progressed economically at such substantial rates that have come to rival the earning capacity and quality of living of those being first-world countries – Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and South Korea.