INDIA, CHINA & JAPAN FROM 1850 TO 1945.   Term Paper ID:24907 Click to get this paper

Essay Subject: Compares nations' economic development. Industrialization, trade, politics, agriculture, foreign influences, internal conflicts.... More...

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Paper Abstract: Compares nations' economic development. Industrialization, trade, politics, agriculture, foreign influences, internal conflicts. Paper Introduction: The three largest economies in Asia had very different experiences in the world economy from 1850 to 1945. India, an imperial subject of Britain throughout this period, was forced to abandon the production of textiles and most other goods when Britain elected to manufacture these goods and export them instead to its continent-sized colony. As a result, India became primarily an exporter of primary products and made only minimal progress toward industrialization. China, though it was no one's colony, was beset by weak governments and periods of extreme political instability. But China suffered a much worse fate than India's because it was subject to the demands of powerful, competing industrialized nations seeking raw materials and markets for their manufactured goods. Japan, however, became one of the industrialized nations and, in addition to exerting Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. [14]Chaudhuri, 831. The Evolution of the International Economic Order. Unlike a colony, such as India, where the"foreign business leaders held special privileges" by right of citizenshipin the colonial power, foreigners in China had to compete with each otherand "with thousands of Chinese business owners doing the very samething."[31] The country was opened up to the world system but, unlike thesituation between India and Britain, it was in no other nation's bestinterests to ensure that the level of exports remained higher than thelevel of imports. London: Macmillan, 1986.Myers, Ramon H. Though these nations had similar contemptuousattitudes toward outsiders and would have preferred isolation, this was nolonger possible after 185 . [7]Ramon H. [17]Ibid., 851. Both China and India, weakened by the legacyof its function in Briatin's imperial scheme, still struggle today with theproblems of modernization they faced 15 years ago. [9]William R. [22]Chaudhuri, 863. The Twentieth Century World: An International History. Thus, in the 189 s, by means of its "largesurpluses in [its] balance of payments with a wide range of countries . [1 ]Vera Simone and Anne Thompson Feraru, The Asian Pacific: Politicaland Economic Development in a Global Context (White Plains, NY: Longman,1995), 18, citing Immanuel Wallerstein, The Modern World System: CapitalistAgriculture and the Origins of the European World-Economy in the SixteenthCentury (New York: Academic Press, 1976). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983.Keylor, William R. In this situation, no amount of foreign demand would"stimulate the development of manufacturing to produce capital goods."[33]In the period 1896-194 China ran a severe trade imbalance which could onlybe managed, and barely at that, "by foreign investments, overseas Chineseremittances, and foreign payments" for the use of military garrisons andthe navigation of Chinese rivers.[34] The rise of the Chinese Republic in 1911 was to have little positiveeffect on the country's economic fortunes because, by this time, Japan'sinfluence in East Asia had grown to the point where China was becoming evenmore dependent on its Asian neighbor than on the West. At the beginning of thenineteenth century, for example, India was the world's leading exporter ofcotton fabrics. Myers, The Chinese Economy: Past and Present (Belmont, CA:Wadsworth, 198 ), 13 . India, however,despite huge constraints exerted by Britain, managed to make some stridestoward industrialization. The thriving indigo plantations were oneindustry that contracted severely by the end of the century "largely due tothe discovery of synthetic aniline dyes."[18] In other instances, however,India had great and permanent success with new crops. Japan, like the Western nations, became animperial power--thus exemplifying the process by which industrializedcountries developed into an almost impregnable core that could, by force ifnecessary, exploit the peripheral nations in the world economic system.This view of the global system, as formulated by Immanuel Wallerstein,holds that "highly developed nations at the core of the internationalmarketplace operate as an external constraint on the internal economic andpolitical structures of weak, peripheral nations."[1 ] In terms of the three nations discussed here, Japan placed itself atthe core and China remained perpetually at the periphery. [2]K. "Foreign Trade and Balance of Payments (1757-1947). Mike Shepperdson and Colin Simmons, 4 -6 . [25]Ibid., 838. By the time of independence in 1947, India's share in the worldsystem had been reduced to that of a minor player--sustained to some degreeonly by its overwhelming size. A high level of demand for jute developed, for example, with "theincreased level of world trade in foodgrains [and the] corresponding demandfor container bags."[17] But demand was, of course, a dangerous thing forproviders of primary commodities. In Asia only Japan chose the firstcourse, while neither China nor India was given any option but to trade. "The World Economy, the Colonial State, and the Establishment of the Indian National Congress." In The Indian National Congress and the Political Economy of India 1885-1985, ed. [15]Ibid., 831. [6]Ibid., 1 . Overall these industries rose from an 8 percent share of thetotal of all exports in the 187 s to 27 percent of all exports in the193 s.[39] But Japan was a small nation with limited natural resources and arapidly increasing population. China and India,however, offer different scenarios in which development was deliberatelystunted by outsiders in order to avoid competition, create markets, andmaintain access to materials. [24]Chaudhuri, 8 7. The three largest economies in Asia had very different experiences inthe world economy from 185 to 1945. By 191 Japan's exports of silk had passed China'swhich, considering the relative size of the two nations, was an amazingfeat. The ability to exploit these new opportunities, for example, dependedon the prior development of an agricultural revolution. As Lewis pointsout, it is only when a country is capable of producing the surplus thatwill be consumed by its industrial sector, and thereby creating aprosperous agricultural sector as a market for the industrial goods, thatan industrial revolution can take place.[4] Thus, even thoughindustrialization was relatively easy and not terribly expensive, therewere few nations outside Western Europe who were in a position to undertakeextensive modernization. The basic change that took place,and constituted this development, was that while "the large scaleproduction of commodities remained confined to a few points on the globe,their circulation became generalised throughout the world."[3] Theopportunity for this expanded trade is usually attributed to thedevelopment of the railway, the steamship and the telegraph, but theunequal nature of the system is related to other economic and politicalfactors. But the introduction of tea planting from China raises the basicproblem of India's colonial situation. [18]Ibid., 846. In the last industry, for example, India was exporting almost3 million pounds per annum by 19 5 and had displaced Britain in itsprincipal markets--Japan and China. In addition,however, indemnities were repeatedly imposed on China with each new treatyfor failing to meet the previous agreements. Mike Shepperdsonand Colin Simmons (Aldershot, England: Avebury, 1988), 41. In The Cambridge Economic History of India, ed. But,in the long run, Japan's industrialized economy survived while China'speripheral status weakened it to the point where an all-pervasive civil wareliminated any remnants of China as a functioing member of the capital-based world economic system. Chaudhuri, "Foreign Trade and Balance of Payments (1757-1947), in The Cambridge Economic History of India, ed. The industrial revolutions in the West,therefore, offered two choices to the rest of the world's economies--eitherimitate the industrialization or trade. Notes BibliographyChaudhuri, K. Arthur. Thus the performance of these nations in theworld economy in the period 185 -1945 depended largely on theindustrialized nations--either imitating them or being exploited by them. Japan, however, becameone of the industrialized nations and, in addition to exerting immenseinfluence over China's economy, became a world industrial power. N. The Chinese Economy: Past and Present. In India low and unstableagricultural productivity and the difficulty of "begin[ning]industrialization by exporting manufactures," rather than developing a homemarket first, would very likely have militated against it.[5] China hadthe same problem but, even when there was some opportunity for thedevelopment of Chinese enterprise, was also faced with the "absence of aninvestment climate."[6] In the late nineteenth century, for example, state-sponsored industrial enterprises failed repeatedly in China because of lowconfidence in Chinese, as opposed to foreign, businesses, the imperialcourt's refusal to support them, and the lack of officials who"comprehended the enormous complexities of staffing, supplying, andoperating these enterprises."[7] The West, of course, had been developingits new "capitalist environment" for over a century but the "people, ideasand institutions" that made up this environment simply did not exist inAsia.[8] Thus, for example, when Japan made the decision to proceed withthe modernization of its economy and society, observers were sent "toEngland to study financial, commercial and naval affairs; to Germany tolearn the principles of military organization, strategy and tactics; and toFrance for training in law and government."[9] The inclusion of the military aspects of modernization in Japan'svast program was, of course, an accurate reading of Western method. Even without the political-economic constraints exerted by theWestern powers and Japan, however, China and India might not haveindustrialized within the period under study. The result of this system was that China's traditionalexports--tea and silk--were destroyed by competition from India and Japanby the end of the nineteenth century.[32] In the classic situation of aperipheral economy, China's imports were primarily finished goods while itsexports remained primary commodities, which served the interests of theindustrial nations. But Japan's fate was no different from other industrializednations who followed the route of attacking other modernized states. Military-backed expansion following the Russo-Japanese War (19 4-19 5) resulted in the annexation of Korea, control ofManchuria and the gaining of former German possessions in the Pacific. Britain, therefore, sought tomanipulate the particular commodities produced in India and the manner inwhich India was made "part of the much more diverse multilateral tradingprocess" that developed.[21] The demand for commodities allowed India to"develop favourable trade balances" with the industrialized nations whileBritain, in turn, was running major trade deficits with the emergingindustrial nations.[22] But Britain was able to use India as a vehicle tosettle much of her deficit. [28]Ibid., 4 .[29]Ibid.[3 ]Myers, 149.[31]Ibid., 149.[32]Simone and Feraru, 41.[33]Myers, 15 .[34]Ibid.[35]Ryoshin Minami, The Economic Development of Japan: A Quantitative Study(London: Macmillan, 1986), 218.[36]Keylor, 15.[37]Ibid., 16.[38]Minami, 226.[39]Ibid.[4 ]Keylor, 235. [11]Ibid. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 198 .Simone, Vera, and Anne Thompson Feraru. Thisbegan with the production of simple manufactured goods such as matches andcamphor but, following world War I, the export of machinery and chemicalsrose rapidly. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 15. At the same time Japan developed mechanized methods of cottonspinning and weaving that helped push its level of export of manufacturedgoods even higher. Thesecond major export sector was the heavy and chemical industries. [4]Lewis, 9-1 . [12]Chaudhuri, 8 6. Throughout the second half of the nineteenth centuryIndia's role in the world economy was largely that of a producer oftraditional crops on a large scale for export. The emergence of various commodities to the newstatus of major exports was, of course, tied to demand in the rest of thesystem. Dharma Kumar, 8 4-77. Aldershot, England: Avebury, 1988.Minami, Ryoshin. Thus the share of textiles in total exports rose from39 percent in the 187 s to 66 percent of all exports in the 192 s. . India metwith success in the development of a machine-based cotton textilesindustry, the reemergence of cotton as an export, and the manufacture ofcotton yarn. Though never wholly successful, its attemptexemplifies Wallerstein's elaboration of his theory which held that thereis "upward and downward mobility of individual nations" who can achieve ordecline to a "middle tier, the semi-peripheral or middle-class level ofnations."[11] In India the Charter Act of 1813 eliminated the East India Company'smonopoly on Indian Trade and by 1833 the Company was "debarred from tradingaltogether."[12] This opened India to private traders and set the stagefor an immediate "spectacular expansion" in trade whose "long-term trendsthroughout the nineteenth century were in an upward direction" that did notend until 1914. This was necessary, as far as Britainwas concerned, because India fulfilled a unique role in facilitatingBritain's successful maneuvering in the world system. White Plains, NY: Longman, 1995.----------------------- [1]W. Japan's development demonstrates the fact that any country that couldcreate the proper circumstances could industrialize. But China suffered a much worse fate than India's because it was subjectto the demands of powerful, competing industrialized nations seeking rawmaterials and markets for their manufactured goods. Arthur Lewis, The Evolution of the International Economic Order(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978), 4. The Economic Development of Japan: A Quantitative Study. China had resisted the infiltration of foreign traders andmissionaries and the former had been confined to one or two ports. First, like Britain 1 yearsearlier, Japan began to build its capitalist system with the manufactureand export of textiles. Dharma Kumar(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 8 7. Butstrong opposition from the United States threatened this solution toJapan's "fatal combination" of shortages and surplus population and manyJapanese came to believe that aggressive military action was the only meansby which economic growth could continue, thereby avoiding "a drasticreduction in its standard of living and the social tensions and politicalinstability that often accompany economic stagnation and decline."[4 ] While engaged in creating an empire, Japan met with considerablesuccess. Keylor, The Twentieth Century World: An InternationalHistory, 2d ed. [5]Ibid., 1 . Theloss of the first of the Opium Wars (1839-42) to Britain "forced theopening of China and signaled the convergence of external colonialinterests and internal weaknesses" that culminated in the collapse of theold imperial system in 1911.[28] The period between 185 and the end ofthe Manchu dynasty consisted of a series of "unequal treaties" that werethe result of the court's resistance to foreign traders and "theretribution of frustrated Westerners."[29] These treaties gave foreigntraders rights of extraterritoriality--the right to live under the laws oftheir own nations--and extensive freedom, operating from treaty-designatedport areas, to manage China's trade with the outside world. .India was able to clear a significant part of the deficit which [Britain]had built up with these regions."[23] By 1914, however, India, along with the rest of the producers ofprimary commodities, suffered serious setbacks in trade due to "worldwideindustrial reorganization, the growth of bilateral trading arrangements, apolicy of tariff protection, and foreign exchange controls."[24] By 192 the total value of imports exceeded the value of exports for the first timeand the trade boom was over.[25] In the course of the Great Depression,India's trade, again like that of all producers of primary commodities,suffered extensively and experienced only a limited renewal during WorldWar II. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.Lewis, W. All threenations were major traders with the industrialized nations of the West andtraded heavily among themselves. From the beginning"Japanese industrialization had been closely linked to foreign trade.[35]Japan had initially been forced open to the world by the American AdmiralPerry in 1853. China, though it was no one's colony,was beset by weak governments and periods of extreme political instability. Despite fluctuations in the rate of growth, and the effects of thepost-187 s stagnation, the period 1835-194 showed an average annual growthrate of "3.23 per cent for exports and 3.68 for imports."[15] The principal direction of India's participation in the world economywas set by its turn to the provision of primary commodities in exchange forconsumer goods. But, under British pressure, India "was graduallytransformed from being an exporter of manufactured products into a supplierof primary commodities," who then, in turn, imported consumer goodsmanufacture in Britain.[2] This sequence in India provides an excellent example of the manner inwhich the world trade system developed. India, an imperial subject of Britainthroughout this period, was forced to abandon the production of textilesand most other goods when Britain elected to manufacture these goods andexport them instead to its continent-sized colony. In 185 Britain was the only nation whose agricultural population hadfallen below 5 percent and at this date "even the oldest of theindustrialized countries were only in the early stages of structuraltransformation."[1] World trade at this point represented only a verysmall portion of the economy of most nations and the direction and natureof trade depended on geographic factors. The trade there was unregulated and thisproduced a unique atmosphere. Tea is the primaryexample and Indian tea eventually displaced China's production in theinternational market. Theresult of this situation was that China, which was fought over by manyinterests after 185 , served as a lesson for Japan which, subsequently,wished to avoid China's fate. Imports, for example, grew at a rateof 1 .1 percent in the 185 s, while exports grew at a rate of 7.6percent.[14] The difference in these rates of growth stemmed, of course,from the fact that imports began to grow from a fairly low level inabsolute terms, while increases in the value of exports and increasedimportation of British capital generated a rising demand for importedgoods. In the isolated nation various political elements,recognizing the dangers inherent in outright resistance to modernization,overthrew the Tokugawa Shogunate and replaced it with the Meiji imperialfamily in 1868. [13]McGuire, 42. When compared with each other thediffering performances of the three nations in the emergent global economy,demonstrate how the world system developed as a system of relationshipsbetween the newly industrialized world and the less-developed, primarilyagricultural, nations that relied on the export of raw materials and food. Though this pattern of returning profits made inthe peripheral countries to the core nations was important as a constrainton the development of India's modern economy, the colony's economy wasenhanced overall by its integration into the world trade system. [21]McGuire, 45. And it was certainly "a farmore compelling market for conquest by core interests than Japan."[27]Thus the Western nations went after China while Japan was only incidentallyforced open for use as an American way station in trade with China. But the difference in their fates was due notso much to the nature of the two societies as to "the exigencies of theinternational market at different points in time."[26] China, as thelargest potential untapped market in the world was a vast and temptingtarget for the emerging industrial powers. As industrializationcontinued at a rapid pace in Western Europe, the United States and Japandemand for primary commodities increased. China and Japan had opposite experiences in the world economic systemin the 185 -1945 period. [27]Ibid. [2 ]Ibid., 853. [23]McGuire, 45. 2d ed. These indemnities, combinedwith enormous loans which were often misspent by the government, were anenormous burden on the government so that even when, in the 1895-19 7period, the government decided to attempt modernization of the economy theweight of the payments rendered it incapable of supporting Chinesebusinesses.[3 ] Within the foreign commercial zones from 185 to 1911 the competitionfor trade was extremely intense. Traditional crops such asopium, indigo, raw silk and cotton had accounted for 56 to 64 percent ofthe total value of Indian exports prior to 185 .[16] But risingcompetition from China and, much later, Japan all but eliminated the silkindustry and Indian cotton went into a decline from which it did notrecover until much later. The Meiji Restoration's enormous success "was due to thewillingness of the new leadership to abandon the isolationist prejudices ofthe past in favor of Western methods" of modernization.[36] In the period185 to 19 the nation's "foreign trade increased from virtually nothingto roughly $2 million."[37] At first, in the 187 s, Japan was an exporter of primary commoditiessuch as "tea, marine products, copper and coal."[38] But the nation'ssuccess was tied to the goal of producing consumer goods for export. This "was a classic example ofimport substitution from a non-colonial to a colonial area" and,accordingly, the industry was based almost entirely on "British capital andenterprise" and was only "marginally integrated" with the Indian economyfor many decades.[19] Thus, profits were only recycled into the economy atan extremely low level. [19]Ibid., 854-55. [3]John McGuire, "The World Economy, the Colonial State, and theEstablishment of the Indian National Congress," in The Indian NationalCongress and the Political Economy of India 1885-1985, ed. [8]Lewis, 1 . [26]Simone and Feraru, 49. Theysucceeded at this to an astonishing degree. As a result, Indiabecame primarily an exporter of primary products and made only minimalprogress toward industrialization. And,like Britain and the others, Japan also reached a point in its economicdevelopment where securing markets and resources with the aid of militarymight was judged a necessity. Japan needed secure control over marketsand sources of primary commodities as well as room for the emigration ofits surplus population. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978.McGuire, John. N. But, like Britain, which had lost thecotton yarn trade to India's emerging indigenous production, India "in itsturn was affected by the growth of indigenous spinning industries in bothJapan and China" within the next 15 years.[2 ] But India was limited to a few successes in manufactured and semi-manufactured goods and its status as an agricultural producer remained itsprincipal role in the world system. The Asian Pacific: Political and Economic Development in a Global Context. [16]Ibid., 848. The "rapid increase in the rate of profit in a globalcontext" that stimulated India's trade took a downturn in the 187 s when acrisis in accumulation led to stagnation that lasted until the end of thecentury.[13] But India's average rate of growth for imports and exportsincreased at high levels after 185 . If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.