1303 Chapter 9 - East Asia

Geographic Qualities and Physiography

• Circled by mountains, deserts, and the Pacific Ocean
• Vast and varied topography
• One of the world’s cultural and agricultural hearths
• The great rivers
• Huang He (Yellow River)
• Chang Jiang/Yangzi River
• Xi Jiang (West River)
• World’s most populous realm
• Population concentrated in eastern portions
• Pacific Rim
• Realm undergoing terrific economic and political tension and change
• Intensifying regional disparities

States

• China
• Tibet/Xizang
• Xinjiang
• Mongolia
• The Jakota Triangle
• Taiwan
• Japan
• Republic of South Korea
• Peoples’ Republic of North Korea

Change in the Realm

• Chinese change
• Discontent in rural areas
• Shift to market economy and inequalities
• Land disputes and environmental degradation
• Government conservatism and corruption
• Globalization
• Nationalist conflicts over oil and land
• Usually involving Japan
• Decline of Japan’s population
• Changes on the Korean Peninsula
• Nuclear armed North Korea
• Attempts to break down border between North and South
• Tensions over Taiwan

Chinese Perspective

• One of the World’s Great Cultural Hearths
• Yellow and Yangtze Rivers
• Continuous Civilization for last 4000 years
• China as center of the universe
• Eastern vs. Western bias
• Inward Looking
• Closed society

China

• Population of 1.3 billion
• Han Chinese – 92%
• Communist State
• Undergoing modernization/change
• Movement from a Centrally Planned Economy to a Market Economy
• Rising Superpower

China – Isolation

• Natural Barriers to movement
• Mountains and deserts
• Distance
• Large size
• Inward looking
• Political focus on China
• Large size and surrounding impediments to movement
• Ocean
• Historic restrictive use of coastline and ocean by emperors
• Modern access to world markets

China – Climate

• Vast differences in climate types
• From Dry and Highland to Humid temperate and cold
• Largest area of Highland climate in the world
• Desert conditions in the (northern) interior
• Moderate climates along the coast and in the southeast

Chinese History

• Xia Dynasty (2070-1600 BCE)
• Shang Dynasty (1523-1122 BCE)
• Zhou Dynasty (1050-256 BCE)
• Qin Dynasty (255-207 BCE)
• Han (Western) Dynasty (206 BCE – 9 CE)
• Xin Dynasty (9-23 CE)
• Han (Eastern) Dynasty (24-220 CE)
• Three Kingdoms Period (220-265)
• Jin Dynasty (265-419)
• Northern and Southern Kingdoms (420-589)
• Sui Dynasty (581-618)
• Tang Dynasty (618-868)
• The Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms (868-960)
• Song Dynasty (960-1269)
• Yuan (Mongol) Dynasty (1271-1368)
• Ming Dynasty (1368-1644)
• Portuguese Contact in 1516
• Qing (Manchu) Dynasty (1644-1911)

Confucius and Confucianism

• China’s most influential scholar and teacher
• 551-479 BCE (Zhou Dynasty)
• Focus on the suffering of the common people
• Human virtues instead of godly connections
• Advancement by merit
• More philosophical rather than religious

Colonial China

• Resistance among Chinese to European imports and culture
• Early Colonial outposts generally confined to isolated enclaves
• Increases in low cost goods from European powers begins to force open Chinese markets in the early 1800’s
• Opium Wars
• Drugs weakened fabric of Chinese society
• Lost several wars to Britain
• Practice of Extraterritoriality
• Regions where foreign powers and their representatives are immune from local law and custom
• Over 90 treaty-ports and numerous residential and administrative enclaves
• Functioned to erode Chinese sovereignty throughout the nation
• Christian evangelism

Modern China

• Republic of China (1911-1949)
• Chiang Kai-shek and the nationalists
• Japanese conquest beginning in the 1930’s
• Genocide and ethnic cleansing by the Japanese
• Ended by the allies’ defeat of Japan in 1945
• Republic of China – Taiwan (1950-present)

• Peoples’ Republic of China – mainland (1950-present)
• Mao Zedong
• The Long March (1934)
• Defeat of the Nationalist forces in 1949
• Imposition of a Communist Dictatorship
• Re-education camps
• Distrust of education and the elites
• Globalization and Modernization of China after the 1970’s

Communist China

• The Great Leap Forward
• 1958-1962
• Reorganization of entire country in an attempt to industrialize and improve/modernize farming methods
• Borrowed concepts of Stalinist Collectivization of Labor
• Labor over mechanization
• Movement of people from farms to industrial areas
• Distrust of intellectual meant that there was little input from engineers and technically trained individuals
• Failure of Moa to accept criticism of plan
• Reports of record crops even as they rotted in the fields
• Export of grain even as peasants starved
• More or less complete failure
• 20-30 million people died of starvation
• Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution
• Launched in 1966 by Mao Zedong and the Gang of Four
• Attempt to create a cult of personality for Mao
• Attacks on intellectuals, teachers, the educated
• Tortured and killed
• Similar to Cambodia
• Schools and universities shut down
• Anarchy, terror, and economic collapse as violence spread
• Worked as a Han superiority push – oppression of minorities
• As many as 30 million people died, mainly of starvation
• Mao’s death in 1976
• Reaction to Mao and the Cultural Revolutions
• Began in 1978
• Deng Xiaoping
• Economic transformation
• Minor political liberalization
• Away from a cult of personality
• Slower, more measured modernization

China - Political Map

• Four central government controlled Municipalities (Shi’s)
• Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Chongquing
• Form the cores of the most populous and important regions
• Five Autonomous Regions
• Inner Mongolia, Ningxia Hui, Xinjiang Uyghur, Guangxi Zhuang, and Xizang/Tibet
• Recognize non-Han minorities
• Many now have Han majorities within them
• Not all laws apply within the regions
• Twenty-two Provinces
• Similar to U.S. states
• Two Special Administrative Regions
• Hong Kong (1997)
• Macau (1999)

China Population

• 1.3 billion people
• Drastic Population Control Measures taken during the 1980’s
• One child policy
• Serious penalties for having more
• Updated since 2004 to crack down on rural families and wealthy urban families
• Serious imbalance between male and female births
• Population growth dropped from 3% to 0.6% since 1970
• 69% of the population lives on 10% of the land area (arable land)
• Along the eastern coast and river valleys
• Western 2/3^rd of the nation is only sparsely populated

Minorities (China as an Empire instead of Nation State)

• China Proper = Areas of the People of Han
• Ethnic Chinese
• Mandarin speaking
• 92% of the population
• As many as 52 recognized minorities
• Three million Buddhist Tibetans in Xizang
• Muslim Turkic peoples in Xinjiang
• Mongolians in Mongol

Tibet (Xizang)

• Harsh physical environment
• Cold highlands and mountains
• Sparsely populated
• 92% of population ethnic Tibetans
• Tibetan Empire ruled parts of Southeast Asia and China
• Connections with China beginning in the early 18^th Century
• Association of equals or as a client state is debated
• Increasing independence in the 19^th Century
• Independent Tibet in 1911
• Chinese conquest in 1959 by the Communists
• Formal annexation in 1965
• Modern Tibetan Independence movement and tension with the Chinese
• Improved relations after death of Mao
• Ruler of Tibet is traditionally the Dalai Lama
• Both a religious leader and warrior king
• Modern Dalai Lama (14^th) is only a religious leader

Xinjiang/East Turkestan

• Single largest area of land within China
• 1/6^th of the total land area
• Mountains and high basins
• Population of around 17 – 20 million
• 45% Uyghur
• 40% Han Chinese
• Large percentage are Muslim
• Extensive reserves of oil and gas
• Muslim insurgency
• Unresolved border disputes
• Population movement back and forth across the western border
• Irrigation agriculture based around scattered oases

China’s Pacific Rim

• Focus of new economic modernization begun under Deng Xiaoping in 1979
• System of Special Economic Zones (SEZs)
• Open Cities
• Open Coastal Areas
• Low taxes
• Import and export regulations eased
• Simplified land and labor contracts allowed
• Welcoming to foreign investment
• Remain separate from the interior
• Limit disruption of changes
• Limit access to dangerous ideas and concepts to the majority of the population
• Six SEZs and fourteen open coastal cities
• Massive urbanization

Pacific Rim Concepts and discussion

• Regional States
• A “natural economic zone” that defies political boundaries, and is shaped by the global economy of which it is a part; its leaders deal directly with foreign partners and negotiate with foreign states as best they are able under the restrictions of their national governments.
• Pearl River region in China (includes Hong Kong)
• California is an example of this…
• Hong Kong (Xianggang SAR)
• 7 million people within a 400 sq mile territory
• Boom during Korean War due to import restrictions with China
• Forced to trade with other partners
• Major industrialization and financial growth
• Former British Protectorate
• Returned to China in 1997
• One Country-Two Systems Policy

Mongolia (Inner and Outer Mongolia)

• Steppe and desert environment
• Gobi desert
• Approximately 2.6 million people
• Part of China until 1911
• Inner and Outer Mongolia independent under a “White” Russian adventurer
• Inner Mongolia returned to Chinese control in the 1920’s
• Serves as buffer state with Russia
• Economy focused on herding and animal products

The Jakota Triangle

• Japan
• Taiwan
• South Korea
• Appears to exist only in academic, geography text books…

Japan – History

• 600 - 800 Chinese cultural influence
• 1000 -1300 War, Medieval society arises, shoguns evolve
• 1600 -1867 Tokugawa Shogunate, isolation, foreigners and Christianity expelled, individualistic culture, emphasis on Shinto belief system
• 1853 - Commodore Perry acquires new treaties with the outside

Meiji Restoration

• 1868 Rebellion brought in reformers
• Reinstated the emperor and began to
• Transform Japan from a Feudal society with pre-machine age technology to an industrial power
• Adopted aspects of the British model
• Launched a systematic study of the industrialized world
• Focus was on industrialization and education system

Expansion-Collapse-Rebirth

• Conquest of Neighbors and expansion of Japanese Empire
• Taiwan – 1895
• Korea – 1910
• Pacific Islands – begins in 1914
• Manchuria – 1931
• China – 1937
• Hong Kong – 1939
• Southeast Asia - 1941
• Defeat and Occupation (1945-1952)
• Island Hopping
• Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
• Economic reshaping
• Labor legislation
• Constitution
• Civil rights
• Land reform
• U.S. “Helping hand” policy
• Rebirth
• Uniquely Japanese Modernization and Industrialization
• Loss of European Colonial holdings in Asia opened doors for Japan
• Links with U.S. accelerated economic recovery

Japan

• Population of 127 million
• 99% Japanese
• Shinto Buddhist – 84%
• 99% Literacy rate
• Population is declining and aging rapidly
• Highly Urbanized Population
• Only 18% of territory is inhabitable
• Focused on coastal development
• Moderate Climate and excellent harbors
• Susceptible to earthquakes – on the Ring of Fire
• International relations hamstrung by nationalism and refusal to accept responsibility for war crimes and aggression during WWII

Korea

• Free and united kingdom until 1905
• Colonized by Japan
• Split into North and South in 1950’s – Korean War

South Korea

• Population of 49 million
• On area half the size of Idaho
• 99+% Korean
• 80% Urbanized
• Democratic, industrialized nation
• Democracy after initial rule by industrialists and military
• Three major industrial areas
• Seoul
• Capital
• 10 million people
• Kyongsang
• On southeast coast
• Centered around Busan
• Cholla
• Centered on Kwangju
• On southern tip of peninsula

North Korea

• Population of 23 million
• 99+% Korean
• Totalitarian dictatorship
• Cult of Personality
• Extreme poverty and starvation
• Nuclear power

Taiwan

• Historical background:
• A Chinese province for centuries
• Colonized by Japan in 1895
• Returned to China > WWII
• 1949 – Chinese Nationalists (supported by the US) fled from the mainland and established the Republic of China (ROC)
• Territory - approximately 14,000 Square miles
• Population – 22.8 million
• 78% urbanized
• 84% Taiwanese
• 14% Han Chinese
• Per capita incomes - >$15,000
• Strong and diverse economy

Areal functional organization

• A geographic principle for understanding the evolution of regional organization.
• Composed of five interrelated tenets
• Spatial Focus – concentrated in a specific, physical location
• Location – real location
• Interconnections – relationships between the locations
• Areal Functional Organization – regions of interrelated locations
• Levels of Development – rank of regions based on type, extent, and intensity of interrelationships