The Evolving Structure Of The East Asian Economic System Since 1700

This book is the fifth volume of essays edited by A. J. H Latham and Heita Kawakatsu from the International Economic History Congresses looking at the development of the Asian Economy. Bringing together leading scholars from both the east and west, this book offers fascinating insights into the cotton trade, the rice, wheat and shipping industries and the development of trade and finance in East Asia.

A wide-ranging, interdisciplinary analysis of the evolution of successful economic policies in East Asia, this study advances a thorough examination of the sustained economic growth enjoyed by the countries in this region.

This collection of essays sheds new light on many aspects of Asia’s integration with the international economy. H.I.H. Crown Prince Naruhito discusses the problems of controlling water in the interest of urban development. He first examines the problems encountered on the River Thames in relationship to the growth of London in the eighteenth century, and then relates his findings to Japan where similar problems arose with respect to the expansion of Edo (Tokyo). Other chapters looking at the eighteenth century examine the development of plant collecting in Asia and the wider world in the interest of the economy and leisure, Japan’s connections with the outside world by way of the Dutch East India Company (VOC), and the Dutch acquisition of the knowledge of the Japanese language at their base at Dejima Island, Nagasaki. India features next with a chapter showing how India was crucial in initiating the industrial revolution in Britain, by stimulating British manufacturers to copy the fine textiles made by hand loom weavers there. This is followed by a chapter showing how in the late nineteenth century India was the central pivot in the entire international economic system, based on its trading surplus with China. Other discussions trace the role of Scotland as a centre of heavy industry and shipbuilding, with Scottish companies dominating the shipping lanes of Asia. A further chapter shows how British connections with Asia, in this case Shanghai, brought problems of debt and non payment, and outlines the steps taken to try to control the situation. Elsewhere problems arose in Bangkok over the quality of rice being supplied to European merchants in the 1920s, leading to a decline in sales. Finally there is a discussion of Japanese commercial policy towards Africa in the inter-war period. This book will be of interest and use to students, researchers, and general readers interested in Asia’s role in world economic development.

First Published in 2004. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Business Networks in East Asian Capitalisms: Enduring Trends, Emerging Patterns builds on the foundational studies conducted in the 1990s by gathering contemporary empirical and theoretical chapters which explore these themes in a comparative perspective. The book includes contributions from authors working on the relationship between personal and business networks in countries including China, Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand. Authors emphasize enduring trends in social and business networks and/or track new emerging patterns, both within East Asian nations or between East Asia and other regions such as Europe, Africa, and the Americas. Provides contemporary, up-to-date empirical material and theoretical interpretation, charting the influence of more recent globalizing trends and institutional change in the region Includes studies of networks within PRC, between PRC and other regions, and in Chinese communities Offers studies centered on Korean, Japanese, and South East Asian Networks Includes a geographical scope that will be broader than other books, aiming to include studies of newly developing economies in South East Asia that share a common cultural heritage (e.g Vietnam)

The essays selected for this volume show how the Pacific rapidly became part of an industrializing world. Its raw materials (notably rubber and copper) were critical, some of its handicraft industries were devastated by mechanized competition, others survived and adapted, contributing to distinctive patterns of industrialization that made Japan a new center of power, and also laid the groundwork for later growth in Taiwan, Korea, and coastal China. The Pacific coast of the Americas was also first drawn into an industrial world largely as an exporter of raw materials, but North and South diverged rapidly, portending futures even more different than those of Northeast and Southeast Asia. By the 1930s - when the uneven effects of industrialization would have much to do with plunging the Pacific into war - one can already glimpse in outline the structural bases for many of the region's contemporary characteristics. All this is set in context in the important introduction by Kenneth Pomeranz.

This monograph is the first book-length study of foreign direct investment in Southeast Asia during both the late colonial period and in the contemporary period. It examines the leading Southeast Asian countries receiving foreign investment this century. The arrival of today's Asian investors, from Japan and the four Asian NICs, is described after a brief discussion of the transitionary period of warfare, decolonization and assertion of newly independent states. Special attention is given to the impact of foreign investment on the economic development of the host country.