Wrg 11e lecture_ch10

© 2015 Pearson Education, Inc.

Chapter 10 Lecture

World Regional

Geography

A Developmental Approach

11th Edition

East Asia


Chapter Learning Outcomes

• Compare and contrast the physical environments of countries in the region.

• Understand the sources and causes of China’s environmental degradation.

• Know how China’s agricultural economy has been transformed since the

late 1970s reforms.

• Recognize how the late 1970s reforms have developed China’s industrial

economy.

• Describe the different economic characteristics of China’s three primary and

globalized urban-economic regions.

• Explore how China’s rural and urban population contours have changed as

a result of the late 1970s reforms.

• Explain the success of both South Korea’s and Taiwan’s economic

development strategies.

• Identify the reasons for Japan’s past economic successes and for its current

economic decline.

• Outline the reasons for and impacts China and Japan’s population decline.


Map


Political Units of East Asia


Size of East Asia compared to United States


Environmental Challenges

• Environmental quality has suffered.

– Large population density

– Rapid economic growth

• Clean freshwater is perhaps the biggest

challenge facing the region.

• Air pollution is the other major

environmental problem.


Population


China

• Third largest country in the world

• Similarities to United States

– Similar east–west longitudinal pattern as forty-

eight U.S. states

– Spatial distribution of landforms and climates

• Low plains and mountains in East

• Higher mountains in West


China

• Not as much maritime air masses to bring rain to West as in

United States

• East more densely populated

• Loess plateau—Most specialized region

– Elevated tableland 4,000–5,000 feet above sea level

– Between Ordos Desert and North China Plain

• North China Plain—Extensive riverine surface built up from silt deposits

• Sichuan Basin

– One of the largest interior basins in China

– Densely inhabited by an agricultural population

– Cool, humid winters

– Warm, humid summers

• Three Gorges—Chang Jiang (“long river”)

– Dam construction

– Harness hydroelectric power


China

• Yunnan Plateau

– Elevations 5,000–9,000 feet

– Dissected upland

• Northeast Plain

– Extensive rolling hill surface

– Grain farming region

• Two environmental zones

1. Tibetan Plateau—25 percent of China’s territory

• Largest, most elevated plateau in the world

• “Rooftop of the world”

• Averages 13,200 feet

2. Tarim Basin—Internal drainage

• Population distribution highly uneven

• Reflects climatic patterns

• Spatial variation in distribution of cultural minority groups


China / Population


Spatial Evolution of Chinese Political

Territory


Chinese History

• Shang (1766–1122 BC)—First Chinese dynasty

• Zhou (1027–256 BC)– Replaced Shang

– Infused tradition of Confucianism as opposed to legalism

• Warring States Period (403–221 BC)

• Qin (221–207 BC)– China became single state and culture

– Imposed uniformity

• Han (206 BC–220 AD)– Organizers of first true-scale East Asian empire

– Dominated territory equivalent to present-day China

– Concentration on the North

– Construction of Grand Canal


Chinese History

• Song, or Sung (AD 960–1279)

– Distinctive period for economic development

– Expanded use of early ripening rice varieties

– Irrigation improvements

– Better marketing and distribution systems

– Lessons

• Chinese are not static; internal forces typically

force change.

• Evidence is that Europe has not always been

technologically superior.


East Meets West

• Eighteenth century brings meeting of East and West.

• Arrival of Western traders signaled start of demise of

world’s oldest culture.

• Opium trade by British sparks a confrontation.

• First Opium War—Humiliating Chinese defeat

– Five coastal ports forced to be open to Western interests

– These enclaves essentially became foreign-owned territories.

• Westernizing influences

– China as a market for manufactured goods

– Railroads

– Western medicine and banking

– Victorian morality


New China

• Boxer Rebellion (1900)– First expression of nationalism

– Opposition to foreigners and Chinese doing business with foreigners

• Nationalist movements in wake of collapse of Qing government in 1911– Establishment of the Nationalist Party

– Sun Yat-sen

– Chiang Kai-shek replaces Sun in 1925.

• Chinese Communist Party (CCP) established in 1921.– Mao Ze-dong emerged as leader in 1935.

– Support from U.S.S.R.

– Urban-based party

• Civil war between Nationalists and CCP

• 1949—Nationalists flee to Taiwan; Communists take over.


China / Agriculture


China / Agriculture

• Even in 1990s, still predominantly an agricultural country.

• Yet 7 percent of world’s most arable land and only half considered of good quality

• Three primary agricultural regions

• Widespread use of agricultural intensification

• Supplementary crops

• Cultivated for commercial purposes– Vegetables

– Soybeans

– Fruit orchards


Post-Mao Agricultural Reform

• Household responsibility system (1978)

• Production contract

• “Responsibility land” granted to peasant.

• Household is obliged to produce a specific amount of grain or cotton sold to state at regulated price.

• Once contract fulfilled, free to produce cash crops.

• Peasants empowered

• By 1991, production increased dramatically.

– Greater use of fertilizers

– Green Revolution hybrid varieties

• Still some serious drawbacks

• Underproduction of grains and cotton

– Government prices favored vegetables and fruits.

– Free markets increased.

– Food consumption of more affluent created additional demands.


Economic Growth of China

• Policy to promote regional self-sufficiency through spatially equitable distribution of manufacturing

• Reasonably successful

• Global economy made China a richer nation.– Brought inequities

– Some regions benefited greater than others.

• Mineral resource endowment and distribution– Full complement of mineral resources for industrial goals

• World’s largest coal producer

• Second largest consumer of oil

• Must import vast quantities

• Third in global production of iron ore

• First in tin

• Third in lead and zinc


China / Industry

• Early development in heavy industry

– Iron and steel

– Chemicals

– Electricity generation

– Textiles

• All state-owned enterprises (SOEs)

• Due to military relations, new industrial development needed

interior location in order to avoid external attack

• Late 1970s—Dramatic change in industrial policy

• Increases levels of financial aid decision-making

decentralization

• Transition from rigid central planning to free-market principles

• Rapid growth of town and village enterprises (TVEs)


China / Economy

• Northeast has fared the worst.

• Bohai Sea Rim

– Includes Beijing and Tianjin

– Accounts for 14 percent of national population

– 19 percent of national GDP

• Southeast—Most changed region

• Chang Jiang River area—Dominant economic region in East

• Shanghai since the early 1990s

– Government decision as a counterweight to Guangdong

– Foreign investment

– Other cities have prospered in its shadow.

• Suzhou

• Wuxi

• Ningbo


Mineral Resources of China


China / Inequalities in the System

• Factors

– FDI

– Private domestic investment

– TVE economic impact

• Winners

– Coastal towns

• Foreign manufacturing facilities are located

• Far outstripped other areas

– Domestically owned modern industries favored by government

investment

– Specialty crop farmers cater to affluent urban markets.

• Core-periphery relationship between interior and coastal

provinces is emerging.


China / Inequalities in the System


China / Urbanization and Migration

• Communist restriction on movement to urban centers– Reduced unplanned growth

– Enabled avoidance of squatter settlement development

• Urban places viewed with contempt and distrust.– Breeding grounds for more educated and commercially

oriented capitalist urban classes

– Antiurban bias exhibited in Cultural Revolution

• Loosening of population movement restrictions brought

migration to cities (floating population).

• Urban housing

– Private ownership very small

– Some movement away from state-run, toward market

principles


China / Urban Growth


China / Special Economic Zones


China / Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) &

Special Economic Zones (SEZ)

• Open door policy

– Recognized benefits of FDI

– Win–win

• 1979—SEZs

– Originally centered in Eastern seaboard cities

• Zhuhai

• Shenzhen

• Shantou

• Xiamen

• Hainan Island (1988)

• In many ways, like modern-day treaty ports


China and Hong Kong


Beijing and Shanghai

• Two largest cities

• Both megacities with over 10 million population

• Beijing

– Dates back to thirteenth century

– Traditionally typified conservative orderly and inward nature of Chinese culture

– Forbidden City

– Tiananmen Square

– Political center of Middle Kingdom

– Some light and heavy industry

• Shanghai

– Represents outward/commercial nature of Chinese

– Characteristic of a southern Chinese village

– Roots as a fishing village

– Leading industrial center

• Chemical

• Textile

• Metal

– Food processing

– Pudong—Financial district


Mongolia


Mongolia

• Physically isolated and landlocked

• Three times the size of California

• Historically known as home of pastoral

nomadic empires such as those controlled

by Genghis Khan and Kablal Kahn

• Stagnate economy until the 2000s where

mineral resources have been opened for

development


The Two Koreas


The Two Koreas

• Politically divided

• North Korea

– Insulated/insular society and economy

– Communist system

• South Korea

– Economic development through foreign relations

– Democratic system


Taiwan


Taiwan

• Chinese Nationalists fled to island in 1949

after communists took over mainland.

• People’s Republic of China (PRC) still

considers Taiwan a “province.”

• Not recognized around the world as a

separate country

• Noises of independence declaration


Japan

• Land of contrasts (contradictions between

history and modernity)

• Nature versus cluttered environment

• Traditional dress contrasting with urbanity

• Economic contrasts


Japan


History of Japan

• Jomon culture—Earliest known culture

• Yayoi culture

– Replaced Jomon some 2,300 years ago

– Introduced religion that eventually developed into Shintoism

• Yamato period

– 1,700 years ago

– Introduced great transformation of Japanese culture and politics

• Nara and Heian periods

– 700 to 1100s

– Chinese influences began to mature.

• Bakafu—“behind the scenes” rulers between 1100s and 1800s

• Tokugawa Period

– Shogunate (military dictatorship)

– Highly centralized administrative structure

– Elevated levels of economic development

– Urbanization and interaction with settlements increased


Japan and Foreign Influence

• 1543—Portuguese were first Europeans to arrive.

– Spanish, Dutch, and English followed over the next year.

– Impressed with Japanese technological and cultural

achievements

– Japanese attracted to guns, tobacco, and Chinese luxuries.

• 1600s

– Increasing suspicions of Westerners and Western religion

– 1640—Spanish and Portuguese expelled.

– Dutch, English, and Chinese confined to areas around the

port of Nagasaki.

• 1853—Isolation ends with arrival of American

Commodore Perry in Tokyo.


History of Japan / First Transformation

• Zaibatsu– Large industrial and financial cliques that provided

an effective means of marshalling private capital for investment

– Fueled Meiji Restoration economic transformation

• Military victories at end of nineteenth century– Victory over China (1895)

– Victory over Russia (1905)

• Experiences with colonization through mid-1940s– Taiwan (1895) and Korea (1911)

– SE Asia and parts of Pacific

– Short-lived and brutal


History of Japan / Second Transformation

• Economic development in the wake of defeat in World War II

– Amounted to a sped-up repeat of the Rostow model

– Allies’ imposition of political structure

– American investment

• Aspects of Japan Model reemerged

– Keiretsu

– Breakup of zaibatsu reconstituted

– Played a major role in post-WWII growth

• Bureaucratic capitalism

– Influence of governmental ministries

– Especially Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry (METI)

• Tiered economic structure

• By 1980s, became largest single source of FDI.

• Population stabilization


Modern Japan

• Government guidance, not control

• Competent bureaucracy

• Proper sequencing of the development process

• Focus on comparative advantage and regional specialization

• Wise investment of surplus capital

• Development of infrastructure

• Emphasis on education

• Upgrading of labor force

• Population planning

• Powerful force in twentieth century as other Asian states attempted to do the same thing

• Twentieth century adaptations to unique state conditions; it might better be termed the “East Asian Model.”


Japan / Landforms

• Occupies a small, but geologically active, portion

of the Pacific Ring of Fire

• Mountains are rugged with steep slopes, but not

by world standards.

– Most peaks are below 6,000 feet.

– Ten are higher than 9,000 feet.

• Fifty-four volcanoes

• Rest of area are flat surfaces found either as

terraces at the downside slope of mountains or

along relatively narrow coastal plains.

• Tokyo occupies the Kanto Plain.


Japan / Urban-Industrial Regions

• Levels of urbanization increased post-WWII

• Tokaido Megalopolis

– Largest concentration of urban-industrial activity

– Island of Honshu

– Tokyo–Yokohama (Keihin)

– Nagoya (Chukyo)

– Osaka–Kobe–Kyoto (Hanshin)

• Industrialization provided major stimulus for

urbanization.


Tokyo

• Imperial capital

• Seat of Japanese government

• Center of media and advertising

• Country’s dominant financial and corporate center

• Home to greatest number of universities

• Home of Tsukuba Science City, the first and largest of Japan’s many planned research nodes or “tecnhopoles”

• Asian Pacific Rim economic hub

• One of three command centers of global finance (along with New York and London)

• A growing megacity (8.6 million)


Resources of Japan

• Severely lacking resources

• Must import everything needed for energy

production and industrial development

(except hydropower)

• Only 17.5 percent self-sufficient in 2005


Japan / Environmental Challenges

• Location and insularity– NE corner of Asian region

– Little smaller than California

– Island country off a large continental mainland (often compared to Great Britain in this vein)

– Archipelagic country—Main body is composed of four large islands.

• Climate– Varied due to long size, mountains, and surrounded

by water

– Monsoon climate a little different from the rest of East Asia due to more northern location and maritime environment


Japan / Environmental Challenges

• Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant

– In the late afternoon of March 11, 2011, Japan

experienced the world’s worst nuclear disaster since

the 1986 Chernobyl accident in Ukraine.

– An earthquake registering 9.0 on the Richter scale

occurred 43 miles (69 kilometers) off the coast of

northeastern Honshu.

– This was the most powerful earthquake experienced

in Japan and the fifth most powerful in the world

since 1900.

– Tsunami waves generated by the earthquake flooded

three reactors of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear

Power Plant complex


Japan / Economic Challenges

• Urban challenges

– Increasing urban populations

– Infrastructure challenges

– Housing

• Pollution of the environment

– Intensified environmental pollution

– In 1970s, created their own Environment Agency (similar

to Environmental Protection Agency) in reaction to protests

about increasing environmental challenges.

• Regional imbalances

– Economic development has favored the Pacific side.

– Tokyo served as a primate city.


Japan / Population Challenges


Summary of Chapter

• While the countries of East Asia are characterized by export-led

economies that are in some form government-administered,

each has experienced very different development trajectories.

• China has grown into the world’s second largest economy.

China assumed the rank of a global economic power as a result

of its late 1970s reform policies that reduced the commanding

role of the state in economic growth.

• Although the globalization of China’s economy has brought

many material benefits, lingering problems call into question the

durability of this economic success.

• China’s neighbors have experienced different economic growth

trajectories.

• Japan was the first non-Western country to industrialize based

on its own distinctive model of modernization and development.