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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Sprache: Englisch
A wide-ranging introduction to the multi-faceted history of Asia—from early origins to the present
Asia Past and Present is an expansive survey of the social, political, and economic history of the continent from the Paleolithic era to the early 21st century. As there is no physically discrete continent, rather an arbitrary division of the Eurasian landmass, this book focuses on terrain that encompasses India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Central Asia, China, Korea, Japan, Mongolia, the Russian Far East, and Southeast Asia—the area which most modern scholars identify as Asia.
Offering broad chronological and topical coverage of Asia, this book examines subjects including written languages, religions and philosophies, concepts of monarchy, militarism, independence and nation building, and more. Particular focus is placed on the varying levels of influence the core cultures of India and China have had on the continent in a multitude of socio-political areas. Historical dialogues of how colonies, later emerging nations, blended traditional Asian culture and Western political and economic models of modernization complement contemporary discussions of globalization, nuclear tensions, and growing demands for greater individual freedom. Written in an engaging, accessible style, this book:
- Covers of a wide range of topics, perspectives, geographic regions, and time periods
- Highlights India and China as the pre 19th century cultural cores of Asia
- Presents a relatable political-cultural narrative framework
- Discusses contemporary themes including gender, sexual orientation, the environment, and Western and Islamic influence on Asian culture
- Includes coverage of commonly underrepresented regions such as the Himalayan nations, Maldives, and New Guinea
Asia Past and Present: A Brief History is a valuable resource for undergraduate courses where Asian cultures are introduced, and in courses on Asian politics, diplomacy, environmental issues, and socio-economics.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021
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Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication Page
About the Authors
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part 1: Asian and Non–Asian Cultures Interact to circa 1850 CE
Introduction to Part 1
1 Cultures and the Development of Core Asian Civilizations
What Is Asia?
What Is Culture?
The Ongoing Influence of India and China in Asia
Suggested Readings and Viewings
2 The Land and the People of Ancient China to 221 BCE
Introduction to the Study of Chinese History
The Land and the People in Paleolithic and Neolithic Times
China in the Bronze Age: The Xia, Shang, and Western Zhou Dynasties
China Enters the Iron Age: The Eastern Zhou Dynasty, 770–221 BCE
The Golden Age of Classical Chinese Philosophy: Confucianism, Daoism, and Legalism
Suggested Readings and Viewings
3 China’s First Empire
The Founding of China’s First Empire: The Qin Dynasty (221–207 BCE)
Suggested Readings and Viewings
4 The Golden Age of Imperial China
The Sui Dynasty (581–618): Reunification
The Tang Dynasty (618–907): The “Golden Age” of Imperial China
Confucianism and the System of Imperial Examinations for the Civil Service
The “Golden Age” of Classical Chinese Poetry
Buddhism
The Shift of China’s Economic Center from the Yellow to the Yangtze River Valley
Suggested Readings and Viewings
5 The Peaking of Traditional Chinese Civilization
The Song Dynasty (960–1279): The Epitome of Traditional Chinese Civilization
The Yuan Dynasty (1271–1368): China under Mongol Rule
Suggested Readings and Viewings
6 The Decline of Imperial China
The Ming Dynasty (1368–1644): Powerful, Majestic, Conservative, and Brutal
China under Sinicized Manchu Rule: The Early Qing Dynasty (1644–1839)
Suggested Readings and Viewings
7 Premodern Japan and Korea
Premodern Japan
Premodern Korea
Suggested Readings and Viewings
8 The Formation of Indian Civilization
Aryan Conquest
Vedic Period
Religion
Republics and Monarchies, 600–321 BCE
Mauryan Empire (321–185 BCE)
Suggested Readings and Viewings
9 The Hindu Synthesis at Home
The Emergence of India’s Cultural and Geographical Contours
Regionalism and Foreign Invaders: Northern India and Central Asia, 185 BCE–1200 CE
Indian Politics, Religion, and Commerce: Domestic Developments and Their Influences Abroad
Central and Southern India and Ceylon, circa 300–1200
Hindu Synthesis and Non‐Hindu Religions
Conclusions
Suggested Readings and Viewings
10 The Indianization of South, Central, Southeast, and East Asia
Indian Culture beyond India
India in Ceylon/Sri Lanka and the Himalayan Kingdoms
India in Persia, Afghanistan, and Central and Inner Asia
India in Southeast Asia
India in China and East Asia
Conclusions
Suggested Readings and Viewings
11 India under Islamic Rule
Introduction
Islamic Expansion into India: The Background
The Delhi Sultanate, 1206–1526
The Mughal Empire, 1526–1858
Suggested Readings and Viewings
12 On the Indian and Chinese Northern Frontiers
Introduction
The Mongol Empire
The Manchu Empire
Siberia
Suggested Readings and Viewings
13 On the Indian and Chinese Southern Frontiers
Development of Kingdoms in Southeast Asia
Cambodia/Kampuchea
Siam/Thailand
Burma/Myanmar
Indonesia
Philippines and Guam
Vietnam
Suggested Readings and Videos
14 European Empires in Asia
Introduction
The Revolutionary West in Asia
Revolutionary Western Civilization
Revolutionary Western Civilization Moves East
Suggested Readings and Viewings
Part 2: The Age of Transformations: Nationalism and Modernization in the Era of Global Wars and the Search for New Social Arrangements, circa 1800 to Present
Introduction to Part 2
15 Foreign Incursions, Domestic Challenges, and Late Qing Dynastic Decline
Introduction
First and Second Opium Wars Reduce Imperial China to a Semi‐Colony
Rebellion and Reform
Selected Readings and Viewings
16 The Birth of Republicanism in China, 1911–1949
The Republican Revolution (1911) and the Founding of the Republic of China (1912)
Warlordism (1916–1928)
The May 4th Movement (1919)
The Chinese Nationalist Party (GMD) and Chinese Communist Party (CCP)
Jiang and the Republic of China: The Nanjing Decade (1928–1937)
The Second Sino‐Japanese War (1937–1945) and World War II (1939–1945)
The Nationalist‐Communist Civil War, 1945–1949
Suggested Readings and Viewings
17 The People’s Republic of China, 1949–
Mao’s 27 Years (1949–1976)
Deng Xiaoping’s Reforms (1978–1989)
Problems
Suggested Readings and Viewings
18 Japan’s Rapid Modernization, 1868–1918
Meiji Restoration, 1868–1873
Emergence of Modern Japan
On the War Path to Build an Empire
The Russo‐Japanese War, 1904–1905
Japan and World War I, 1914–1918
Suggested Readings and Viewings
19 Japan Goes from Liberalism to Militarism, 1918–1945
The Era of Party Government, 1918–1931
The Ascendance of Militarism in the 1930s
Japan in the Second Sino‐Japanese War and World War II, 1937–1945
Suggested Readings and Viewings
20 Japan since World War II
Japan’s American Revolution, 1945–1952
Japan’s Transformation during the Cold War, 1952–1989
Japan in Recent Years
Suggested Readings and Viewings
21 Korea in Modern Times
Foreign Incursions
Early Efforts at Modernization and Japanese Influence
The Korean Empire (1897–1910) and the Gwangmu Reform
Korea under Japanese Colonial Rule, 1910–1945
Korea after World War II
Suggested Readings and Viewings
22 The European Struggle for India and the Emergence of Indian Resistance, 1707–1914
Introduction
The British Conquest under the East India Company
Hindu Renaissance
The Sepoy Mutiny and the Emergence of Indian Nationalism
Nationalism and the Formation of the Congress Party (1885) and the Muslim League (1906)
Britain’s Response to Indian Nationalism
Suggested Readings and Viewings
23 The Impact of World Wars, Revolution, and Nationalism in India and South Asia, 1914–1945
World War I and Its Impact
Nationalist Movements in South Asia, 1914–1945
Gandhi and the Struggle for Indian Independence, 1920–1945
Sri Lanka
Himalayan Nations
Conclusions
Suggested Readings and Viewings
24 India since 1945
India: Securing Indian Independence and Developing Political and Economic Institutions
Indian Independence, Partition, and Setting Paths to the Future, 1945–1950
Socialist Republic of India, 1950–1991
Political and Economic Course Corrections, 1991–
Foreign Policy and Terrorism Issues since 1991
Conclusion
Suggested Readings and Viewings
25 In India’s Orbit
Introduction to South Asia since 1945
Islamic Republic of Pakistan
People’s Republic of Bangladesh
The Himalayan Nations
Sri Lanka
Suggested Readings and Viewings
26 Mainland Southeast Asia since 1945
Southeast Asia since 1945
Colonial Burma to the Republic of the Union of Myanmar
British Malaya to the Federation of Malaysia
Colonial Singapore to Republic of Singapore
Colonial Vietnam to Socialist Republic of Vietnam
Protectorate of Cambodia to Kingdom of Cambodia
Protectorate of Laos to Lao People’s Democratic Republic
Independent Thailand: Civilian and Military Governments, the Cold War, and the First Vietnam War, 1945–1973
Conclusions
Suggested Readings and Viewings
27 Insular Southeast Asia since 1945
Netherlands East Indies to the Republic of Indonesia
Portuguese Timor to East Timor to Timor Leste
Territory of Papua and New Guinea to Papua New Guinea
Sultanate of Brunei to Brunei Darussalam
Commonwealth of the Philippines to Republic of the Philippines
Suggested Readings and Viewings
28 Colonialism, Independence, and Nation Building on the Northern Frontiers of India and China, 1850–2019
Introduction
Afghanistan
Central Asia
Mongolia
Siberia and the Russian Far East
Conclusions
Suggested Readings and Viewings
29 Asia in the Twenty‐First Century
Political Conditions
Economic Developments
Social Issues
Trafficking, Gangs, and Corruption
Asia’s Tinder Boxes
Assessing Asia
Suggested Readings and Viewings
Index
End User License Agreement
Guide
Cover
Table of Contents
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Asia Past and Present
A Brief History
Peter P. Wan
and
Thomas D. Reins
This edition first published 2021© 2021 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except as permitted by law. Advice on how to obtain permission to reuse material from this title is available at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions.
The right of Peter P. Wan and Thomas D. Reins to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted in accordance with law.
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Library of Congress Cataloging‐in‐Publication Data
Names: Reins, Thomas D. (Thomas David), author. | Wan, Peter P., author.Title: Asia past and present: a brief history / Thomas D Reins, Peter P Wan.Description: Hoboken, NJ: Wiley‐Blackwell, 2020. | Includes index.Identifiers: LCCN 2020020767 (print) | LCCN 2020020768 (ebook) | ISBN 9781118955185 (paperback) | ISBN 9781118955192 (paperback) | ISBN 9781118955208 (adobe pdf) | ISBN 9781118955215 (epub)Subjects: LCSH: Asia–History. | Asia–Civilization. | Asia–Politics and government.Classification: LCC DS33 .R39 2020 (print) | LCC DS33 (ebook) | DDC 950–dc23LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020020767LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020020768
Cover Design: WileyCover Images: The Forbidden City, Beijing © DuKai photographer/Getty Images, Red Fort Lal Qila with Indian flag. Delhi, India © f9photos/Getty Images
To my father and mother Hsin Wan and Ruth Rugg Wan, who set an example of common decency, and To my wife Laura L. Wan and to my late daughter Amy Q. Wan
Peter P. Wan
To my father Harry Reins, who provided a challenging model of hard work and tenacity based on his daily life which I wisely attempted to follow, though with a few lapses, and To my wife Susan A. Reins and to my daughter Christine Reins‐Jarin
Thomas D. Reins
About the Authors
Peter P. Wan, PhD, Harvard University, 1997
Dr. Wan has taught at East China Normal University, Shanghai; at California State University, Fullerton and Los Angeles campuses; and at Fullerton College.
He has been awarded fellowships at the Harvard‐Yenching Institute and the Fulbright Visiting Scholars Program.
Thomas D. Reins, PhD, Claremont Graduate School, 1981
Dr. Reins has lived and studied in several Asian locations, including Japan, the Philippines, Thailand, Taiwan, as well as a number of places in mainland China. He has taught at several institutions of higher education, including California State University, Fullerton and Los Angeles campuses; University of California, Riverside; Fullerton College; and currently Chapman University. His Asian history courses include Modern Asia, Modern China, Modern Japan, Modern Southeast Asia, Asian History and Film, and the Vietnam Wars.
His research focus is the opium trade in nineteenth‐ and early twentieth‐century China, India, and globally.
Acknowledgments
Peter P. Wan
To my professors at Harvard University: Akira Iriye, Stephan Thernstrom, and the late Sacvan Bercovitch. Given my educational background, I would never have been able to complete my doctorate without their detailed and sustained guidance.
To William Cai, who provided indispensable research assistance.
Thomas D. Reins
To my Asian history professors, who guided me through the broad array of Asian cultures. My understanding of South Asia was greatly enhanced by decades of discussion with my colleague, the late Professor Seymour Scheinberg, whose study of and travels to India and the Himalayan nations gave me firsthand insights into the region; and to the late Alan Greenberger, whose classes on Indian history and culture provided an exciting and stimulating intellectual background for a lengthy and complex culture. Michael Onorato’s Southeast Asian classes during those Vietnam War years presented insightful and thorough lectures on colonialism, its demise, and modernization issues that followed. My East Asian academic mentors are numerous. For Japan, I am indebted to Kinji Yada for his informative lectures and decades of discussion about Japan and life and culture beyond Asia; to Peter Duus, whose Tokugawa and Meiji seminar opened my eyes to the intricate and turbulent relationship between economic and political modernization; and to Gordon Berger, whose Taisho and Showa seminar afforded me a nuanced look into the impact of democracy, the depression, world war, and recovery in Japan. My training in Chinese history began with Linda Pomeranz’s class in Modern China; in Taiwan, I had the opportunity to hear the lectures of Hsu Cho‐yun on Zhou Dynasty socioeconomic change; the late Lloyd Eastman grounded me in nineteenth‐century China in his materials seminar that included essential monographs and weekly discussions of them; Jerry Dennerline’s class on premodern China afforded me a look at the tradition I needed to appreciate in order to understand the problems of the nation’s modernization. And finally I owe a debt of gratitude to Arthur Rosenbaum, whose classes and reading seminars better prepared me for my research, and who as my dissertation advisor provided sage advice, which came quickly with each chapter I submitted to him.
I would also like to recognize three other mentors in my learning process. To Nelson Woodard, whose classes and seminar on American Foreign Policy were all models of meticulous academic preparation and delivery. David Pivar’s seminar on Historical Thinking made me think, probably for the first time seriously, about historical thinking. And to Bob Leonard, who serves as a model of the patient teacher who persistently guides and motivates the plodding student.
The chapters of the text that I wrote—those beyond China, Japan, and Korea—benefitted from the careful reading and valuable commentary of Professor Jackson Putnam. His constant encouragement pushed me forward year by year. I appreciate as well the comments of Professor Laichen Sun, who kindly read and commented on some of the early iterations of my Southeast Asia writings. To both I extend my appreciation, though I alone am responsible for the final written product.
We also wish to thank two anonymous reviewers for their comments and suggestions regarding the organization and content of the manuscript. They helped us to add, subtract, or merge materials and to clarify numerous descriptions of people, places, and ideas. We furthermore need to acknowledge our appreciation for the work of Mr. Patrick Davison and Mr. Bo Kent, Internet wizards, for the electronic expertise they provided to an older, electronically clumsy generation.
Introduction
Asia Past and Present aims to provide the reader with a basic understanding of the long course of history formed by Asia’s inhabitants, both indigenous and foreign. This will involve identifying and explaining the broad contours of cultures that emerged in Asia, geographically from Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Central Asia in the west to Japan and Papua New Guinea in the east, and chronologically from prehistory to the early twenty‐first century. It will necessarily include a discussion of the interactions among Asian cultural elements and the subsequent development of two core cultures—Indian and Chinese—that became foundational models for the rest of Asia. It will also examine the cultural exchanges within the Asian realm and between the Asian and non‐Asian worlds.
Such interactions indicate Asian history can be divided into three broad categories of cultural development. The formation of core cultures marks the first stage, which stretches from the earliest history to roughly 1200 CE. In Asia, India and China provide these core cultures, classical models of civilization that other peoples of Asia adopted and modified to meet their particular political, social, economic, intellectual, and religious needs. Most importantly, Indian and Chinese concepts of kingship, ideas of religious worship, and methods of writing dominate the cultural landscape of Asia. Generally, South and Southeast Asia embraced Indian ideas and institutions, while Vietnam, Korea, and Japan drew upon Chinese traditional practices. To give one example, the Thai monarchy best reflects Indian political principles, whereas the behavior of Vietnamese emperors clearly demonstrates the considerable influence of Chinese ways.
Notwithstanding the enormous cultural weight of India and China on the rest of Asia, each culture selected those aspects of the core models and adapted those parts to its particular, local needs. Thus Japan adapted the Chinese political concepts of mandate of heaven and dynastic cycle, which produced a succession of dynasties in the Middle Kingdom over the millennia, by retaining just one imperial family in the land of the rising sun. Similarly, the caste system, so crucial to daily life in India, had little impact on Southeast Asian societies otherwise well‐disposed to thought and behavior from the Hindustan cultural core. Moreover, below the literate elite, the circumstances of the common people further dulled the edge of cultural borrowing. Local geography, vernacular languages, religious traditions, and economic practices transformed the original cultural borrowing somewhat, even as the broader contours of culture increasingly resembled the foreign model.
The impact of successful Muslim Middle Eastern, nomadic tribal Eurasian, and Christian European incursions into traditional agricultural Asian civilizations marks the second stage of Asian history. These new arrivals began with the Afghan Muslim conquest of India in 1206, continued with the Mongol invasions of China and much of the rest of Asia in the thirteenth century, and culminated in the European invasions throughout the continent after 1498. As a result, both the core cultures of India and China, as well as those of their cultural pupils in Asia, underwent significant transformations. Though the teachings of the core cultures remained preeminent down to the nineteenth century, two new religions—Islam and Christianity—began to compete for the allegiance of the people. New secular ideas—in the worlds of science, politics, and economics—increasingly caused substantial modifications of Asian thought and behavior.
The most obvious impact occurred in religious beliefs. Indonesia, today the largest Muslim country in the world, embraced Islam. However, it did so only after Afghan Delhi sultans took control of India, the heartland of core wisdom to Southeast Asians. Indonesians had long been aware of Islam through Arab traders, but until that faith came from India, Islam remained little more than a curiosity. The Philippines also underwent fundamental change, again religiously, as the Spanish brought and successfully transferred Catholicism to an Asian setting. Linguistically as well, major changes resulted from non‐Asian sources. Several centuries ago, the Vietnamese adopted the Latin script—due to the influence of French Catholic priests—to replace Chinese characters. More recently, several other Asian nations have replaced Indian‐ or Arabic‐based scripts with the Roman alphabet. The largest numbers of English‐speaking people in a single country reside in Asia: in India. Furthermore, radical ideas contained in the European Renaissance, Reformation, scientific revolution, Enlightenment, agricultural revolution, capitalist business practices, and industrial revolutionary production began to upset traditional Asian verities. So too did the emergence in the nineteenth century of the idea of nationalism and the establishment of the “new imperialism.” However, not until the shocking impact of the industrial revolution sometime in the first half of the nineteenth century did Asia’s elite begin to reexamine their cultural heritages.
Thus, as the nineteenth century unfolded, so too did the third stage of Asian history, illustrated by attempts of various Asian cultures to restore a balance of wealth and power now so clearly dominated by the industrial nations of Europe, America, and Japan. Up to this time, the presence of foreigners in Asia had produced considerable cultural adjustments, but the essence of one’s culture had not been ultimately seriously threatened. The Mongol and Manchu conquests of China failed to dislodge Confucian ways; indeed, the Confucian model was substantially utilized by the frontier nomads to govern agricultural China. Likewise, Hindu India absorbed first the Muslim Delhi sultans, then the Muslim Mughal emperors, and finally the Christian British. Initially, at least, the invaders did most of the adjusting to traditional Indian practices. Not until the full impact of the industrial revolution became apparent in the nineteenth century did Asia’s cultural leadership seriously reassess traditional ways. Most all such leaders wondered why time‐honored ideas and institutions had failed to keep the foreigner at bay, or if not at bay, why the intruder now had both the desire and ability to impose radically new ways of organizing and governing Asian societies.
Reassessment of established “habits of the heart” produced three broad conclusions among Asia’s leadership before World War I. Some argued for a return to traditional ways of life, the departure from which had made their civilizations susceptible to invasion, occupation, and probably transformation. Others contended that adherence to tradition, far from being the solution to the foreign threat, had made their civilizations weak and thus incapable of defending itself. Only by doing away with custom and by embracing the ways of the invader could the necessary wealth and power be generated to dislodge the foreign presence. Somewhere between the world wars, a third conclusion came to dominate elite Asian thinking. Since neither an all‐embracing reliance on tradition nor a complete abandonment of it seemed practicable, utilizing the best of both—foreign and native ideas and practices—appeared to be the best means to the several immediate and more distant ends. Once substantive change became legitimate, the next issue became identifying which parts of tradition justified retention and which disposal. At the same time, recognizing which elements from the outside world to adopt and which to disregard needed to be worked out. This turned out to be no simple task, and much of Asia still grapples with the implications of such choosing.
Although by World War I nearly all of Asia’s elite could agree upon the necessity for independence, the principal means by which to accomplish this task became the topic of heated debate. Out of the discussions and disagreements emerged three usually conflicting approaches. Many advocated legally working within the imperial/colonial system and utilizing the system to ultimately destroy it, others favored nonviolent resistance to the system by undermining it where possible, and some preferred to resist the system through organized violence. Once independence succeeded, then new political and economic arrangements had to be set up.
Before the Great War, capitalism and democracy—broadly defined—seemed the destined, if difficult, paths to economic and political success. The industrial nations did not offer cookie‐cutter guidelines to modernization, the differences among them often being significant. Both Japan and Germany, for example, could at best be considered nations “transitioning” to democratic practice, and both of their economies had modernized with considerable state intervention. Intellectuals across Asia realized this, and indeed many had witnessed it firsthand as students or political exiles in Japan. So long as modernizing prescriptions could be carried on in a flexible framework, particular cultures could pick and choose those aspects of modernization required for success as well as the means by which to internalize them to their nations. By this time, loyalty to one’s nation‐state had surpassed one’s loyalty to its culture. Nationalism, not culturalism, would serve as the chief instrument of liberation and modernization.
World War I upset that default assumption in several ways. First, the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution in Russia produced a rival communist model of development. Second, the tenuous unity of the imperial powers, particularly regarding Asia, had splintered during the war. Not only did that conflict pit one imperial camp—the Germans and the Central Powers—against another, the Allies headed by Great Britain. But fissures developed in the Allied camp. Ally Japan’s attempted expansion into China—the Twenty‐One Demands of 1915—produced immediate British and American opposition. But even as Japan became democratic in 1919, it had long been harboring and now openly championed a specific Asian model of modernization. And finally, the Great War ushered in waves of pessimism and clouds of doubt as to the effectiveness of not only capitalism and democracy but also Western civilization itself.
The interwar years between 1919 and 1937, when World War II began with Japan’s formal invasion of China, deepened the gloomy outlook. The Treaty of Versailles ending the Great War satisfied almost no one; radical Nazi, Fascist, and Communist movements sprouted up globally; new thought emerging in psychology, physics, philosophy, and the humanities seemed to produce not a comfort caused by greater understanding, but an anxiety rooted in intellectual confusion. The economic depression of the 1930s appeared to seal the fate of capitalism and democracy, as most industrial nations showed signs of heading for some form of state‐controlled societies. That is to say, some form of authoritarianism seemed the likely future. It might not be the outright totalitarianism of the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany or the dictatorships of Fascist Italy and Spain, and militarist Japan. But neither would it be the liberal politics and economics of nineteenth‐century Europe and America.
At the same time, global conflict strengthened independence movements. World War I resulted in the European colonial powers withdrawing much of their colonial military and bureaucracy away from the colonies to deal with adversaries threatening the homeland. This allowed anticolonial organizations to expand in a less restrictive environment. World War II eventually resulted in nearly every colonial regime in Asia being removed, initially by Japan and ultimately by the United States and its allies. While Japan dismantled Western colonial regimes, it instituted its own Greater East Asia Co‐Prosperity Sphere. As the war raged on, two developments transpired to insure the end to colonial rule in the near future. First, combatants on both sides attempted to enlist indigenous organizations and individuals to join their fight, and with war’s end, most everyone in Asia had access to weaponry. The second was America’s determination to terminate colonial rule globally. Moreover, Britain’s July 1945 general election brought to power the Labour Party, which had promised to begin the decolonization process.
Imminent independence forced Asia’s leadership—whether traditionalist, reformist, or revolutionary—to put together a comprehensive platform for self‐rule. Most still questioned the efficacy of the capitalist and democratic models of development. Consider some of the more important leaders who did emerge before, during, and after World War II: Mohandas Gandhi, Ho Chi Minh, Achmed Sukarno, and Mao Zedong—none of them stood tall for capitalism and democracy. And even of those who did accept some variation of capitalism and/or democracy—now redeemed somewhat by victory in World War II—they did so with less than roaring enthusiasm: Yoshida Shigeru in occupied Japan, Jawaharlal Nehru in India, Chiang Kai‐shek in Taiwan, Filipino presidents with the exception of Ramon Magsaysay, South Korean presidents, and Singapore presidents. Colonial Hong Kong and Macao remained such until the 1990s. Even in the early twenty‐first century, several nations have not yet begun or have taken only baby steps toward participatory government—North Korea, Vietnam, and Burma/Myanmar, for example.
Capitalism and democracy slowly emerged in the wake of World War II. The Cold War (1945–1991) between the United States and the Soviet Union energized America’s efforts in Asia to provide counter‐models to communist regimes in North Korea and mainland China as well as to insurgency movements in much of decolonizing Asia. In the process, Washington often put anticommunism ahead of democratic development. These efforts, chiefly in Japan, the Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and South Vietnam, involved the infusion of much‐needed capital, advanced technology, American markets, and political support—with military assistance, if necessary. Although political support and other aid depended to some extent on local efforts to broaden political participation and enhance economic opportunity, most often American support depended on an Asian ruler being less politically ruthless and more economically effective than the likely alternative. Transitions to democracy and markets, though important to Washington, remained secondary to the clash between “East” and “West.”
The struggle between the United States and its allies and the Soviet Union and its allies concentrated on winning in three principle arenas: first, military; second, the decolonizing world; and, third, economic growth. Even though military supremacy remained primary, the Cold War setting would be played out between the West’s surrogates and the East’s surrogates, thus hopefully minimizing the likelihood of a direct military confrontation between the United States and Soviet Russia. This contest as well would not be the brief sprint that World War II turned out to be for America. Instead it would be a marathon, seen as such in the 1940s and into the 1980s. As such, it became a test of wills that alone was a leading index of which system, communist or capitalist, would win the hearts and minds of the decolonizing and developing world, including all of Asia. Just as significant as the will to prevail was the ability of one (broadly defined) system or the other to meet the needs of Asia’s newly freed nations and people.
Well into the 1960s, Soviet Stalinist or Chinese Maoist forms of communism appeared to feature all the earmarks of front‐running models, while elsewhere highly statist (India) and/or authoritarian (South Korea and Taiwan) regimes seemed to provide the other prototypes for modernization. America’s withdrawal from Vietnam and at first blush from Asia in the mid‐1970s, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan along with the Iranian occupation of the American Embassy in Teheran in the late 1970s, America’s slumping economy, its Vietnam syndrome, and what President Jimmy Carter called its “malaise” made it all but certain that Washington’s influence globally, and undoubtedly in Asia, would gradually decline. On the surface, at least, competitive politics and markets appeared headed for the endangered species list, Japan being the only likely exception. Those nations not already communist or that had been on friendly terms with the United States beat hasty paths to Beijing and Moscow to acknowledge the expected victorious powers in that part of the world.
Below the surface, however, seismic changes long underway began to ascend. Japan and the “little dragons” of Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong, and Singapore had become wealthy through more open market practices, and they had also transitioned to more democratic political arrangements. More than a decade before the Berlin Wall fell in November 1989, Deng Xiaoping’s China began to dismantle the Maoist economic nightmare and usher in some prosperity while gradually transitioning from totalitarian rule to a “soft authoritarian” control. Meanwhile, politics began transitioning from “soft authoritarianism” in Taiwan and South Korea to full‐fledged democracy. In March 1985, the new Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev launched a reform movement to rescue a collapsing Soviet system. Labeled glasnost (liberalization) and perestroika (reconstruction), these programs gave Vietnam, a client state of the Soviet Union, the opportunity to institute in 1986 its own necessary reforms. Dubbed doi moi, it set up a market‐oriented economy and commenced a less harsh political regime.
The formal collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 did not, as Francis Fukuyama has interestingly argued, bring about the “end of history,” by which he meant the global prevalence of some form of liberal politics and market economics. The war on terror provides ample evidence that a significant part of the world resists such a harmonious scenario. Moreover, two major Asian powers, China and Russia, still cling to what appears to be not‐so‐soft authoritarian political practices. And numerous Maoist and other insurgent or separatist movements can be found throughout the continent. Perhaps in the more distant future, Fukuyama’s world of liberal ideas and institutions will prevail in Asia. But the larger issue will likely be not whether liberalism and modernization will triumph, but how some variation of the two will be adapted to each Asian culture.
This search for and adaptation of a new order did not begin in the twentieth century, nor did the processes occur quickly or without turmoil. In 1783 the United States became formally independent, but freedom from British rule merely began a new stage of development. What kind of country would emerge? America’s first constitution, the Articles of Confederation, spoke loudly for small government and agrarian economics, but less than a decade later the Founding Fathers met at Philadelphia to craft a new constitution. The final product gave birth to a stronger central government, whose first leaders favored a more commercial economy. The War of 1812, the “Second War for Independence,” convinced America’s elite that a native industrial infrastructure needed to be built to augment the agricultural base in order for the country to be truly independent of Europe. All the while, the ugly issue of slavery continually forced Americans to raise the question of what kind of nation the people wanted. Even the Civil War failed to fully address that question. The problems involved in becoming modern affected the early industrializing nations of Europe and Japan. To expect the nations of Asia to avoid turmoil is to ignore historical experience.
The people of Asia will ultimately ask and answer the question of what kind of country they desire. The answer to this question will not likely emerge until the basic needs of the citizenry are met. How will the professed traditions of the past and perceived needs of the present combine with modern techniques and standards to produce a livable future? There will be toil and trouble along the road, and it remains uncertain that liberal core beliefs will prevail. But if they do, they will be liberal beliefs with distinctly Asian characteristics, reflecting the goals and principles of each particular Asian but increasingly global culture.
Part 1Asian and Non–Asian Cultures Interact to circa 1850 CE
Introduction to Part 1Asian and Non-Asian Cultures Interact to circa 1850 CE
Human development on the Asian continent passed through four distinct stages of historical and cultural development by the mid‐nineteenth century of the Common Era (CE): Paleolithic, Neolithic, Pastoral Nomadic, and Civilized. Paleolithic humans departed their African origins for other parts of the world, arriving in Asia as early as 60,000 years ago. They brought with them ways of doing things, and those ways we collectively refer to as culture—people speaking, earning a living, making war, explaining the world, organizing the group, and so forth. As Paleolithic peoples spread across Asia, different kinds of culture appeared, reflecting diverse territories, distinctive climates, and language variations, circumstances that undoubtedly influenced group customs and values. Thus, as the Neolithic culture began to appear roughly 10,000 years ago, Asia boasted a wide range of cultural practices, though these peoples remained chiefly hunters and gatherers. The transition from Paleolithic existence to Neolithic farming occurred gradually and unevenly in Asia. Neolithic farmers experienced a much more abundant existence than their Paleolithic hunting and gathering predecessors. But as farm populations grew as a result of better diets and as the farmland lost its fertility due to soil exhaustion, villages had to move to virgin territory, and over the course of millennia eventually growers wore out the supply of arable land in Asia. These movements of farmers eventually led to the emergence of both Pastoral Nomadic and Civilized ways of life.
Pastoral Nomadic life likely evolved as the territory Paleolithic hunters and gatherers once depended on for livelihood steadily became cropland and villages for farmers. Not only did much of the plant and animal life get displaced as farmers cleared woodland for fields, but these cultivators also staked exclusive claim to surrounding terrain. Thus denied a means of livelihood, Paleolithic people were pushed to increasingly marginal territory. They became pastoral nomads by taking their hunting and gathering skills, as well as their awareness of land cultivation and animal domestication, to begin a new livelihood in what became known as the Eurasian steppe. This chiefly involved the herding of animals, though some agriculture frequently supplemented the skin, meat, and milk products of the herds. These pastoral nomads lived in tribes, which frequently came into conflict with one another, and once civilized life emerged, these tribes traded and warred with civilizations south of the steppe. Known by many names in different languages, the city dwellers typically called these pastoral nomads “barbarians.”
Civilized life likely began in Asia along the Indus River in what is today Pakistan sometime between 3000 and 2500 BCE. Several centuries later, approximately 2000 BCE, city life in China commenced near the Yellow River in today’s Henan Province. In both cases, dry climates probably pushed Neolithic farmers to the edge of subsistence, requiring them either to go the way of pastoral nomads or to find a means of adapting farming to hostile geography. The introduction of irrigation allowed farmers to settle along rivers. In normal times rivers provided water for fields, and when flooding occurred it resulted in the depositing of new topsoil on croplands. This in turn minimized the need for villagers to relocate in search of fertile land, as flooding constantly re‐fertilized the farmers’ fields. Reliable supplies of water and productive soil generated such large food surpluses that non‐farming occupations could be supported. Instead of just one basic occupation found in Paleolithic times—hunting and gathering; just one occupation in Neolithic times—farming; and just one occupation in Pastoral Nomadic settings—herding, Civilized societies could boast a wide variety of specialized livelihoods.
In a Civilized culture, the city directs the activities in urban and surrounding rural areas, both of whose efforts by and large merge to serve a common purpose. Initially, at least, farmers realized the need for city services. These ranged from irrigation construction and maintenance to community security to market arrangements to artisan manufacturing as well as less tangible things such as religious advice. For these and other goods and services, farmers paid taxes to a governing administration. So too did most city inhabitants for the same fundamental reasons. Government promised to maintain essential services and to oversee the interaction of people performing different, often complementary, but frequently conflicting occupations. Farmers provided the necessary food for the city, which supplied the water. Over time, however, some occupations brought greater economic, psychic, and political rewards than others. City residents such as rulers (eventually usually monarchs), bureaucrats, priests, and merchants along with a rural elite (successful farmers, eventually usually a nobility) came to dominate the vast majority of the Civilized community, namely, the average farmer. Some of these cultivators continued to own their land or perhaps own some acreage and rent some; others only rented land; while still others lost their land and became day laborers or, worse, serfs or slaves.
Civilization in India and China produced three key accomplishments for Asia by approximately 1200 CE. First, both produced enduring, adaptable patterns of government practice and social custom, different as those patterns might have been. Politically, India ordinarily experienced regional governments while native central rule remained elusive, whereas China typically created effective central dynastic government, though periods of barbarian invasions and/or regionalism regularly occurred. What India lacked in political unity it made up for with religious cohesion, as Hinduism emerged in conjunction with the caste system to provide meaning and order for the ordinary person. In China, secular Confucianism and Legalism together with indigenous popular religions and Buddhism from India combined to make available understandable guides to daily behavior. Second, by the beginning of the Common Era, both Hinduism and Confucianism succeeded in the longer run by synthesizing competing systems of thought. Thus in Hinduism can be found strands of Buddhism and Jainism, while in Confucianism can be seen elements of Legalism, Daoism, and Buddhism. Third, Indian and Chinese civilizations provided political and cultural models for most of the rest of Asia.
India supplied Southeast Asia, except Vietnam and the Philippines, with a prototype of monarchy, written scripts, religions, economic practices, and other cultural traditions from which the region could pick and choose. Then these chosen Indian ideas and institutions underwent changes as they were adapted to local cultures and customs. The same process of cultural transmission transpired in Central Asia, although by the eighth century CE Islamic expansion, first Arab and eventually Turkish and Persian, began to eclipse Indian influence there. China had the same kind of cultural influence in Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. Chinese ideas and institutions—monarchy, writing, philosophy, religion, and assorted social practices—made their way to Confucian East Asia to be adopted and adapted.
Between roughly 1200 and 1850, Asia witnessed the dawning of three major jolts: the arrival of Islamic, Mongol, and Western military and cultural challenges. India began to be ruled by various peoples of Islamic background after 1206; the Mongols launched their assault on Eurasia in the thirteenth century; and by the early sixteenth century, the Europeans began to arrive. While the Mongol impact tended to be transitory, the Muslims and Europeans produced more lasting consequences in Asia. Today’s Central Asia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, and Malaysia are Muslim majority nations, while substantial numbers of Muslims inhabit most remaining Asian nations. The Philippines is today Catholic majority, Vietnam has a large Catholic population, and South Korea claims a considerable Protestant population. Most other Asian nations have large and often growing Christian—Catholic and Protestant—communities. European spoken languages and Islamic‐ and European‐derived writing systems can be seen everywhere in Asia. English dominates the intellectual and mercantile communities, while the languages of non‐Asian colonial overlords retain regional significance. Non‐Asian political, technological, educational, artistic, gastronomic, and assorted popular cultural influences continue to impact the Asian world.
Most of the seeds of these contemporary foreign influences on Asia got planted centuries ago, and for different reasons and at different times in India and China, the major generators of Asian cultural norms. In the early thirteenth century Afghans under the banner of Islam invaded, defeated, and ruled a politically weak India. With their Persian and Arab allies, these Delhi sultans and later the Mughal emperors created a climate that produced the emergence of a large native Indian Muslim population. And much of Southeast Asia, an ongoing consumer of Indian cultural thought and behavior, soon began to appropriate India’s newest cultural item: Islam. While most would agree that India absorbed Islam and preserved the essence of its traditional ways, the same cannot be said of Indonesia and Malaysia. In both nations the vestiges of Indian culture continue, but the dominant influence in both is today clearly Islamic.
When the Chinese threw out the Mongol invaders in 1368, a crisis of cultural confidence remained as the Ming Dynasty turned inward, the early considerable voyages of Admiral Zheng He to Southeast Asia, India, East Africa, and the Arabian Peninsula in the early fifteenth century notwithstanding. The government initially handled the arrival of the West in the early sixteenth century chiefly through the tribute system, a highly ritualized process of tightly controlled Chinese–foreign interaction known to Westerners as the Guangzhou or Canton System. Until the early nineteenth century, the Chinese found little in the West worthy of embracing, the chief exceptions being Galilean astronomy and new crops from the Americas. The West, by contrast, desired many Chinese products—silk and tea, for example—paid for principally by the gold and silver from the Spanish empire in the Americas. However, major changes in European scientific thought and economic and political practice propelled the West past China and the rest of Asia in terms of wealth and power. By the beginning of the nineteenth century, many Western nations had well‐established colonial regimes across the Asian continent. However, what had been largely commercial enterprises—East Indian companies chartered by European rulers—had often grown to become de facto government administrations with bureaucrats, armies, and educators in place to orchestrate an array of political, economic, social, and religious interactions with local leaders and subjects. Informal economic empire would soon become formal political empire directed by the industrial nations of the world.
The means by which Europeans came to dominate not only most of Asia but also most of the globe forced Asia’s elite to question their cultural traditions. Eventually these elites and ultimately the common people opted to modify much of their cultural past and adopt much of the current Western cultural present. Defending the nation began to trump protecting the culture.
People in Asia, as well as people in the West and elsewhere, are still grappling with the problems associated with becoming and then being modern.
1Cultures and the Development of Core Asian Civilizations
…social development is the bundle of technological, subsistence, organizational, and cultural accomplishments through which people feed, clothe, house, and reproduce themselves, explain the world around them, resolve disputes within their communities, extend their power at the expense of other communities, and defend themselves against others’ attempts to extend power.1
What Is Asia?
This book will explore Asia chiefly from historical, social, and economic angles. Historically it will attempt to put into context the long course of events generated by numerous social and economic entities, ranging organizationally from tribes to nation‐states and chronologically from Paleolithic times to the early twenty‐first century. This will involve a good deal of political history, the container within which domestic and international activities can most easily be examined. Because there is no physically discrete Asia but instead a Eurasian landmass, and since “the division between Europe and Asia is entirely arbitrary,” we will focus on terrain, including India, Afghanistan, and Central Asia eastward and Japan and New Guinea westward. The northern frontier will include Mongolia and the Russian Far East and extend southward to Indonesia. These territorial frontiers contain the civilizations that have most influenced what most scholars consider to be Asia.2 Clearly the expansion of Islam and Western nations into Asia also greatly contributed to Asia’s development, but India’s and China’s thought and institutions still constitute the cultural foundations, albeit reinforced by non‐Asian sources, upon which contemporary Asian nations build their societies.
Asia in the early twenty‐first century.
Source: From https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the‐world‐factbook/graphics/ref_maps/political/jpg/asia.jpg. Central Intelligence Agency. Public Domain.
What Is Culture?
The word culture suggests several possible subjects. It can refer to microorganisms in a Petri dish, to people with good “taste” who enjoy haute cuisine and classical music, to the literate elite (high culture) as opposed to the “great unwashed” (i.e., the masses), or to modern nations compared to the developing world. In this study of Asia through the centuries, culture indicates human culture, which includes the innumerable ideas and practices the people of the continent have created over the millennia to meet their needs, both real and apparent. Thus culture encompasses—but is not limited to—such things as religious rituals, political institutions, economic arrangements, marriage customs, artistic creations, linguistic conventions, eating habits, and so forth.
Cultures evolve, interact with other cultures or remain isolated, expand or disappear. Since culture includes all behavior, different societies emerged, reflecting diverse approaches to social relationships in communities of shared values. Societies have ranged in size from small bands of several dozen to tribes, clans, or lineages of several hundreds or thousands; to villages of quite a few hundred to many thousands; to cities of more than a few thousand to several million; to regions of tens of millions; to nations of scores to hundreds of millions; or to entities such as “the West,” “Confucian Civilization,” “the Islamic World,” and “Hindustan,” each with at least hundreds of millions of inhabitants. Of course, differences will exist even among members of any culture, but one culture’s common beliefs, behaviors, and organizational techniques typically distinguish it as a separate society and set it off from others.
Societies have also reflected, as they do at present, a range of geographical and climatological settings. Thus, landlocked communities of the past did not likely engage in seafaring activities, while today’s natural‐resource‐poor nations need to rely on other assets in order to survive or prosper. Consequently, peoples across Asia (and around the world) created somewhat varied or even radically heterodox measures to cope with different physical circumstances. The practices of some cultures produced successful material results, such as peace and prosperity, while the ways of life in other cultures brought about psychological and spiritual comfort, while at the same time still other cultures achieved both material and emotional success, even as others failed in both material and psychological respects.
Timeline: Cultures and the Development of Core Asian Civilizations
4.5 billion years ago
Earth formed
64 million years ago
Dinosaurs become extinct
2.5 million–10,000 BCE
Paleolithic or Old Stone Age; hominid and human hunting and gathering develop
200,000 BCE
Human beings emerge in Africa
50,000 years ago
Humans arrive in South Asia
10,000 BCE
Neolithic or New Stone Age; agriculture begins
4000 BCE
Civilization begins in Mesopotamia and Egypt
3300 BCE
Indus Valley civilization begins
3000–2000 BCE
Bronze Age begins in various Eurasian locations
2000 BCE
Civilization begins in the North China Plain
1000 BCE
Iron Age commences in various Eurasian locations
Third century BCE
Chinese cultural and political influence evident in Vietnam
First century BCE
Indian cultural influence evident in most of Southeast Asia and much of Central Asia
Cultural Categories
Social scientists have classified human social development into four broad groupings, or ways of life, based on the principal means by which people organized and exploited their surroundings: Paleolithic, Neolithic, Pastoral Nomadic, and Civilized, the last of which can be divided into numerous categories and subcategories. As these ways of life are not mutually exclusive, some or all of them have been practiced at the same time in Asia (and around the globe). However, such drastically different customs typically produced conflict among diverse lifestyles when in close proximity. Thus, as farmers occupied gatherers’ former hunting grounds after approximately 10,000 BCE, Neolithic and Paleolithic communities clashed; later, Neolithic farmers resisted but gradually came under the domination of Civilized urban elites beginning around 4000 BCE in Mesopotamia and Egypt, by roughly 3000 BCE in India, and just after 2000 BCE in China. And traditional civilizations based on agricultural productivity began colliding with civilizations based on industrial output after roughly 1800 CE. Although hunting communities, farming societies beyond the reach of civilization, and traditional agricultural civilizations declined in numbers, wealth, and/or power, they typically remained as vestigial ways of life transitioning to oblivion or “modernization.” But the Paleolithic and Neolithic periods account for the majority of time that human beings have existed; Pastoral Nomadic and Civilized ways represent relatively new human arrangements.
Paleolithic Culture
Paleolithic or Old Stone Age culture employed two principal instruments that the earliest humans used to survive: crude stone tools and weapons, as well as hunting and food gathering. Paleolithic people foraged for wild plants that provided not only nutrition but also materials for clothing, tools, weapons, and artistic activities. Pottery shards have been unearthed throughout Asia, and in 2009 Chinese and Israeli archaeologists unearthed pieces of earthenware in southern China that were estimated to be 18,000 years old. At that point humans had begun the process of devising the ways and means of improving their standard of living. They learned by trial and error which products of the earth were edible or poisonous, possessed medical or manufacturing uses, or had recreational, religious, or other applications.
But such primitive people produced insufficient wealth to afford specialists who could focus on advancing secular and spiritual knowledge in any timely or reliable fashion. Nonetheless, part‐time “experts” approximating artisans, shamans, and community leaders took up such roles on an ad hoc basis. Understanding of the natural and social worlds in which they operated remained primal, with most phenomena explained in supernatural terms and with little or no comprehension of why things happened. Such Paleolithic peoples inhabited most parts of today’s Asia, and they created countless numbers of different Paleolithic cultures.
Neolithic Culture
Neolithic or New Stone Age life appeared around 10,000 years ago and revolved around sedentary farming instead of wandering foraging. The appearance of advanced tools and weapons along with an agricultural economy marks this new stage of human development. Some argue that farming began once foragers became more familiar with plant life. Others claim that climate forced foragers to farm as either the Ice Age or droughts relocated humans to regions more favorable to agriculture. Still others claim that population pressure required foragers to turn to farming, which was known but not practiced until hunting and gathering failed to feed the growing size of drifting bands of gatherers. In any case, farming increasingly became seen as the chief means of feeding people. Humans began to control nature by domesticating crops and animals rather than purely collecting or killing what nature made available, and these innovative endeavors had likely evolved over the centuries, much as economic and military utensils had improved, by ongoing trial and error. Very early in the Neolithic period, crops such as rice, millet, sugarcane, and hemp had become dependable sources of good nutrition and household materials.
