The Formation of the Modern East Asian Economy
Chuan
Lyu Lectures
Faculty of Oriental Studies
University of Cambridge
5:00PM, May 7 and 9, 1996
Sorimachi Room, Sidgwick Site
Subject:
The Formation of The Modern East Asian Economy
Currency
and National Development in East Asia During the 15th
and 16th Century
By: Professor Shiba Yoshinobu
International Christian University,
Tokyo, Japan
For at least the last century
and a half, the world has been one. The creation of an
Industrial Age in Europe during the nineteenth century,
coupled with the subsequent modernization of various economies
elsewhere, has seen the historical destinations of the
various quarters of the globe assume an integrative, universal,
and general world history. If we inquire into the previous
relations among countries in the early modern period-the
sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries-we can
readily find a direct, virtually genetic linkage of early
modern European history to the formation of this modern,
integrated world. The centuries that followed the arrival
of Vasco da Gama in Calicut in 1498 saw the continual
European expansion and interweaving of maritime connections
within and between the hemispheres. Hence for over a century
this history has been presented, both in my country and
in your university, as the story of the long drift to
European hegemony in Asian waters. This theory of European
expansion has itself given rise to such popular dichotomies
as European intrusion vs. Asian response or European imperial
dominance vs. Asian passive victimization.
But was there no history
within Asian, especially East Asia, which saw similar
interconnections, horizontal continuities, and general
economic trends amongst non-European societies? Conventional
wisdom has tended to deny such a possibility, claiming
that there are histories only of separate countries and
economies within Asia during the centuries before the
arrival and rise of the West. China, it is said, conducted
only tribute trade; Korea and Vietnam consistently followed
the Chinese lead; and Japan, as it was only once willing
to accept such political subordination, took minimal part
in even this trade.
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