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The Formation of the Modern East Asian Economy
Like the Song, Yuan, and Ming dynasties, the Qing failed to create an integrated, uniform currency system for the entire country. Copper coins were the currency circulated universally throughout the empire-this was an improvement over Ming times. But once we examine the fate of the other currency or currencies circulating concurrently with copper coins, severe regional difference become evident. In the far northwest and southwest-Xinjiang, Yunnan, and Guizhou-the traditional pair of silver and copper was common. In north China, it was a combination of copper and copper-cash-note. And, in south China, the pattern was a combination of copper cash, copper-cash-note, silver, foreign silver coin, and silver note. The south was clearly the most advanced in terms of currency circulation, the amount of silver in circulation, and the degree of the use of commercial credit notes. But, its currency supply, as seen with the outflow of silver in the second quarter of the nineteenth century and the resulting disorders linked to the Taiping Rebellion, was vulnerable to sudden losses due to its concentration along the coast and use in foreign trade.

From the eleventh to the nineteenth century, then, Chinese governments failed to forge a well-integrated currency system for the entire country. Its merchants may have achieved a remarkable success in establishing a single rice market for the Yangtze River Valley and the southeast coastal region through a relatively stable bimetallic system. But overwhelming problems remained for a national currency system: insufficient mineral supplies, inadequate mining technology, insurmountable economic difference and divergences amongst the regions of this empire, and the priority frequently given by the government to political and military concerns over economic. We may decry this emphasis on order over growth and development. But arguably that was the cost of running a pre-modern empire of the size and diversity of China. And surely a dynasty rightly saw political and social order as useful for securing widespread confidence in the attested value of its currency.

These changes in Chinese currency clearly had an impact on currency practices elsewhere in East Asia. For instance, to meet the growing demand for money, different Japanese governments likewise sought relief through coin debasement and silver production. But, these policies varied considerably over time and can be seen to have passed through three distinct stages-an abortive imitation, an extensive import of Chinese coins, and then independence in setting up a national currency. Each of these stages grew out of developments in China, whereby over time the links, to use Fletcher's terms, developed from historical continuities to direct interconnections.

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