Enter the dragons: the roots of modern East Asian capitalism
Lincoln Li
6 points * 2 lectures and 1 tutorial per week * First semester * Peninsula
This subject is recommended for both the BA and BBus degrees. It is a foundation course for understanding East Asian business culture and history. It examines the forces and circumstances that produced the economic transformation of the region. Japan is now an economic superpower with the largest trade surplus and is the largest supplier of investment capital. This `miracle' is being replicated in China and in the `smaller dragons' of South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore, while Thailand and Malaysia bid fair to follow suit. Collectively the countries of Asia now account for 40 per cent of world trade, and Asia is the fastest growing continent with rates in excess of 8 per cent per annum. Yet not so long ago China, Malaysia, Korea and Thailand were reckoned part of the `backward' third world, while in the 1950s Japan was still reeling from the devastation of World War II. In the long view, what we are seeing in East Asia today is the rebirth of an older, indigenous form of merchant-capitalism successfully adapting itself to the industrial and technological age. The subject introduces the indigenous roots of capitalism in East Asia.
Assessment
Two short written exercises (500 words) and a class paper (2000 words): 60% * Written test (1.5 hours): 30% * Attendance and participation: 10%
Prescribed texts
Borthwick M Pacific century: The emergence of modern Pacific Asia Westview/Allen and Unwin, 1992
Mackerras C (ed.) Eastern Asia: An introductory history Longman Cheshire, 1992
Recommended reading
Yen-ping H The commercial revolution in nineteenth-century China: The rise of Sino-Western mercantile capitalism Berkeley, 1986
Hirschmeier J The origins of entrepreneurship in Meiji Japan Harvard, 1964
Johnson C MITI and the Japanese economic miracle: the growth of industrial policy, 1925-1975 Stanford, 1982
Hartland-Thunberg P China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and the world trading system St Martin's Press, 1990
Hidemasa M Zaibatsu: The rise and fall of family enterprise groups in Japan Tokyo UP, 1992
Wilmot W E (ed.) Economic organization in Chinese society Stanford, 1984
Rowe W Hankow: Commerce and society in a Chinese city, 1796-1889 Stanford, 1984
Sui-Lun W Emigrant entrepreneurs: Shanghai industrialists in Hong Kong OUP, 1988
Patrick H Japanese industrialization and its social consequences Berkeley, 1976
Skinner G W and Elvin M The Chinese city between two worlds Stanford, 1974
Wheatley P and See T From court to capital: a tentative interpretation of the origins of the Japanese urban tradition Chicago UP, 1978