China would like to think of themselves as living in a microcosm. Foreigners are almost inferiors to China because each culture is so different that any influence foreigners would encourage to Chinese men would only be observed rather than accepted. Persistent Westerners hardly made any influence on China. Two different views upon Western impact on China were compared between J.A. Hobson’s Imperialism and Mike Davis’s Late Victorian Holocaust. Hobson’s coverage on China was a perspective written a century earlier than Davis’s coverage. The comparison of China on different timelines can explain the progress China has made, although between the two coverages, China was still adamant in preserving their culture and traditions. J.A. Hobson …show more content…
Westerners perceive the Chinese as a lower race, but supple to the purpose of industrial exploitation (Hobson 313). Chinese labour workers have a larger surplus product of labour in comparison to the cost of keep. Their labour power described by Westerners was by far richer than the price of gold and silver deposits (Hobson 313). The Western industrial method is composed of three stages. The first stage is the ordinary commerce, which is the exchange of normal surplus between two countries (Hobson 313). The second stage is acquiring territory, or investing capital on a foreign country in order to connect to resources such as imports (Hobson 313). The third stage is when organizing energy is developed within a country. Westerners wanted to apply the stages to China, investing on their labour power (Hobson 313). China would be a phenomenal labour market if they added a railroad system (Hobson 313). This would have spare capital and development of business energy and supply European countries and the United States for many generations (Hobson …show more content…
Westerner’s had to force China to open port and make trades with other countries. The Chinese are opposed to militant patriotism (Hobson 311). China are organized enough to be capable in discipline but such countless years of peace has encouraged China to continue peaceful living (Hobson 311). Peaceful living societies can only last for so long because outside countries that have military forces are unavoidable, which makes the Opium Wars a good example for China’s loss (Hobson
In this paper by Scott Alan Carson, Carson writes about Chinese Sojourn Labor. Carson writes how institutional arrangements and labor market forces that interacted in the construction of America’s railroad led to the demand for Chinese Laborers. Carson writes more about these relationships and the work given to the Chinese than writing about the more personal details of the workers. For instance, Carson writes that because of land grants given by the government Central Pacific and Union Pacific railroads earned more capital by completing more railway tracks. Carson also writes how the Chinese did the jobs no one else wanted to do, and they did them for lesser wages. Therefore, Carson writes specifically about the work of the Chinese and the factors that caused the hiring of Chinese more so than the personal aspects of the workers.
European Imperialism of China and Japan Imperialism is the practice by which powerful nations or peoples seek to extend and maintain control or influence over weaker nations or peoples. By the 1800’s, the Western powers had advantages in this process. They led the world in technological advances, giving them dominance when conquering other countries. The European Imperialists made attempts to conquer China and Japan.
Moreover, economic interdependence promotes peaceful trade between countries since it is beneficial and avoids war at all cost. For example, “China’s economy is thoroughly integrated in this complex interdependence global economy,” thus it would be suicidal for China to start war (Wong, The Rise of Great Powers, Nov.18). China free trades with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and has developed a profitable relationship that led to trade surplus (Kaplan, pg.3). As a result, starting conflicts with the ASEAN will threaten the Chinese economy because it will drastically impact free trade and will cause a downfall in profits. The possibility of war between China and United States is remote because China would rather benefit from resources such as, security, technology, and market that United States provides (Wong, The Rise of Great Powers, Nov.18). Although economic power shifts to China, United States provides security because it has always been the dominant hegemony; therefore, it has a better and powerful economy (Green, pg.34). It is evident that China’s economy is rapidly increasing, but it still has no interest in being the head hegemony and therefore does not challenge United States. That being said, countries choose to avoid conflicts with United States or their trading partners since it will negatively impact their markets and investments.
...conomically beneficial trade and technology development. In this regard the Epilogue uses sound logic to plausibly answer the wealth question. On the other hand, Mr. Diamond uses the same "national competition" thesis to purport that Asia's large, centralized governments were conspicuously growth-inhibitive. This argument would not seem to pass muster given what we have learned about the role of governments. Professor Wright's slides state that "Centralization may limit predation and even allow for growth" as "centralized predation = incentives to maximize the haul " This clearly refutes Mr. Diamond's argument that centralized, monopolistic Asian governments impaired societal advances. Thus, Guns, Germs, and Steel can scantly explain why China and the Middle East remain emerging markets while Western and Northern Europe enjoy significantly larger national wealth.
New York: Norton, 1999. Print. The. Fairbank, John King, and Edwin O. Reischauer. China: Tradition and Transformation.
In the middle of the 19th century, despite a few similarities between the initial responses of China and Japan to the West, they later diverged; which ultimately affected and influenced the modernizing development of both countries. At first, both of the Asian nations rejected the ideas which the West had brought upon them, and therefore went through a time period of self-imposed isolation. However, the demands that were soon set by Western imperialism forced them, though in different ways, to reconsider. And, by the end of the 19th century both China and Japan had introduced ‘westernizing’ reforms. China’s aim was to use modern means to retain and preserve their traditional Confucian culture. Whereas Japan, on the other hand, began to successfully mimic Western technology as it pursued modernization, and thus underwent an astounding social upheaval. Hence, by the year 1920, Japan was recognized as one of the world’s superpowers, whereas China was on the edge of anarchy.
Li, K., & Mengyan, F. (2013). A historical survey on modernization of Chinese culture. Asian Social Science, 9(4), 129-132. doi:10.5539/ass.v9n4p129
Under Capitalism, America's free market system offered opportunities of advancing personal interests for laborers while at the same time meeting the labor requirements of our economy. However, once the Chinese immigrants were in the country, capitalism yielded different results for them. The earliest Asian immigrants into any US territory were Chinese laborers in the Islands of Hawaii as early as 1836. These immigrants left a long-lasting impression on industrialists and wealthy European-American through their dedication and hard work (Takaki 21-23). Eventually this led to massive importation of Chinese labor to build everything from cities, bridges and even railroads throughout the rest of 19th century. Since owner can control or decides the labor wage, they had lowered the wage of those jobs to gain the maximum profit. In the west coast numerous Chinese laborers were massively imported as late as early 1900s to build cities. Eas...
China’s trade with the world grew substantially in the first three decades of the 20th century, marking a historic time for the country. In the 1840s, the Chinese economy was strongly closed; however, when Great Britain and other powerful countries pressured their economy, China was willing to open international trade within their own economy. Over the next 60 years, China experienced a small opening of trade amongst other foreign powers, allowing transactions amongst foreigners allowed. The funded railroad aroused industrialization, as well as publicity and overseas shipping (Yan, 2014). The main reason for moderation in China is because they are so much more focused on production rather than consumption. Last year, China’s consumption accounted for 35 percent of their economy; a little over 10 years ago, it was rated that 50 percent accounted for their overall consumption (Reich, 2010). Foreign exports and imports arose dramatically, increasing the yearly expansion rate of trade to about 7.4 percent. The Chinese economies share in world trade grew a little under 2 percent from the late 1800s to the mid 1900s. By the early 20th century, comparative advantage was presented all throughout their economy (Yan, 2014).
In States vs. Markets, Herman Schwartz presents two economic development strategies that have been employed by late industrial developers in order to either take advantage of existing comparative advantages or facilitate rapid industrial growth through state intervention and provision in order to gain a competitive foothold in world markets. Schwartz demonstrates how China was able to employ elements of these development strategies to generate capital from an abundant rural labour supply in order to pursue industrial development and attract foreign investment through economic reform starting in the late 1970's.
The imperial realms of East Asia before the 19th century were largely based on the theory that Asian countries were far better than their neighbors in the West. The nonchalant manner portrayed by East Asian countries towards western technology and culture led China to become unknowledgeable of the Western empires. As a result, China was astonishingly impacted by imperialism from Great Britain during the 1800’s. During the 18th century Great Britain had set up trade off the coast of the Chinese borders to trade British silver for China’s soft silks, fine porcelain, and strong teas. During this period Qing officials overlooked the foreign brokers. By the early 1800’s, however, Great Britain b...
As an educated citizen of an imperialist European nation I fully support imperialism in China. For the very reason that imperialism is China was and is the very best factorization for colonization by various powerful Imperialist nations such as: Britain, Japan, Russia, France, and etc etc. Much do we greatly owe to their substantially immense financial system. All nations of great Imperialism had a fervent craving to control a great deal of China's capital and seaports. Granting an extensive availability for trade and agriculture, with the hopes and expectancies of an incalculable income. The wonderfully powered imperialist countries had inexpensive laborers and the food production was augmented due to the superior forms of agriculture. Education
... to the Treaty of Nanking creating new ports for foreigners and allowing them to live lives contrary to what was expected of the people of China. The Chinese man had become addicted and it was just getting easier for him to get the opium he needed to satisfy his need, but in order to attain the opium he was leaving behind everything that his country had taught him about his sense of self. The man was no longer the one that would be instilling the traditional Chinese values into the youth of his country; it would be the new foreigners like the British traders who had come to China to profit from the trade. The same traders who were selling the opium, that would have a greater influence on shaping China from a traditionally isolated country from foreign influence, to a country that would later become a major power in foreign trade and open to most foreign influence.
Inkenberry, John. “The Rise of China and the Future of the West.” Foreign Affairs. The Council of Foreign Relations. Jan 2008. Web. 9 Mar 2014.
Historical conceptions of China’s culture and global position shaped the PRC’s perspective. Central to this is Sino-centrism and its edict from heaven for dynastic China to spread civilisation (Xinning 2001: 70). Imperial China’s tribute system represented a “Pax Sinica” and the physical manifestation of Sino-centrism, with its success affirming Chinese cultural superiority (Y. Zhang 2001: 52). Instructive in this is Sino-centrism’s similarity to, and conflict with American Manifest Destiny, itself an articulation that Anglo-Saxon American’s are God’s chosen people, with a superior culture and who are pre-ordained to spread civilisation to inferior peoples (Hollander 2009: 169). The PRC’s nationalism can be seen in part as a rejection of this competing celestial mandate, linking China’s decline to foreign intervention and the acceding to unequal treaties that saw the loss of peripheral territories considered intrinsic to historic China (Kissinger 2011: 112). In this way, the PRC’s formation as a modern nation state is the recrudescence of Sino-...