64 East Asia: Overview

Physical Geography

Landforms

Some of the world’s most spectacular physical landscapes are found on China’s southwestern border. The Himalayas, formed by the collision of the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates, contain many of the world’s highest mountain peaks, including the tallest, Mt. Everest. North of the Himalayas is the Tibetan Plateau, a mixture of rolling plains and rugged mountains. Known as the “Roof of the World,” the Tibetan Plateau has an average elevation of 14,000 feet, and contains the headwaters of some of Asia’s greatest rivers, including the Huang He, Yellow, Indus, Mekong, Salween, and Brahmaputra. The Tibetan Plateau is bounded on the north by the Kunlun Mountains, which drop down to the vast and flat Tarim Basin. On China’s northwestern border are the towering Tian Shan mountains, with elevations reaching above 24,000 feet.

Much of central China is a rugged mixture of hills and low mountains, intermixed with occasional plains. China’s east contains the country’s lowest elevations and broadest plains, including the North China Plain and the Manchurian Plain, although there are some hilly areas, including the remarkable karst landscapes of China’s southeast.

The Korean Peninsula is mostly mountainous or hilly, with the highest elevations in the north and the broadest plains in the south. The eastern and central sections of the island of Taiwan are relatively mountainous, while the western side is relatively flat. Japan is a mountainous volcanic archipelago with very few lowlands. Japan’s volcanic origins reflect its position of the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” a zone of tectonic collision that leaves the country susceptible earthquakes and tsunamis.

Climates

Much of western China is desert, receiving less than ten inches of rainfall per year. Like many of the world’s deserts, temperatures can be quite hot in the summer months, but because of their relatively high latitude, China’s deserts can also turn bitterly cold in the winter. China’s highest elevations can also be quite frigid. Much of Tibet has a tundra climate similar to the Arctic coast, with cold conditions year-round. China’s deserts are bounded on all sides by steppe climates, semi-arid areas that receive enough precipitation to sustain natural grasslands.

Most of the rest of East Asia is dominated by climates that are also found in the United States. The humid subtropical climate, found in the southeastern U.S., is also found in China’s southeast, in southern South Korea, and in Japan south of the island of Hokkaido. This climate features hot summers and mild winters, and is generally wet year-round, with the highest precipitation rates occurring during the summer. Northeastern China, the northern three-quarters of the Korean Peninsula, and the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido possess a humid continental climate, which is similar to that of the American Midwest. This climate features hot summers and cold winters, with high rates of precipitation in the warmer months. Precipitation rates are significantly lower in winter, with the exception of Hokkaido, which receives enormous amounts of snow in winter as the westerlies bring moisture in from the Sea of Japan.

Historical Geography

China

China is a cradle of human civilization. The first settled agricultural societies developed in eastern China in the 5000s BCE, with more complex civilizations forming in the 2000s BCE. For centuries, China was dominated by loose confederations of feudal kingdoms. The origins of the current Chinese state date to the 200s BCE, when Qin Shi Huang unified much of the modern territory of China. The Qin Dynasty would be relatively short-lived, but its legacy was profound. Qin adopted the title of emperor, and consolidated power under a central government, using an imperial bureaucracy to extend the emperor’s power throughout the country. Seventeen different dynasties would rule China for the next 2,000 years, all of them following Qin’s model for imperial governance.

From the 900s to the 1400s CE, China possessed the world’s most prosperous economy and the world’s largest cities. It was also a significant engine of technological development. Paper, cast iron, the mechanical belt drive, compasses, cannons, rockets, porcelain, the blast furnace, and gunpowder were just a few of the technologies invented in imperial China. Beginning in the 1400s, however, China’s imperial government became increasingly rigid, enacting policies that favored the interests of the ruling class at the expense of ingenuity and change, and the empire’s technological and economic development began to plateau.

In the 1500s, Portuguese and Spanish ships began sailing into China’s ports. Their arrival initially benefited China, because its exports could now be shipped quickly and cheaply aboard Europe’s merchant vessels. By the 1600s, other European nations were sending ships to China, and it began to enjoy an enormous trade imbalance with Europe. European merchants bought vast quantities of goods from China, but had difficulty selling European products to China. That changed drastically in the 1800s, when British merchants introduced opium, a highly addictive narcotic, to China. An opium epidemic swept through the country, and the imperial government banned its sale, but British merchants continued to import it illegally. On two occasions, the Chinese government attempted to crack down on this illegal trade, and Britain twice responded with military force. The British were victorious in these “Opium Wars,” and as a result, Britain took possession of Hong Kong and forced greater trade concessions from the Chinese government. From the 1850s to the 1870s, rebel groups in China, sensing the weakness of the imperial government, launched six rebellions. None of these were successful, but they led to the deaths of more than 20 million people and caused widespread economic devastation in rural areas.

Throughout the late 1800s, outside influence increased in China. Foreign interests demanded and received the right to establish companies, factories, and exclusive communities in Chinese cities. Britain, France, Austria-Hungary, Germany, Italy, Russia, the United States, and Japan carved out spheres of influence in China, areas where these countries had exclusive trading rights and special economic and political status. Two disastrous events in the late 1800s and early 1900s would ultimately doom China’s last imperial government, the Qing Dynasty. The Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895) resulted in China’s loss of Korea, and was a humiliation for the Qing government. The Boxer Rebellion (1899-1901) was a popular uprising against foreign merchants and Christian missionaries in China. The armies of eight foreign nations defeated this rebellion, and the Chinese imperial government was scarcely a factor. Another uprising in 1911 would bring about the abdication of China’s last emperor.

From 1912 through the 1930s, China was effectively colonized. Although the newly established Republic of China was the nominal government of the country, most of the major cities were administered by foreign powers, while rural areas were under the control of Chinese warlords.

In the 1920s, two rival political factions emerged in China. One was the Nationalist Party (known as the Kuomintang or KMT). Led by Chiang Kai-Shek, it was a pro-capitalist and nominally democratic. The KMT ruled the Republic of China from 1928 to 1949, and was generally supported by Western powers and China’s urban upper class. Its rival was the Chinese Communist Party (or CCP) led by Mao Zedong. Inspired by the writings of philosopher Karl Marx and the successful communist revolution in Russia, the CCP appealed to the huge population of rural laborers in China, and began to wage a civil war against the KMT government.

China’s civil war was interrupted in the 1930s by a Japanese invasion. The civil war had weakened China’s defenses, and the major Western powers, such as Britain, were preoccupied with the rise of fascism in Europe. Japan conquered most of China’s major cities, and exploited China’s resources to fuel its industrial and imperial ambitions. When Japan surrendered in 1945, the war between the KMT and CCP resumed. This was the earliest example of a Cold War proxy war, with the United States supporting the KMT, and the Soviet Union supporting the CCP. Mao’s communists had fewer resources than the ruling nationalists, but it was far more popular among China’s impoverished and disaffected masses. In 1949, Mao Zedong declared victory in the civil war. The CCP took control of China’s mainland, and continues to govern it to this day. The KMT and many of its supporters fled to the island of Taiwan, which is still governed separately, and which still carries the Republic of China as its official name.

Japan

In the 1500s, Portuguese ships began arriving in Japan’s harbors and, over the next century, Japan traded extensively with European merchants. In the 1600s, Japan’s military governors, fearing that this trade was a prelude to conquest and colonization, began to impose isolationist policies that essentially ended foreign trade, and even outlawed the very presence of foreigners on Japanese soil. In 1854, under the threat of military force by the United States, Japan finally reopened to the rest of the world. This ultimately led to the Meiji Restoration of 1868. The term “restoration” refers specifically to the return of political power to Emperor Meiji, but in a broader sense, it refers to a period of rapid modernization and industrialization in Japan. The imperial government sent students abroad and recruited Western experts to Japan in an effort to modernize the country’s technology, politics, and economy. Japan quickly became a major industrial power, but it faced two significant problems – an almost total lack of industrial raw materials, and an insufficient amount of farmland to feed its booming population. Japan’s ultimate solution to these problems was to imitate the great industrial powers of the West – it set out to build a vast colonial empire.

Between the 1890s and the 1930s, Japan defeated China in a war, which ultimately led to the Japanese colonization of Korea and Taiwan, and which increased Japanese influence in Manchuria. Japan also defeated Russia in a war, colonizing the southern part of Sakhalin Island. After World War I, Japan assumed control of several German colonies in the Pacific, including the Caroline, Mariana, and Marshall Islands. As discussed above, Japan invaded China in the 1930s.

On December 7th, 1941, Japan launched a surprise attack on the American naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, ushering in the Pacific Theatre of World War II. The attack was a response to U.S. attempts to limit Japan’s access to raw materials, and part of Japan’s strategy to achieve naval dominance in the Pacific. By the end of 1942, Japan had attacked and conquered most of the islands in the western Pacific, and nearly all of Southeast Asia.

The war ended in 1945 with Japan’s surrender, its empire destroyed, and its economy devastated. Beginning in the 1950s, Japan quickly rebounded, becoming a global giant of business, finance, and manufacturing. Today, it possesses the world’s third-largest economy.

Korea

For a discussion of the historical geography of Korea and Taiwan, see Chapters 56 and 63 respectively.

Cultural Geography

Ethnicity

All of the countries of East Asia are nation-states, meaning that they are demographically, culturally, politically, and economically dominated by a single national group. The Han people account for 92% of China’s population. The remaining 8% are members of a diverse group of much smaller ethnic minorities, although they do collectively amount to more than 100 million people. Some of the larger ethnic minorities include the Zhuang, Yao, Miao, Buyi, and Dong peoples in southern China; the Tibetan and Yi peoples of southwestern China; the Manchu of China’s northwest; and the Hui and Uighur peoples of China’s west.

East Asia’s remaining countries are even more homogenous. The Han began migrating from mainland China to Taiwan 1,500 years ago, with the largest migrations occurring in the last three centuries. Today, the island is about 98% Han Chinese. The remaining 2% are primarily indigenous Taiwanese, who have occupied the island for more than 8,000 years, and who are culturally related to the peoples of the Southeast Asian islands. More than 99% of Japan’s population is ethnically Japanese, with small Korean and Chinese minorities, while the two Koreas are each nearly 100% ethnically Korean.

Language

About two-thirds of China’s population speaks Mandarin, which is particularly prominent in northwestern and central China. Mandarin is the official language of China’s government, and the lingua franca of business and education in the country. It is one of many closely related Sinitic languages, which are part of the Sino-Tibetan language family. Mandarin is also the dominant language in Taiwan. Other major Sinitic languages spoken in China include Gan, Xiang, Wu, Min, and Yue (Cantonese).

The dominant language in Korea is Korean, which is part of the Koreanic language family. That family includes only one other language, Jeju, which is spoken by a small number of people on the Korean island of the same. Similarly, the dominant language in Japan is Japanese, which is part of the Japonic language family. The only other language in that family is Ryukyuan, which is spoken in the Ryukyu Islands.

Religion

For a discussion of religion in East Asia, see Chapter 54.

Population Geography

East Asia is one of the world’s most densely populated regions. China is the world’s most populous country, with more than 1.4 billion people. Japan, the world’s eleventh most populated country, is home to 127 million people. The remaining countries, despite their relatively small land area, also have significant populations, including South Korea (51 million; world’s twenty-seventh largest), North Korea (25 million; fifty-second largest), and Taiwan (24 million, fifty-sixth largest). Three of the countries are highly urbanized, including South Korea (92% urban), Japan (91%), and Taiwan (78%). North Korea (60% urban) and China (56%) are considerably more rural, but their populations are urbanizing rapidly.

All of the countries of East Asia are well through the demographic transition, although some moved through it earlier than others. By 1970, the total fertility rates (TFRs) of Japan and Taiwan were already below the replacement rate of 2.1, with both countries at 2.0. At the time, the other East Asian states had much higher TFRs, including South Korea (4.3), China (5.0), and North Korea (5.0). TFRs throughout the region have tumbled significantly since then, and all are now below replacement rate. As of 2020, North Korea’s TFR had fallen to 1.9, China’s to 1.7, Japan’s to 1.4, and both Taiwan and South Korea to 1.0. All of these countries are now facing new challenges associated with an aging and even declining population. Japan’s struggles with these issues are discussed in Chapter 59.

Political Geography

Japan is a constitutional monarchy in which the Emperor of Japan is the official head of state, albeit a largely symbolic one. Japan has held free, multi-party elections since 1948. Democracy was somewhat slower in arriving to Taiwan and South Korea. Officially known as the Republic of China (see Chapter 63), Taiwan was a nominal democracy from 1949 until the death of its long-time ruler, Chiang Kai-Shek, in 1975. Since 1988, Taiwan has bloomed into a free, multi-party democracy. Similarly, South Korea was a nominal democracy from 1948 to 1987, with one-party rule, occasional military governance, and restrictions on political freedoms. Since 1987, it has evolved into a more open, fully functioning democracy.

China is a nominal democracy, controlled since 1949 by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Although China’s system of government does involve elections, only party members are eligible to vote. The CCP consists of about 80 million members (less than 6% of the country’s population), and they are allowed to vote only for candidates who have been selected by high-ranking officials in the party.

Despite China’s dramatic economic reforms, political reforms have lagged far behind. The Chinese government continues to suppress all separatist movements, particularly in Tibet, which China has occupied since 1950. The government has also imprisoned vast numbers of ethnic Uighurs in reeducation centers, a move that many members of the international community have described as genocidal. China’s government has been further accused of committing human rights violations against those who press for political and religious freedom, notably in Hong Kong. Thousands of the country’s citizens are currently imprisoned for political crimes.

China’s government also continues to suppress free information. It restricts foreign media’s distribution of content both in print and online, and has arrested hundreds of its own journalists for “spreading rumors” and for “picking quarrels and provoking trouble.” President Xi’s control over the media has grown even more oppressive as economic growth has slowed. He has ordered journalists to pledge loyalty directly to him, openly declaring that China’s news media exists solely as a propaganda tool of the Communist Party.

As politically repressive as China’s government is, North Korea is even more draconian. The country has been ruled by the Korean Workers Party since 1948, although it has effectively become a monarchy. Kim il-Sung ruled the country from 1948 until his death in 1994. His son, Kim Jong-il, ruled the country from 1994 until his death in 2011. The country has since been ruled by Kim Jong-il’s son, Kim Jong-un. In North Korea, the government exerts complete control over all activity. All media sources are government-controlled and heavily censored. Freedoms of speech, press, movement, assembly, religion, and privacy are nonexistent. The country is often regarded as the world’s most repressive state, where arbitrary imprisonment, torture, forced labor, and political executions are commonplace.

Economic Geography

Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan experienced dramatic economic success in the second half of the twentieth century, and its citizens have prospered as a result. All three countries enjoy some the world’s highest overall standards of living. The results of China’s economic success have been more mixed. Although it is home to the world’s second-largest economy, and some of the world’s wealthiest corporations and individuals, a vast portion of China’s population lives in or near poverty. Overall, its standard of living is close to the global average. North Korea remains one of the poorest countries in Asia.

Taiwan’s economic success was built on manufacturing. It is a significant exporter of machinery, metals, textiles, electronics, and plastics, and has played a key role in financing the economic development of East and Southeast Asia. Similarly, South Korea achieved remarkable economic growth in the years following its civil war. It has become a substantial exporter of heavy equipment, chemicals, electronics, and automobiles, and today possesses the world’s fifteenth-largest economy.

North Korea remains one of the world’s few hardline communist states. Throughout the Cold War, the country was heavily dependent upon Soviet Union for economic assistance. The Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991 brought economic calamity to North Korea, problems that were exacerbated by severe floods a few years later. In the mid-1990s, the country suffered from a devastating famine in which as many as two million people starved to death. The country’s economy has stabilized somewhat since, but it still remains highly dependent on other countries for humanitarian aid. North Korea’s economic situation is certainly not helped by its government’s astronomical military spending, which consumes about a quarter of the country’s gross domestic product.

Japan’s history is marked by a pair of economic miracles. Until the 1850s, it was one of the most isolated countries on earth, populated mainly by poor farmers. From the 1880s to 1940s, it developed into one of the world’s most successful economies, only to be devastated by World War II. From the 1950s to the 1980s, Japan quickly rose again, its economy growing at a remarkable annual rate of 10% over that period. Tokyo emerged as one of the world’s leading financial centers, and Japanese manufactured goods became ubiquitous worldwide. Japan’s success can largely be attributed to its low military spending, its excellent education system, innovative products and manufacturing systems, cordial government-business relations, and the legendary productivity of Japan’s workforce.

Although it remains a global economic powerhouse, Japan’s breakneck growth has slowed considerably since the 1990s. The 1997 Southeast Asian financial crisis (see Chapter 41) dealt an enormous blow to Japanese investors. Japan was also facing increasing competition from its neighbors, Taiwan, South Korea, and China. At the same time, the emergence of global free-trade blocs threatened Japan’s export market. NAFTA encouraged Americans, Canadians, and Mexicans to buy products from one another (and, therefore, fewer products from Japan). The growth of the European Union had a similar impact on Japan’s potential markets in Europe.

Cited and additional bibliography:

W, Mike. Mount Everest Panorama. photo, 1 July 2007. Flickr, https://www.flickr.com/photos/squeakymarmot/931993774/.