Chapter 11:
East Asia
(Fig. 11.1)
Learning Objectives
–	Learn about the world’s most heavily populated region
–	Understand the sources of cultural cohesiveness in E. Asia
–	Become familiar with the physical, demographic, cultural, political and economic aspects of East Asia
–	Understand the following concepts and models:

Introduction
Setting the boundaries
•	Japan, North and South Korea, and Taiwan share cultural similarities with the eastern part of China.  The western part of China, however, does not fit this region as well. 
–	East Asia is world’s most populous region; while China is the most populous country (1.3 billion), with oldest continuous national culture
–	China and Japan have been rivals from time to time over the centuries
–	East Asia has experienced colonization, and has seen both internal and international conflict
–	Japan is extremely wealthy, but poverty may be found in parts of the region
–	East Asia is a core area of the world economy and an emerging center of political power
Environmental Geography: Resource Pressures in a Crowded Land
•	Flooding, Dam-Building, and Related Issues in China
–	China’s Yangtze River is an important resource (3rd largest by volume)
–	The Three Gorges Controversy
Environmental Geography: Resource Pressures in a 
Crowded Land, cont.
•	Flooding, Dam-Building, and Related Issues in China
–	Flooding in Northern China
•	Northern China Plain has long been plagued with floods and droughts along Huang He (Yellow River)
–	Huge sediment load; the world’s muddiest river
–	Many dikes, but it’s still “the river of China’s sorrow”
–	Erosion on the Loess Plateau
•	Huang He’s sediment burden from the Loess Plateau
–	Loess – a fine, wind-blown glacially deposited material; loess is fertile, but vulnerable to erosion when plowed 
•	Loess Plateau is one of the poorest parts of China

Environmental Geography: Resource Pressures in a Crowded Land (cont.)
•	Other East Asian Environmental Problems
–	Forests and Deforestation
•	Little conservation of forests in China; much more in Japan
•	Reforestation programs not very successful
•	China may need to import wood products for development
–	Mounting Pollution
•	China’s development causing water pollution, toxic waste dumping, and air pollution from the burning of high sulfur coal
•	Japan, Taiwan, South Korea have implemented stringent pollution controls and established pollution-generating industries outside of their countries to reduce pollution

Environmental Geography: Resource Pressures in a Crowded Land (cont.)
•	East Asia’s Physical Geography
•	Large area of region gives it large regional climatic variability; latitude extent similar to U.S.
Environmental Geography: Resource Pressures in a Crowded Land (cont.)
•	East Asia’s Physical Geography
•	Large area of region gives it large regional climatic variability; similar latitude extent to U.S.
–	Japan’s Physical Environment
•	Subtropical to subarctic-  
   Climate variations in the 
    east and west
•	85% of Japan is mountainous
•	Seismically active
•	History of forest conservation
•	Limited alluvial plains 
    used for intensive agriculture
Environmental Geography: Resource Pressures in a Crowded Land (cont.)
•	East Asia’s Physical Geography (cont.)
–	Chinese Environments
•	Southern China: rugged mountains and hills interspersed with lowland basins
•	Northern China: 
   -Gobi Desert
    -North China Plain
    -Loess Plateau
Environmental Geography: Resource Pressures in a Crowded Land (cont.)
•	East Asia’s Physical Geography (cont.)
–	Taiwan’s Environment
•	Central and eastern regions are rugged and mountainous; west is dominated by an alluvial plain; mild winter climate; still has extensive forests
–	Korean Landscapes
•	Mountainous country 
    with scattered alluvial basins
•	South Korea has better
    farmlands than North Korea
Climate
(Fig. 11.7)
Population and Settlement: A Realm of Crowded Lowland Basins
•	Japanese Settlement and Agricultural Patterns
–	Japan’s Agriculture Lands
•	Located mostly in coastal plains and interior basins
–	Settlement Patterns
•	Largest metro areas:
    Tokyo, Osaka, and Nagoya;
    this megalopolis holds
    65% of Japan’s people
•	Population density: 876/mi2
•	128 million people
•	Most crowded in 
    mainland industrial belt
Population and Settlement: A Realm of Crowded Lowland Basins (cont.)
•	Settlement and Agricultural Patterns in China, Taiwan, Korea
•	China is only 37% urban; Japan, Taiwan, Korea urban
–	China’s Agricultural Regions
•	Rice dominant in the south; wheat, millet, sorghum in the north
•	North China Plain is one of the most thoroughly anthropogenic landscapes in the world (anthropogenic landscape – one that has been heavily transformed by human activities)
•	Manchuria thoroughly settled; Loess Plateau thinly settled

Population and Settlement: A Realm of Crowded Lowland Basins (cont.)
•	Settlement and Agricultural Patterns in China, Taiwan, Korea
–	Settlement and Agricultural Patterns in Korea and Taiwan
•	South Korea densely populated; 71 million; 1,265/mi2
•	North Korea sparsely populated; 23 million; 97/mi2
•	Taiwan is most densely settled; 23 million; 1,633/mi2

Population and Settlement: A Realm of Crowded Lowland Basins (cont.)
•	East Asian Agriculture & Resources in Global Context
–	Global Dimensions of Japanese Agriculture and Forestry
•	Japan is one of the world’s largest food importers; but is self-sufficient in rice
•	Imports wood products, oil, coal, and minerals
–	The Global Dimensions of Chinese Resource Demand
•	China has imported food since the 1990s
•	China’s demand for resources is re-ordering global trade patterns
Population and Settlement: A Realm of Crowded Lowland Basins (cont.)
•	Urbanization in East Asia
•	Early urbanization, but the region was overwhelmingly rural until end of World War II
–	Chinese Cities
•	Oldest cities were fortified; houses built around courtyards, narrow alleyways
•	Colonial period changed urban form, emphasized coastal cities
•	Beijing (13 million) – capital during the Manchu period (1644–1912)
–	City Systems of Japan, and South Korea
•	South Korea noted for urban primacy
–	Urban primacy – the concentration of urban population in a single city
•	Japan displays a pattern of superconurbation
–	Superconurbation:  like Megalopolis; a huge zone of coalesced metropolitan areas
Cultural Coherence and Diversity: A Confucian Realm?
•	Unifying Cultural Characteristics
–	The Chinese Writing System
•	Ideographic writing: form of writing using
    symbols (ideograph or character) to represent 
    whole words or ideas, rather than a sound (phonics)
–	Disadvantage: large number of characters to learn
–	Advantage: speakers of different languages use same writing system
•	Korea: In 1400s, Koreans implemented their own alphabet
•	Japan: more complex writing system
–	Kanji: characters borrowed from Chinese writing system
–	Hiragana: Japanese system in which symbol represents a syllable (combination vowel and consonant sound, like RA, or MI, or KO)
–	Katakana: for spelling words of foreign origin
Cultural Coherence and Diversity: A Confucian Realm? (cont.)
•	Unifying Cultural Characteristics (cont.)
–	The Confucian Legacy
•	Confucianism: the philosophy developed by Confucius has a strong influence on the region
–	Greater influence in China and Korea than in Japan
•	Dates from 6th Century B.C. to foster social stability
•	Obedience to authority; authority figures must act in a caring manner; education also important
–	Modern Role of Confucian Ideas
•	In early 1900s, lagging development in East Asia raised questions about value of Confucian ideas
•	Today, economic growth suggest that Confucian support for education and social stability are an advantage
•	Variable development in the region points to middle ground
Cultural Coherence and Diversity: A Confucian Realm? (cont.)
•	Religious Unity and Diversity in East Asia
–	Mahayana Buddhism
•	Diffused to China from India by the second century A.D. 
–	W	idespread throughout the region
–	Nonexclusive: Buddhists may professing faith in other religions
–	Shinto
•	Closely bound to Japanese nationality 
•	Based on harmony of nature and its connection to humans
–	Taoism and Other Chinese Belief Systems
•	Rooted in nature worship
•	Related to Geomancy: feng shui; Chinese and Korean practice of designing buildings in accordance with spiritual powers that supposedly flow through the local topography

Cultural Coherence and Diversity: A Confucian Realm? (cont.)
•	Religious Unity and Diversity in East Asia (cont.)
–	Minority Religions
•	Christianity: Less than 1% in China and Japan, but this equals millions; about 6 million in Korea, mostly Protestants
•	Islam: Several tens of millions of Muslims in China
–	Secularism in East Asia
•	Confucianism (a philosophy)
   and Marxism support secularism
•	East Asia is one of the most 
    secular regions in the world

Cultural Coherence and Diversity: A Confucian Realm? (cont.)
•	Linguistic and Ethnic Diversity in East Asia
–	Language and National Identity in Japan
•	Japanese is not related to any other language
–	Possible connections to Korean, or the Altaic languages
•	Ainu in peoples in the north; otherwise a homogenous society
–	Minority Groups in Japan
•	Several Japanese dialects (most distinct on Ryukyu Islands)
•	Koreans, Chinese, and South Asians in Japan; face discrimination
•	Other immigrants came to Japan beginning in 1980s
»	Chinese, southern Asians in construction
»	Philippines immigrants in entertainment, prostitution 
»	200,000 Brazilians of Japanese ancestry in Japan
Fig. 11.23
Language
Geography
Cultural Coherence and Diversity: A Confucian Realm? (cont.)
•	Linguistic and Ethnic Diversity in East Asia (cont.)
–	Language and Identity in Korea
•	Koreans relatively homogenous; vast majority speak Korean
•	Korean diaspora: a scattering of  a particular group of people over a vast geographical area:
–	China
–	Kazakhstan
–	 U.S.
–	Canada
–	Australia, New Zealand
Cultural Coherence and Diversity: A Confucian Realm? (cont.)
•	Linguistic and Ethnic Diversity in East Asia (cont.)
–	Language and Ethnicity Among the Han Chinese
•	Complex, heterogeneous, even in China proper (eastern half)
•	Han majority
•	Han languages (Sinitic): Mandarin, Cantonese (Yue), Fujianese, Shanghaiese (Wu) 
•	Tonal (changed tone
    changes meaning) and
    monosyllabic
    (one syllable) languages
Cultural Coherence and Diversity: A Confucian Realm? (cont.)
•	Linguistic and Ethnic Diversity in East Asia (cont.)
–	The Non-Han Peoples
•	Many remote upland districts are inhabited by non-Han people
–	Tribal: people who have a traditional social order based on autonomous village communities
•	Manchus in remote portions of Manchuria; other non-Hans in the far south autonomous regions (designed to allow non-Han peoples to experience “socialist modernization” at a different pace from the rest of China)
–	Language and Ethnicity in Taiwan
•	Tribal peoples who speak languages related to Indonesian
•	Taiwanese and Mandarin speakers; Taiwanese discouraged
Cultural Coherence and Diversity: A Confucian Realm? (cont.)
•	East Asian Cultures in Global Context
•	Tension between isolation and international involvement
–	The Globalized Fringe
•	Capitalist countries of the region are characterized by vibrant cosmopolitan internationalism
•	English a common language; many study in the U.S., England
•	Cultural flows increasingly two-way
•	Japanese products worldwide (electronics, cars, anime)
–	The Chinese Heartland
•	History of internal orientation, except on southern coast
•	China began to liberalize, open its doors in the 1970s and ’80s
•	Urban popular culture beginning to emerge
The Geopolitical Framework and Its Evolution: The Imperial Legacies of China and Japan
•	Cold War rivalries split East Asia
•	The Evolution of China
•	Original core was the North China Plain and Loess Plateau
•	China unified in 3rd Century B.C.; efforts to conquer Korea
–	The Manchu Ch’ing Dynasty
•	Manchu Dynasty in power from 1644 to well into 19th century
–	The Modern Era
•	In 1800s, China failed to keep pace with technological progress, and the empire declined
•	British used opium in lieu of silver to buy Chinese goods, setting off the Opium Wars, resulting in colonization
•	China divided into colonial “Spheres of Influence”
The Geopolitical Framework and Its Evolution: The Imperial Legacies of China and Japan (cont.)
•	The Rise of Japan 
•	Japan emerged as a unified state in 7th century A.D.
•	Was divided several times between 1000 and 1580 A.D.
–	The Closing and Opening of Japan
•	Tokugawa Shogunate reunited Japan in 1600s, established an isolationist policy
–	Shogun: a military leader who theoretically remains under the emperor but who actually holds power
•	Meiji Restoration (1868): strengthened government and economy
–	The Japanese Empire
•	Period of modernization and military building
–	War with China, Russia; annexation of Korea
–	War with the U.S. occurred after Japanese efforts to unite East and Southeast Asia (“Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere”)
19th Century European Colonialism (Fig. 11.30)
The Geopolitical Framework and Its Evolution: The Imperial Legacies of China and Japan (cont.)
•	Postwar Geopolitics
–	Japan’s Revival
•	Territory reduced to four main islands and Ryukyu Archipelago 
–	The Division of Korea
•	Divided by the U.S. and the Soviet Union after Korean War
–	The Division of China
•	Mao Zedong and the communists vs. the nationalists
–	Communists victorious in 1949, Nationalists fled to Taiwan
–	The Chinese Territorial Domain
•	Occupation of Tibet, Xinjiang, and Inner Mongolia
•	Paracel and Spratly islands
•	China reclaimed Hong Kong in 1997
Fig. 11.28
Geopolitical Issues
Economic and Social Development: An Emerging Core of the Global Economy
•	Japan’s Economy and Society
–	Japan’s Boom and Bust
•	Japan set pace for world economy, 1960s-1980s
•	1990s: economic slump 
•	Japan has world’s 2nd largest economy
–	Living Standards and Social Conditions in Japan
•	High standard of living, though a little lower than U.S.
•	Low unemployment; health care provided; low crime rates
•	Literacy high; infant mortality low; life-spans long
–	Women in Japanese Society
•	Limited opportunities for career advancement
•	Drop in marriage rate may be a response
•	Low fertility rates (1.2 avg.)
Economic & Social Development: Emerging Core of Global Economy, cont.
•	The Newly Industrialized Countries
–	The Rise of South Korea
•	1960s program of export-led economic growth in South Korea
•	From cheap consumer goods to heavy industry to high-tech
•	South Korean companies increasingly became multinational 
–	Contemporary South Korea
•	Anti-government student-led protests repressed in 1960s and ’70s
•	Middle class successfully pushed for democratization in late 1980s
–	Taiwan and Hong Kong
•	Higher per capita GDP than South Korea
•	Government-guided economic development in Taiwan
•	Hong Kong has system of laissez-faire: market freedom
•	Economies linked internationally
Global Ties (Fig. 11.34)
Economic & Social Development: Emerging Core of Global Economy, cont
•	Chinese Development
–	China Under Communism
•	“Great Leap Forward” resulted in the death of 20 million
•	Cultural Revolution (1960s) –many sent to “re-education” camps
–	Toward a Postcommunist Economy
•	China seeking closer connections with world economy, experimenting with capitalism
–	Industrial Reform
•	Special Economic Zones (SEZs) welcome foreign investment
•	Economic growth is around 10%
–	Social and Regional Differentiation
•	Economic reforms resulted in social and regional differentiation
–	Social Conditions in China
•	Large investments in medical care and education, with regional contrasts in social development, well-being
Economic & Social Development: Emerging Core of Global Economy, cont
•	Chinese Development (cont.)
–	The Booming Coastal Region
•	Most economic benefits are in the coastal region and Beijing
–	Interior and Northern China
•	Little economic expansion; Manchuria is a “rust belt”

Economic & Social Development: Emerging Core of Global Economy, cont
•	Chinese Development (cont.)
–	China’s Population Quandary
•	1.3 billion people in China; “one child” policy favors males, led to gender imbalance, other unintended consequences
–	The Position of Women
•	Historically low position in Chinese society, high workforce participation, limited power
Conclusions
•	East Asia united by culture and history
•	Internal ethnic tensions growing in China
•	Korea must manage the transition from low-wage exporter to high-wage technological powerhouse
•	Japan coping with its economic challenges