Geopolitics and Asia's Little Divergence: A Comparative Analysis of State Building in China and Japan after 1850

41 Pages Posted: 30 Oct 2015 Last revised: 19 Nov 2015

See all articles by Mark Koyama

Mark Koyama

George Mason University - Department of Economics; George Mason University - Mercatus Center

Chiaki Moriguchi

Hitotsubashi University - Institute of Economic Research

Tuan-Hwee Sng

National University of Singapore (NUS) - Department of Economics

Date Written: October 28, 2015

Abstract

We provide a new framework to account for the diverging paths of political development and state building in China and Japan during the second half of the nineteenth century. The arrival of Western powers not only brought opportunities to adopt new technologies, but also fundamentally threatened the national sovereignty of both Qing China and Tokugawa Japan. We argue that these threats produce an unambiguous tendency toward centralization and modernization for small states, but place conflicting demands on geographically larger states. We use our theory to study why China, which had been centralized for much of its history, experienced gradual disintegration upon the Western arrival, and how Japan, which had been politically fragmented for centuries, rapidly unified and modernized during the same period. To further demonstrate its validity, we also apply our model to other historical episodes of state building, such as the unification of Anglo-Saxon England in the tenth century and the rise of Muscovy during the fifteenth century.

Keywords: China; Japan, Geopolitics, State Capacity, Political Fragmentation, Political Centralization, Economic Modernization

JEL Classification: H2, H4, H56, N30, N33, N35, N40, N43, N45

Suggested Citation

Koyama, Mark and Moriguchi, Chiaki and Sng, Tuan-Hwee, Geopolitics and Asia's Little Divergence: A Comparative Analysis of State Building in China and Japan after 1850 (October 28, 2015). GMU Working Paper in Economics No. 15-54, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2682702 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2682702

Mark Koyama (Contact Author)

George Mason University - Department of Economics ( email )

4400 University Drive
Fairfax, VA 22030
United States

HOME PAGE: http://mason.gmu.edu/~mkoyama2/About.html

George Mason University - Mercatus Center ( email )

3434 Washington Blvd., 4th Floor
Arlington, VA 22201
United States

Chiaki Moriguchi

Hitotsubashi University - Institute of Economic Research ( email )

2-1 Naka Kunitachi-shi
Tokyo 186-8306
Japan

Tuan-Hwee Sng

National University of Singapore (NUS) - Department of Economics ( email )

AS2 Level 6, 1 Arts Link
Singapore, Singapore 117570
Singapore

HOME PAGE: http://profile.nus.edu.sg/fass/ecssth/stf_ecssth.htm

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
1,095
Abstract Views
7,684
Rank
36,731
PlumX Metrics