The History of Asia in the 20th Century – The Origins of Prosperity and Stability –The History of Asia in the 20th Century– The Origins of Prosperity and Stability –Akihiko Tanaka
President, National Graduate
Institute for Policy Studies
Abstract
Looking back from our 21st century vantage point, we must re-examine and re-think thehistory of Asia in the 20th century. Asia today, and East Asia in particular, enjoys relatively
peaceful international relations and economic prosperity. The region has two major
characteristics politically: a great diversity in political systems, and no failed states. Toanalyze these features by examining 20th century Asian history, the two concepts of nationbuilding and international relations will be important. The absence of failed states in Asia
means the state-building process in East Asia, including countries with a colonial past, hasproceeded relatively smoothly. Individual countries have undergone their own historicaldevelopment through interactions involving the state, society and markets within thecontext of dynamically changing international relations.

As President Nogami has explained, this symposium is being held under the aegis of
the Joint International Research Project on History consigned to the Japan Instituteof International Affairs by the government of Japan. This project was launched in July
2016 as a very ambitious attempt to re-examine and re-think the history of Asia in the20th century.
Needless to say, a very large body of research on 20th century history of Asia already exists
thanks to many decades of exhaustive research. We nevertheless believe that it is now necessary
to revisit the history of Asia in the 20th century. As history is a conversation between the presentand the past, each age needs a new history of the past. The 21st century needs a history of the20th century different from the history of the 20th century written for the 20th century. In addition
to such general needs of a new history for a new age, however, Asia in the 21st century appears torequire special needs to revisit its 20th century history; fundamental rethinking of history rather
than fine-tunings appears necessary due to the circumstances described in the following.
First, even a cursory look at contemporary Asia, and East Asia in particular, awakens us tothe realization that Asia today differs significantly from the Asia that we had come to take for
granted during the 20th century. For example, let us consider the conditions of Asia in the 1960sand 1970s. Asia then was suffering from many military conflicts and domestic instability, theVietnam War, the September 30 movement in Indonesia, and the Chinese Cultural Revolution toname just a few. As far as economic development was concerned, Asia was counted among theleast developed regions in the world. In terms of per capita GDP, most of the Asian region scoredbelow Sub-Sahara Africa. Japan was the only advanced industrial country in the entire region.
Where does Asia stand today? Asia today, and East Asia in particular, is in relative peace.
Although there are potential sources of instability, no inter-state wars have taken place in thisregion since the Sino-Vietnamese War of 1979. Furthermore, there have been no large-scale civil
wars in this area since the Cambodian Civil War ended with the Paris Peace Agreement of 1991.
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Akihiko Tanaka

In addition to peace, the region has achieved great prosperity. Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan,South Korea and Taiwan are at the highest levels of per-capita income in the world. Developing
countries in the region, have traced a sharp upward slope. While some remain below the10,000-dollar mark, there is no question that these countries are also enjoying rapid growth (Figure1).
As a result, we have seen major changes in regional shares in the world economic scale.
Figure 2 represents the changes of GDP shares of various regions since the beginning of the
19th century as estimated by Angus Maddison. Western Europe and the United States increased
their shares in the 19th century and came to account for more than one-half of the world economy
by the middle of the 20th century. However, we note a significant change beginning in the latter
half of the century; the share of Europe and the United States began to decline. The opposite
pattern holds for Asia. First, the share of China, India, Japan and other Asian countries declined
considerably during the earlier period until it reached a bottom of about 20 percent by the middleof the 20th century. This was followed by a reversal toward the end of the century. According toProfessor Maddisonʼs projections, Asiaʼs share in the world economy will exceed 50 percent by2030.
World history after the Industrial Revolution was often written to account for the change thattook place from the 19th century to the middle of the 20th century when the economic scale ofEurope and North America (the West) overwhelmed that of other regions. Why was the Westalone in achieving this amazing growth? Why did the rest of the world fail to keep up with theWest? The dominance of the West and the gap between the West and the rest appeared almost
eternal. Explicitly or implicitly, history, whether global, regional or national, was often written
on the assumption of the dominance of the West. The task of Asian history, or, for that matter,
history of any non-Western regions, then written was to explain why Asia failed to develop as
much as the West. Causal reasoning differed; some attributed the failure to the Asian indigenousconditions and some, to the malicious impact of the West.
Classic Western view of Asian history that emerged in the 19th centur y, for example, wasencapsulated in the Mar xist theor y of “ Asiatic mode of production,” which predicted thatAsia would remain forever backward and stagnant under its imperial order. Many historians
made counter arguments against such static view of Asia by detailed studies on traditional
civilizations and cultures in Asia. The innumerable findings by such scholars as Joseph Needhamdemonstrated the technological achievements of China in the ages before the Industrial
Revolution. However, when it comes to the history of the 19th century to the early 20th century,
Asia was seen as losing such civilizational achievements and lagging behind the West.
As many parts of Asia were colonized by the Western imperial powers, Asian conditions
became often explained by negative impacts of the expansion of the West: the Westernimperialism and colonialism. The main theme of Asian history now became how Asian peoples
liberate themselves from the shackles of the Western (and Japanese) imperialism. Even after
the formal empires were gone after the second world war, the dependency theory, for example,
tried to explain the underdevelopment of Asia by the structural dominance of the center on theperiphery.
Japan was the exception to prove the rule under these historical circumstances. This gave riseto the question of why Japan alone was able to achieve economic development. The prevailingexplanation for Japanese exceptionalism was that Japan differed from other Asian countries inthat it possessed an environment and culture that allowed it to follow the European pattern ofmodernization. Some argued that Japan had a feudalism very similar to that of Western Europe.
Others argued that Japanʼs ecological situation was very similar to that of Western Europe. And
still others argued that Japan had a similar ethics with that of Protestantism. But for us living inthe 21st century and well aware of the course of Asian development from the 1970s to the present5
Japan Review Vol.1 No.1 Fall 2017

The History of Asia in the 20th Century – The Origins of Prosperity and Stability –century, the whole question of why only the West developed and why Japan was the exception
does not accord with the facts of the late 20th century and the 21st century.
The age of the Western dominance in the world economy is coming to an end. The dominanceof the West is not eternal and the gap of the West and the rest is not eternal. The age when Japan
was the only exception was over. History is now tasked to respond to questions such as: Why didthe reversal of economic share take place in the latter half of the 20th century? Why did Asia andEast Asia in particular achieve significant growth? What are the dynamics that explain both therise of the West as well as its fall and the fall of Asia as well as its rise?
Economic share is not the only indicator of development. Many other conditions change ashistory develops. As economy develops, political institutions change. Max Weber assumed thatbureaucratization was the hallmark of political modernization. Modernization theorists believedthat democratization would follow economic development. Marxist theorists predicted that acommunist (world) government was to replace capitalist states. The communist theory appears
to have lost attraction academically as well as practically after the end of the Cold War. Virtues ofdemocratization are widely shared by many in the 21st century but its historical connection witheconomic development appears highly complex if not totally unrelated. Could we say anything
about political institutions when we observe Asian experiences from the vantage point of the 21stcentury?
Figure 3 depicts the positions of countries defined by political freedom as measured by theFreedom House score and prosperity as measured by the Human Development Indes(HDI).
The colored points represent East Asian countries. Japan, South Korea and Taiwan are situatedat the top of the right hand portion, where virtually all countries of Western Europe and North
America are situated. As we move to the left, we come to Hong Kong and Singapore. While bothoutperform Japan and South Korea in terms of HDI, they linger around the middle in terms ofpolitical freedom. A little further to the left and we come to Brunei. Somewhat lower in terms ofHDI, we have China, followed by Vietnam with their low ratings of political freedom. Thailandand Malaysia are in the middle in terms of political freedom and Indonesia and the Philippines
have more political freedom though at somewhat lower HDI. Moving further down along theHDI axis, we come to Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar with still lower political freedom. In otherwords, countries in East Asia show extreme diversity in terms of political freedom. Even amongcountries with high economic performance, there are different degrees of freedom. Among
similar economic performance, some are experiencing increasing freedom but some others
remain within authoritarian political systems.
These features of East Asia appear to justify the necessities of revisiting our view of history ofthe 20th century. What further justify the necessity of our inquiry is the fact that we do not know
how stable these features are. There is considerable divergence of opinion on this point. Someinternational political scientists question the stability of peace in East Asia. With North Korea andChina in mind, it is not surprising that some have emphasized the instability of this peace. The
same applies to prosperity, where the question is how long the region can continue to enjoy stableeconomic growth. Particularly in the case of developing countries, I believe there is a wide rangeof arguments that can be made on whether these countries can avoid the middle-income trap andachieve sustained development.
As Figure 3 indicates, political diversity in this region covers a considerable range of levels offreedom. Here again, it is very difficult to predict whether this pattern will continue unchanged
into the future. China and Vietnam may eventually move toward the right and embrace greater
freedom, or perhaps they will stay where they are today. The Modernization theory that prevailed
in the 1950s posited that economic prosperity would eventually bring about democracy. Infact, South Korea and Taiwan in the latter part of the 20th century actually followed the pattern6
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Akihiko Tanaka

suggested by the Modernization Theory1. But the current situation in East Asia shows that things
do not necessary happen as assumed by the Modernization Theory.
In any case, it seems clear that revisiting the history of Asia, and the history of East Asia inparticular, presents an extremely interesting intellectual exercise. From a policy perspective,re-examination of histor y of East Asia could contribute significantly to the debates aboutdevelopment in the world. If the West and Japan are not exceptions in political, economic andsocial development, what can Asian development in the 20th century add to our understanding ofdevelopment in general? To the extent that there exist uncertainly about East Asiaʼs future, whatfurther lessens can we draw from experiences of East Asia in the 20th century for the rest of theworld?
There are no ready approaches to examine these questions posed above. Among manypotentially useful concepts and hypotheses, I would like to briefly mention two that I believe
would be significant in our examination of the history of Asia in the 20th century: state-building
and international relations. As I stated before, despite the significant diversity of political systems
in Asia, it seems quite apparent that most East Asian countries have created and maintained
relatively strong state structure. Poorest countries in East Asia such as Cambodia and Laos
appear to have less fragile state structure than many least developed countries in the rest of theworld. We believe that it is worthwhile to investigate historical development of state-buildingin the region. How significant political institutions such as civilian bureaucracy, military, andpolitical parties have been developed relative to the development of market and non-state civilsociety should become a renewed focus of historical investigation.
Another concept that this project will focus on is international relations. Individual countries
undergo their own historical development through interactions involving the state, societyand markets. However, this historical development certainly does not occur in isolation. In allcountries, the interaction between the state, society and markets takes place within the context
of dynamically changing international relations. In many cases, a decisive turning point in thehistorical development of a nation has been triggered by a major incident, a crisis or a watershed
event in international relations. In this respect, war played an extremely important role between
the 19th and 20th centuries. Similarly, in the realm of economics, such developments as tradeexpansion and economic depression have significantly influenced political and economicdevelopments in individual countries.
Therefore, our project will be roughly organized as follows. Our study will start with achapter describing developments in international relations in Asia between the second half of the
19th century and the 21st century. This will be followed by 20th century histories of individual
countries featuring the description and analysis of the interaction between the state, society andmarkets, with special focus on the processes of nation building and the formation of the state.
This symposium today does not necessary adopt the same analytical framework as would
be found in a history book representing the output of this project. Similarly and needless to say,the views presented by the panelists will represent the personal views that are freely expressedby them. On the other hand, those of us par ticipating in this project are cer tain that thisvaluable opportunity to participate in discussions with world-class panelists will contribute verysignificantly to our final analysis and output.
This concludes my opening remarks. Thank you.

1

East Asia appears to pose several counter examples to Acemogru and Robionʼs argument that inclusive
political system has been conducive to economic development. Korea and Taiwan presented a reverse
pattern and China presented a case of economic development without inclusive politics.

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1990
International
Geary−Khamisdollars

8Japan Review Vol.1 No.1 Fall 2017

0

10,00020,00030,000

1960

1970

1980

2000

2010
(c)2017 Akihiko Tanaka
Data: http://www.ggdc.net/maddison/Historical_Statistics/horizontal-file_02-2010.xls

year

1990

Estimates by Angus Madison

Figure 1: GDP Per Capita

ThailandTaiwanSouth Korea

Singapore

Malaysia

Japan

Hong Kong

China

Country

The History of Asia in the 20th Century – The Origins of Prosperity and Stability –9Japan Review Vol.1 No.1 Fall 2017

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

1700

Western
西欧
Europe

21.8%

3.1%
0.1%

1.7%
4.4%

6.9%

11.0%

4.1%

24.5%

22.3%

USA
米国

0.1%

1870

Australia
豪・NZ・カナダ
NZ, CANADA

1820

22.9%

3.6%
1.8%
33.0%

8.9%

4.5%
2.2%

5.4%

4.5%
1.2%

7.5%

4.1%
2.5%

6.8%2.3%

12.2%

7.5%

3.0%

16.1%

33.0%

17.1%

1913

33.0%

18.9%

2.4%

4.9%

1950

26.2%

27.3%

3.5%
3.4%

La�n
FormerAfrica旧ソ連
ラ米
アフリカ
Soviet Union America

1900

34.2%

15.8%

1.7%

5.2%

7.8%

9.6%

7.8%

3.8%

6.8%

1980

Other Asian
その他アジアCountries

24.2%

21.1%

3.4%
3.2%

8.5%

9.8%

3.6%

9.9%

7.8%

3.2%

4.2%
3.0%

5.2%

4.6%

Japan
日本

India
インド

2008

17.1%

18.6%

4.4%
2.0%
2.8%

7.9%

3.4%

13.9%

5.7%

6.7%

17.5%

2030

China
中国

13.0%17.3%

3.4%
1.3%
2.5%

6.3%

3.0%

15.4%

3.6%

10.4%

23.8%

Data: http://www.ggdc.net/maddison/Historical_Statistics/horizontal-file_02-2010.xls and Angus Maddison, “Shares of the Rich and the Rest in
the World Economy: Income Divergence Between Nations, 1820-2030” Asian Economic Policy Review, Vol 3, Issue 1, June 2008, p.74.

Eastern
東欧Europe

4.4%

3.4%
8.5%

2.9%

5.9%
3.6%

6.0%

2.6%

7.5%

8.8%

2.6%

8.6%

11.1%

Figure 2: GDP Es�mates by Angus Maddison（１７００−２０３０）

Akihiko TanakaHumanDevelopment
Index

10

Japan Review Vol.1 No.1 Fall 2017

0.3

0.6

0.90Thailand

Fragile S
5Cambodia
Lao PDR
MyanmarVietnam

ChinaMalaysia(c)2017 Akihiko TanakaJapan

Data: Freedom House scores used above are calculated by reversing the original Freedom
House ratings so that higher scores indicate higher freedom.
https://freedomhouse.org/sites/default/files/
FH_Country_and_Territory_Ratings_and_Statuses_1972-2016_1.xls.
HDI is from http://hdr.undp.org/en/data#; Taiwan’s HDI is fromhttp://eng.stat.gov.tw/public/data/dgbas03/bs2/gender/International%20Gender/ 人類發展指數 .xls

10Taiwan

Korea Rep

Philippines

Indonesia

Hong Kong

Freedom House Score

Brunei Darussalam

Singapore

Realist S

East Asian Countries

Liberal S

Figure 3: Three Spheres 2014

The History of Asia in the 20th Century – The Origins of Prosperity and Stability –