GEOG2400 SPRING 2003 THE GEOGRAPHY OF WORLD DEVELOPMENT

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GEOG2400 SPRING 2003 THE GEOGRAPHY OF WORLD
DEVELOPMENT

• CLASS 18
• Focus on Regions
• East Asia Region

Element 3 Sophomore GE Cluster Global Wealth,
Poverty and Inequality
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East Asia
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East Asia

• East Asia is composed of China, Japan, South
  Korea, North Korea, and Taiwan
• It is the most populous region in the world
• It was the most economically advanced 1000 years
  ago
• Today, it is one of the core areas of the world
  economy and an emerging center of political and
  military power
• Chinas economy has been growing at around 10
  per year although not without tremendous
  environmental effects such as polluted urban air,
  acid precipitation and loss of habitat.
• With Chinas growing might, Taiwans precarious
  status, and North Koreas cold-war mentality, the
  region is increasingly tense

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China Dominates

• Chinas population is huge and continuing to
  grow, even with its aggressive efforts to reduce
  fertility through one-child policies.
• Japan and South Korea both have incredibly dense
  populations and have the most advanced economies,
  ones totally dependent on imported resources.
• Large cities form Tokyo (28m), Osaka (14m),
  Shanghai (14m), Beijing (13m), Seoul (10m),
  Taipei (7m).

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East Asia Population
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East Asia Physical
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Population and Settlement

• East Asian settlement is largely on lowland
  floodplains and valley bottoms.
• Much of the region is very mountainous due to its
  location in a seismically active area.
• Japanese Settlement and Agricultural Patterns
• Japans Agricultural Lands
• Largely limited to countrys coastal plains and
  interior basins
• Rice, fruit, and vegetable cultivation
• Tremendous latitudinal range gives Japan amazing
  climatic variation
• Settlement Patterns
• The three largest metropolitan areas are Tokyo,
  Osaka, and Nagoya
• Population density averages 870 per square mile
• Japans Urban-Agricultural Dilemma
• Restricted living space in urban areas
• Farmers are politically powerful and can thwart
  expansion
• National importance given to rice
  self-sufficiency is the reason

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Population and Settlement

• China, although it has over 400 million people
  living in cities, is only 30 urban.
• Chinas Agricultural Regions
• Rice dominant crop in the south (more tropical)
• Wheat, millet, and sorghum dominant in the north
  (colder)
• North China Plain is one of the key
  breadbaskets for the region
• Chinas landscape has been drastically altered by
  human intervention termed an anthropogenic
  landscape and is increasingly being changed.
• Some areas remain very underpopulated the
  desert regions and the loess plateau in
  particular
• Chinas population growth, conversion of farmland
  to cities, and growing meat consumption means it
  now has to import vast amounts of grains.

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Population and Settlement

• Chinas urban centers are very high density,
  especially the newly acquired Hong Kong
• The two Koreas are densely populated also (70
  million combined)
• 1,150 people per square mile
• Big cities dot the landscape in South Korea,
  separated by rice paddies and forests
• Taiwan is the most densely settled with 22
  million people
• 1,500 people per square mile
• High urban densities retaining forest areas over
  large areas (typical of Japan too)
• East Asia, other than China, have tried very hard
  to preserve forest cover on their land, doing so
  at the expense of their SouthEast Asian neighbors.

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Population and Settlement

• The East Asian economies, North Korea
  notwithstanding, practice agricultural and
  resource procurement in a global context, heavily
  dependent on external sources of food, wood
  products, minerals and oil
• Japan is one of the worlds largest food
  importers
• Imports of wood products, oil, coal, and minerals
  to Japan underpin the whole economy
• Chinas agricultural self-sufficiency has been
  reduced
• High resource needs place tremendous pressure on
  the land, although in the case of Japan, domestic
  environmental damage has been minimized by
  exporting pollution locating polluting
  factories overseas
• North Korea has adopted a path of
  self-sufficiency, creating a problem - famine and
  undernutrition

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China Sensitive to Environmental Damage

• Chinas huge population means its population to
  domestic resources ratios are relatively low.
• According to the World Bank, compared to world
  averages, per capita availability of agricultural
  land 25, grazing land 50, forests 15,
  water 33.
• Air pollution averages 2-5 times WHO levels in
  Chinas major cities.
• Less than 7 of municipal wastewater is treated.
• Acid rainfall is thought to be damaging about 28
  of Chinas land area.
• With the massive population growth, reliance on
  traditional medicines has led to the decimation
  of many species populations for ingredients.

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An environmental picture

• Chinas settled plains leave in an uneasy
  relationship with the rivers that formed them.
  Now so populated that flooding must be
  controlled.
• Vast numbers of giant flood control and
  hydroelectric dams have been build on the
  nations waterways.
• A current controversy still rages over the Three
  Gorges Project
• Chinese government is in the process of damming
  the Yangtze (Chang Jiang) River
• To control flooding and to generate electricity
• Will be the largest hydroelectric dam in the
  world
• Will jeopardize several animal species, inundate
  a major scenic attraction, and displace up to 2
  million people
• World Bank withdrew support of the project

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Three Gorges
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Three Gorges

• Benefits associated with the project
• Reduce the nations dependence on high sulfur
  coal (major source of air pollution)
• Flood control
• Problems with the project
• Inundation of areas of outstanding natural
  beauty, high biodiversity and the need for
  extensive relocation of inhabitants
• Problems of silting upstream and sediment loss
  and periodic flooding of farmland with river
  silts downstream.

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Air pollution - a cloud on the horizon

• Chinas industrial output rose 18 annually in
  the 1990s.
• Respiratory disease is the number one cause of
  death in China.
• Air pollution in some Chinese cities is currently
  among the highest ever recorded worldwide, 10
  times WHO health standards - SO2, TSPs and lead
  are acute.
• China has mushrooming auto use but more than 40
  of cars and 70 of taxis fail all emission
  standards.
• In industrial regions like Xuan Wei and Hebei,
  lung cancer rates are five times the rest of the
  nation and women non-smokers have the highest
  rates in the world for this group.

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Costs of environmental degradation

• The 1996 China governments report on the State
  of the Environment said that the economic costs
  of ecological destruction and environmental
  pollution in China are equivalent to 14 of the
  GNP.
• The World Bank estimated that the negative
  effects of air and water pollution alone can be
  valued at around 8 of GNP or more than 50
  billion.
• Chinas recent economic growth, using just GNP,
  is thus a little misleading when it comes to the
  true standard of living improvements (note that
  the same can be said for the US also).

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East Asia Environment

• Hot spots of forest destruction and erosion
• China has some serious problems
• Japan, Taiwan, South Korea have avoided many
  problems by pollution controls and externalizing
  problems through the supply chain.

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Cultural Coherence and Diversity

• Linguistic and ethnic diversity among different
  groups in Japan and China leads to inequality and
  discrimination
• Koreans, Chinese, and South Asians in Japan feel
  frequently maginalized.
• Like India, Japan has its untouchable cast
  the Burakumin Eta an outcast group of Japanese
  whose ancestors worked in polluting industries
  such as leather craft.
• China is dominated by the Han Chinese and non-Han
  groups have been excluded from government jobs.