Tradition and Change in East Asia

1
Chapter 27

• Tradition and Change in East Asia
• 1368 - 1795

2
Effect of Europeans

• Unlike Africa and the Americas, E. Asian
  societies controlled their own destinies until
  1800.
• China remains leading economic powerhouse
• In 17th and 18th centuries Tokugawa shogunate
  unifies Japan and lays groundwork for economic
  growth

3
East Asia Benefits from long distance trade

• Silver
• American plant crops

4
Quest for Political Stability China

• Ming Dynasty 1368-1644
• Qing Dynasty 1644-1911
• Revive Confucian traditions with bureaucracy
  staffed by successful takers of civil service exam

5
Early 1400s under Yongle

• Voyages of Zheng He
• Yongles successors halt expensive voyages -
  Mongol threat, perhaps bureaucrats jealous
• 1500s build Great Wall
• Corrupt government toward end of Ming Era,
  eunuchs with too much power makes enemies of
  bureaucrats and leads to peasant revolts

6
Qing Dynasty

• Ruled by Manchus (pastoral nomads)
• Forbid Chinese learning Manchurian and make men
  wear Manchu queue as sign of submission

7
2 Great leaders Kangxi 1662-1722 Qianlong
1736-1795

• Kangxi - Confucian scholar applies Confucian
  teaching through policies such as flood control
  irrigation thus helping welfare of the people and
  promoting agriculture
• Also conquers Taiwan and parts of Mongolia

8
Qianlong

• Makes Vietnam, Burma Nepal vassal states
• His encyclopedia compendium of knowledge
• Toward the end he gives too much responsibility
  to his favorite eunuchs and hunting and the harem
  become too important

9
Son of Heaven and Scholar Bureaucrats

• Tightly centralized state
• Scholar bureaucrats appointed by emperor govern
• Exams based on Confucian learning key to upward
  mobility - open to all males. It does help if
  you are from gentry

10
Family Clan life hierarchal, Patriarchic
authoritarian

• Veneration of ancestors
• Filial piety
• Chastity of widows
• Infanticide of females
• Foot binding

11
Prosperity

• Increased farm yields - American food
• Population boom
• Global trade brings prosperity - China imports
  are few and silver influx is great

12
Limit activities of foreign merchants

• Portugese on Macau British Guangzhou (see
  Qianlongs response to George III on p.736)
• Discourage large scale commercial ventures of
  Chinese merchants such as Dutch VOC or EEIC

13
Economic Expansion without Innovation

• Tang Song flood of innovation encouraged by
  government, now government more worried about
  stability. Primary concern is to preserve
  stability of large agrarian society not to
  promote rapid economic development thought trade

14
Social structure

• Emperor
• Gentry scholar bureaucrats/gentry - distinctive
  clothing, immune to corporal punishment, labor
  service taxes
• Peasants
• Artisans
• Workers
• Merchants social parasites - little legal
  protections BUT bribery and profit sharing with
  gentry in warehousing, money lending and pawn
  broking

15
New Old Culture

• Neo Confucianism as articulate by 12th century
  scholar Zhu Xi
• Urban popular culture made possible by printing -
  novels
• Catholic Missionaries - Jesuit Matteo Ricci -
  make only small number of conversions due to
  exclusive nature of Christianity

16
Unification of Japan

• Tokugawa Dynasty late 16th - early 17th century
• Also use neo Confucianism and tightly restrict
  foreign influence

17
16th Century civil war - sengoku

• 1600 - 1867 (Meijii Restoration) Tokugawa
  Shogunate rules
• Also use term bakufu (tent government)
• Have to control Daimyo (have vast territories)
  use policy of alternate attendance

18
Edicts against Europeans 1630s

• Fear European alliances with daimyo and
  possibility of being conquered like the
  Philippines
• Controls trade with Asian nations (still goes on)
  and limits Dutch to Nagasaki

19
Economic and Social Change

• Agriculture increases - new crop strains, new
  water control, use of fertilizer increase in
  production of silk, indigo,sake and cotton
• Brings rapid demographic growth BUT 1700 - 1850
  Demographic Transition. Limits in land
  available. Contraception, late marriage,
  thinning out the rice shoots

20
Push Daimyo and Samurai to become bureaucrats

• Some slide into debt to rice brokers - definitely
  lose status.

21
As China merchants increasingly wealthy and
prominent

• Rice dealers, pawnbrokers and sake merchants
  control more wealth than the ruling elites -
  some purchase elite status.

22
Culture

• Like Ming Qing, Neo Confucianism is promoted
• 18th century native learning - scorns
  Confucianism Buddhism as alien insist on
  importance of folk tradition and Shinto religion.
  Xenophobic
• Urban culture centers floating worlds -prose
  and theater - Kabuki and raku

23
Anti Christian Campaign 1587 - 1639

• Rulers fear religion can create cultural bridge
  with Daimyo.
• Buddhist and Confucian scholars resent due to
  claim it is the only true doctrine

24
Dutch and other learning

• Astronomy, medical and scientific literature
  translated into Japanese