Contemporary Asia

• Asia had the most dynamic economic sphere of world activity, especially the nations in the Pacific Rim (countries bordering the Pacific Ocean)
• Asia is also fraught with intense national rivalries that could easily lead to military confrontations
• In 1989, eighteen nations from the Americas to Southeast Asia formed the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC)
• APEC aimed to eliminate all trade barriers along the Pacific Rim by 2020
• Japan


  By 1980, Japan had become an economic power in the world. Its prosperity was built primarily on American aid following World War II. Japan grew into an economic powerhouse that hindered the spread of communism in the region.
• Japan's economic transformation


  1. Moved into a realm of high technology for the sake of energy conservation

  2. Progressed toward cutting energy costs through greater fuel efficiency

  3. Moved away from heavy industry toward an "Information Age" of computer technology
• By the 1980s, Japan hosted the second-largest gross domestic product (GDP) in the world after the United States
• During the 1980s and 1990s


  Tensions developed between Japan and export markets in Western Europe and the United States over trade imbalances that gave Japan a huge export surplus
• In 1995, the United States and Japan even threatened a "trade war" against one another over the exportation of luxury vehicles
• Japan's military role in Asia

  By the 1990s, Japan called for more national autonomy in the area of national defense. Japan began to assume a larger military role in Asia, but the threat of Communist China meant that the Japanese still had to rely on a close relationship with the United States.
• In 1989, Communist China experienced a demonstration in which the people of China demanded more civil rights. What resulted was the Tiananmen Square Massacre.
• Although Communist China continued its repression of political dissent and religious activity throughout the 1990s, large amounts of foreign capital continued to flow into the country
• The coastal cities of China experienced phenomenal economic growth, but experiments in free-market reform remained under the tight control of the Communist Party
• In March 1996, Lee Teng-hui became the first democratically elected leader in Chinese history as the new president of Taiwan
• Communist China wanted to annex Taiwan and believed that Taiwan was a rogue province


  To intimidate Taiwan, the Chinese army held a series of military exercises off Taiwan's coast
• The United States responded by placing aircraft carriers off Formosa
• The communists ended their military exercises but continued to threaten to annex Taiwan
• On July 1, 1997, Hong Kong returned to China after existing for over a century as a British colony
• Under the British, Hong Kong emerged as a premier example of capitalism with minimum government regulations
• The Chinese government promised to keep capitalism in Hong Kong for fifty years
• North Korea emerged as a threat to global security in the 1990s when American agents discovered that the communists there were building atomic weapons
• North Korea and the United States agreed that North Korea would halt its nuclear arms production in exchange for economic aid from the free world
• Since then, North Korea has constantly been a danger to global security and has threatened to attack South Korea
• South Korea saw Kim Dae-jung as the first civilian president since the early 1960s
• South Korea remains an ally to the United States and US allies
• To this day, South Korea and North Korea are often at odds with one another—a clear example of the idealistic gulf between communism in the North versus free-market capitalism established in the South
• To this day a demilitarized zone separates North and South Korea. This zone is peppered with bombs, landmines, and guard towers on either side
• In 1987, the Vietnamese communists began to institute free-market reforms in an attempt to attract foreign investments
• In 1994, US President Clinton ended a nineteen-year-old trade embargo against Vietnam
• Full diplomatic relations were restored between the United States and Vietnam a year later
• What is APEC?


  Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation
• What were some issues facing the Pacific Rim as the 1990s dawned? (Choose all that apply.)

  Highly volatile area susceptible to war

  Economic instability
• What caused a shift in the Japanese economy in the 1970s?

  Oil prices from OPEC 
• Who was the first democratically elected leader in Taiwan?

  Lee Teng-hui