Geopolitics and Asia’s little divergence: State building in China and Japan after 1850

Mark Koyama, Chiaki Moriguchi and Tuan-Hwee Sng

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2018, vol. 155, issue C, 178-204

Abstract: We provide a new framework to account for the diverging paths of political development in China and Japan during the late nineteenth century. The arrival of Western powers not only brought opportunities to adopt new technologies, but also fundamentally threatened the sovereignty of both countries. These threats and opportunities produce an unambiguous impetus toward centralization and modernization for small states, but place conflicting demands on 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 rapidly unified and modernized.

Keywords: China; Japan; Geopolitics; State capacity; Political fragmentation; Political centralization; Economic modernization (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H2 H4 H56 N30 N33 N35 N40 N43 N45 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

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Working Paper: Geopolitics and Asia’s Little Divergence: State Building in China and Japan After 1850 (2017)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:155:y:2018:i:c:p:178-204

DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2018.08.021

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