Schwellenländer und internationales System: Zum Einfluß von Imperialismus, Ost-West-Konflikt und Neoimperialismus im Prozeß nachholender Entwicklung Ostasiens

Abstract

If we divide the former "Greater East-Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere" into an inner area, i.e. the territories brought under Japanese control before 1932, and an outer area, i.e. those brought under Japanese control before 1942, we see that only those of the inner area (North and South Korea, Manchuria, Taiwan) have the characteristics of threshold countries. The countries of the outer area, essentially identical with the present-day ASEAN group, have, on the other hand, all the characteristics of peripheral economies. Within the inner area there are, on the one hand, countries whose development was accompanied by a clear political and economic dissociation from the world system and, on the other hand, countries which attempt conscious integration into that world system. Hence, the foreign trade strategy in itself is not an adequate explanation but rather a variable conditioned by the social system and requiring the addition of other factors. The nature of Japanese imperialism in this inner area has meant that the foundations were laid for agricultural development and industrialization which after the end of colonial rule could be converted into developmental potential. This did not apply to the outer area, either because the Japanese rule lasted for only a short time or, as in the later ASEAN countries, Japanese activities were more akin to robbery than systematic colonization. Social upheaval in China and Korea led to internal flight of capital and of the elites, and a corresponding concentration of both in the non-socialist parts of these countries. The East-West conflict also led to a concentration of international capital and advisors. Nevertheless, we are still faced with the fact that similar strategies and the influx of foreign capital have not led elsewhere to comparable results. Therefore, we have to search for internal causes. A factor of major importance is that of the agricultural reforms which are radical compared with other third-world countries. Although such reforms have been engendered by competition between political systems, in Taiwan they have led largely to further modernization of agriculture and subsequent agroindustrialization. In contrast to statements which equate world market integration per se with imperialism and development blockades, the instances in East Asia show that development is possible underworld market associative as well as dissociative strategies; furthermore, world-market integration (for example, Indonesia) and extensive dissociation (as in the case of Burma) can also accompany typical underdevelopment profiles. This finding should lead to a greater concentration of development theory on the internal production of world-market associative as well as dissociative strategies.