ec120 week 06, topic 5, slide 0 trade and technology: an asian perspective topics: islam and ottoman...
TRANSCRIPT
EC120 week 06, topic 5, slide 1
Trade and technology: an Asian perspective
Topics:
• Islam and Ottoman Empire
• India
• China
• Elsewhere in Asia
• Summing up
EC120 week 06, topic 5, slide 2
Islam and the Ottoman Empire • By 18C Islam had spread beyond Ottoman Empire
into SE Asia
• Ottoman empire slowly declined from mid 17C but survived to 1922
• Strengths: unified, centralised, militaristic power-base
• External threats: increasing competition from bordering states
• Internal threats: gradual disintegration of territorial control
Ottoman Empire: economic strengths & weaknesses
• In early centuries (strengths):– Conduit for goods and ideas from East to
West:– Source of ideas and technologies
• Later centuries (weaknesses):– Increased competition in trade– Resource constraints
& sparse population– Oppressive taxation– Reluctance to adopt
new technologies
EC120 week 06, topic 5, slide 3
EC120 week 03, topic 2, slide 4
Ottoman Empire: long slow decline• Even before 1683, signs of weakness began to
emerge
• Sources of decline– Political weakness– Political maladministration– Social rigidities– Contempt of foreign ideas
Indian subcontinentPolitical and social institutions• Mughal domination
for 2+ centuries• Fragility & instability but rigid
social structures persisted
Trade and industry • Mostly village agriculture,
with some urban centres• Production based on labour intensive
technology (low wages)
EC120 week 06, topic 5, slide 5
EC120 week 03, topic 2, slide 6
India: stagnation in the Mughal empire
Economic instability and stagnation in the Mughal empire:
• Mughal emperors failed to provide effective governance
• Uncertain and arbitrary tax burden on the peasantry
– Blunted incentives for economic improvement
• Mughal impositions became self-defeating
India: transition to colonial rule
• External pressures initially limited to trading ports
• Portuguese displaced by British & French
• British domination by late 18C, via East India Company
• EIC expanded trade with Britain and China
• Imposed effective state bureaucracy: tax collection, law and order; disciplined military
EC120 week 06, topic 5, slide 7
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China overview from c1500
Contrasting pattern of economic progress and stagnation:
• Instability from 15C and 16C, reinforced rigid authoritarianism, intensified central control, high taxation
• Official policy became more inward looking
• Overland caravan trade routes stagnate
• European incursions from1520s, especially from late 18C
• Persistent instability & decline from late 18C
EC120 week 06, topic 5, slide 9
China: patterns of change
• Despite political upheavals, trade seems to have thrived:
– Official trade highly regulated, informal trade flourished
– Foreign intervention to impose free(er) trade
• Trade patterns, emphasis on high value/weight goods:
– Exports: silk, porcelain and, especially, tea
– Imports: silver, opium, European manufactures
EC120 week 06, topic 5, slide 10
China: growth and stagnation
Evidence of Chinese economic decline?
• Conventional view: decline began long before 1800– Supported by evidence, albeit sparse, on wage
rates
• Revisionist, `California school’: decline was from c1800– Challenges evidence & argues that Chinese
decline resulted from chance European advantages
EC120 week 06, topic 5, slide 11
Elsewhere in Asia (too briefly)
• Russia and China: expanded overland trade late 17C
• Japan (Tokugawa Shogunate, 1603 – Meiji Restoration, 1868)– Rapid industrialisation
but only after 1868
• SE Asian archipelago: from 17C the scene of European rivalry
EC120 week 06, topic 5, slide 12
Summing up (to late 18th century)
• After c1500, long-distance overseas trade in high value/weight items comes to dominate– But it’s a long, slow and uneven process of
expansion
• Diverse trajectories across Asia
• Agriculture remains the main economic activity throughout Asia