Author: cquigley20

East Asia was in a state of fluctuation. The once-powerful Qing Empire in China was left reeling from the Opium Wars and Western intervention. Japan saw this as an opportunity to fill the void. Japan sought to gain power and influence in East Asia through modernization and westernization. Japan began trading with western powers more than with China. At this time, China’s experience was not going well with empires. While they were once the powerhouse of East Asia, the Opium Wars left them in shambles. Japan took advantage, taking over as the powerhouse of East Asia but as a more westernized nation.

The primary source about Mo Guokang helps to elaborate on some of the problems with the Chinese government during World War II. The article talks about how Mo Guokang was a “committee member” of the government of Wang Jingwei but had no talent or education. Mo was not qualified to be in such a position but due to her connection to Chen Gongbo. The article describes both Chen and Mo as traitors too. The source portrays Mo as someone who was not qualified to be in their position in any way but found someone more powerful, who they consider a traitor, to help keep them in power. This source is said to be a tabloid article, so it might be very biased, but it still shows at least one person view on the Chinese government at the time. They saw a lot of corruption and bad in it and they wanted to write about it, maybe this was an attempt to expose them.

This week we talked about the industrialization of the Rhineland and Ruhr Valley in Germany, as well as the growth in Bombay and Jaffa. On top of that, we read about the race war of the Philippine-American War.  In the lectures on Jaffa, Germany, and Bombay, we learned about the various reasons as to why these areas grew in population. Whether it be due to industrialization or the increase in mills, these areas had a population boom that made them into what we might see them as today.

In the reading about the Philippine-American war, one part reminded me about a topic in another class I had with Professor Shaya, Europe from 1890-1945. In that class, we discuss a lot about the rise of the Nazi’s and their propaganda tactics. Kramer, early in the reading, talks about guerrilla warfare and how American soldiers were led to believe that Filipino’s waged guerrilla wars, as in not conventional warfare. They were led to believe Filipinos as savages. This reminded me a bit of the propaganda surrounding the Jewish population in Germany and Poland between the two world wars and during World War Two. The comparison I draw is the dehumanizing of a population of people in an attempt to kill them. In the reading, dehumanizing Filipinos so American soldiers willfully commit such brutalities seen in the Philippine-American War. In Germany, to attempt to exterminate an entire group of people. The degree of the dehumanizing is drastically different and not on the same level, but the dehumanizing of the Filipino soldiers, as well as having Professor Shaya discuss 1900’s Germany reminded me of that course as well as help me make that comparison.

At the beginning of the “The Export Boom as Modernity” reading, I found the comment that the export boom can be explained or told in many different lights. It shows that even in history, it is possible to spin a story one way or another and it’s important to look at every part of the story, not just the convenient version. Bright and Geyer, maybe not explicitly, do a good job of this. They did not like or believe in the “catch-up” model for the rest of the world compared to Western Europe. While it is a popular belief that Western Europe innovated and the rest of the world had to catch-up, Bright and Geyer believed it was more exploitation and survival strategies. They are taking one version of the story and saying another. Just as in the export boom of Latin America, the statistics can be spun in any number of ways.

The first section after the intro discusses the wide-spread belief in Latin America that order must be attained before progress and modernity can be made. That no progress could be made without order. This goes slightly against what David Christian wrote about in The Fleeting World. Christian says that the “diagnostic feature of the modern era seems to be the sharp increase in rates of innovation” (58). While those in Latin America may not disagree with Christian, they also believe that order must come first, at least for Latin American nations. I do not necessarily agree with the belief of order before progress but I understand the thought process behind it. They believed there had to be order in their countries before they could make progress to modernity.

One of the main points that Bright and Geyer talk about is their dislike of the “catching up” model. They do not like the metaphor of Western Europe innovating and then the rest of the world is playing catch up. They believe that it is more exploitation and strategies for survival. Bright and Geyer’s idea/model reminds me of a book I read on globalization in another class. In the book, it talked about the outsourcing of jobs to other countries such as India. One example is call centers. Call center jobs are being outsourced to other countries because of the cheaper labor. These other countries are taking advantage of companies not wanting to spend as much on employees and these companies are exploiting these other countries for cheaper labor.

Another example is having an assistant across the world. Some employers will hire personal assistants that live half-way across the world. Why would someone do this? People do this because when they are sleeping, their assistant/employee is awake and working. If they have an assistant that works right next to them, they can’t ask them to do something for them right before they both leave for work and expect it done by the morning. But if their assistant works half-way across the world, the employer can ask the assistant to do something and when they wake up in the morning, they will have it done. This wouldn’t be possible without globalization and the innovation of the internet, email, etc. But India isn’t necessarily playing catch-up in these cases, rather America and Western Europe exploiting other countries for cheaper labor and other countries recognizing an opportunity in working while Western Europe and America sleeps.