3 - Sharp Connectivity

Summary

European imperialism in Pacific Asia not only displaced China as the center of its neighbors’ attention but it splintered the region as well. This was sharp connectivity. France established French Indochina, the Dutch tightened their control of Indonesia, the British took over Malaya and Burma, and all of them had pieces of a disintegrating China. Japan avoided colonization and created its own empire, beginning with Korea and Taiwan. China became the vulnerable edge of a global frame, a frame centered on Europe that included the pieces of Pacific Asia. China’s population was now seen as an impediment to modernization, and its artisanal production was swamped by Western mass production. The US replaced European segmented globalization with a hub-and-spoke globalism rimmed by newly sovereign states. Meanwhile, the People’s Republic of China remained a mostly insignificant other to its neighbors until Deng Xiaoping’s policies took hold. The salience of China’s presence, population, and production began to rise, and China had become a significant other to its region by 1998. But the US remained the center of an unquestioned global order until the financial crisis of 2008.