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

EC120 week 06, topic 5, slide 8

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