East Asia and the Global Economy

Japan’s Ascent, with Implications for China’s Future

Stephen G. Bunker, Paul S. Ciccantell

• Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
• Year: 2007
• eBook ISBN: 9780801895883
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Development Economics
• Index: Social Sciences

After World War II, Japan reinvented itself as a shipbuilding powerhouse and began its rapid ascent in the global economy. Its expansion strategy integrated raw material procurement, the redesign of global transportation infrastructure, and domestic industrialization. In this authoritative and engaging study, Stephen G. Bunker and Paul S. Ciccantell identify the key factors in Japan's economic growth and the effects this growth had on the reorganization of significant sectors of the global economy.

Bunker and Ciccantell discuss what drove Japan's economic expansion, how Japan globalized the work economy to support it, and why this spectacular growth came to a dramatic halt in the 1990s. Drawing on studies of ore mining, steel making, corporate sector reorganization, and port/rail development, they provide valuable insight into technical processes as well as specific patterns of corporate investment.

East Asia and the Global Economy introduces a theory of "new historical materialism" that explains the success of Japan and other world industrial powers. Here, the authors assert that the pattern of Japan's ascent is essential for understanding China's recent path of economic growth and dominance and anticipating what the future may hold.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface
• 1. Growth and Crisis in the Japanese Economy
• 2. Economic Ascent and Hegemony in the Capitalist World-Economy
• 3. The MIDAs-Steel-Ships Nexus
• 4. Creating Japan’s Coal-Exporting Peripheries
• 5. Replicating Japan’s New Model in Iron Ore
• 6. Transporting Coal and Iron Ore
• 7. The Restructuring of Global Markets and the Future of the Capitalist World-Economy
• References
• Index