Chapter 34 Reading Guide: Rebirth and Revolution:
Nation-Building in East Asia and the Pacific Rim
Chapter Summary. The recent history of China, Japan, and Vietnam has significant differences from
other Asian and African states. Japan remained independent, industrialized, and became a great
imperialist power. After World War II, Korea, Taiwan, and other industrializing nations gave the Pacific
Rim new importance. China and Vietnam suffered from Western and Asian imperialists. With their
traditional order in ruins, they had to face the usual problems of underdeveloped colonial peoples. Fullscale revolutions occurred. By the beginning of the 21st century, the result of all the changes gave east
Asia a new importance in world affairs.
1. In what sense has the success of Communism in China and Vietnam restored the old Chinese
Empire in East Asia?
INTRODUCTION
1.
Why was Yun accused of being a spy and sent to prison?
2.
In what year did the Communists win in China?
3.
Where did the Guomindang go when the Communists, under Mao, took China?
EAST ASIA IN THE POSTWAR SETTLEMENTS.
NEW DIVISIONS AND THE END OF EMPIRES.
4.
Explain why it wasn’t surprising North Korea became communist.
5.
What was America’s primary goal when it restructured Japan following WWII?
JAPANESE RECOVERY.
6.
What reforms did America force Japan to make during its restructuring?
7.
Why is the American Navy so active in the Pacific region today? (HINT: who is the guard dog?)
8.
Evaluate the American occupation of Japan both from its stated goal(s) and the changes it
brought to the people of Japan.
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Chapter 34 Reading Guide: Rebirth and Revolution:
Nation-Building in East Asia and the Pacific Rim
KOREA: INTERVENTION AND WAR.
9.
It what manner, other than becoming communist, did North Korea imitate the Soviet Union
politically?
10.
What sort of governments has South Korea had?
11.
How does South Korea’s economy compare to North Korea’s?
EMERGING STABILITY IN TAIWAN, HONG KONG, AND SINGAPORE.
12.
What happened to Hong Kong in 1997?
13.
Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore all play influential roles on the world scene in what
manner?
JAPAN, INCORPORATED.
JAPAN’S DISTINCTIVE POLITICAL AND CULTURAL STYLE.
14.
Although Japan is a democracy, in one manner it seemed as if it wasn’t between 1955 -1993.
How could it be said it was undemocratic?
15.
What caused Japanese politics to change in the 1990s and how is this similar both to the PRI
in Mexico in the late 20th century and the end of most Chinese dynasties?
16.
What was/is the relationship between Japanese business and government?
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Chapter 34 Reading Guide: Rebirth and Revolution:
Nation-Building in East Asia and the Pacific Rim
THE ECONOMIC SURGE.
17.
How did Japan’s economy compare to the rest of the world by the 1970s and 1980s?
18.
Why was Japan able to sink every bit of capital it had into its economy given it’s right next to
three communist countries, USSR (during the Cold War), China, and North Korea? Why was
it not worried about being attacked?
19.
What American sport was transferred to Japan?
20.
Japan’s government need to promote chopstick training in the schools tells us what about
Japan’s culture?
THE PACIFIC RIM: NEW JAPANS?
THE KOREAN MIRACLE.
21.
In what product areas did Korea compete with Japan?
22.
How does the work week and very limited vacation time indicate South Koreans were
influenced by Confucianism?
ADVANCES IN TAIWAN AND THE CITY-STATES.
23.
Given that China is communist, why do you think the U.S. broke official ties with Taiwan in
1978?
24.
What city-state in East Asia gained its independence in 1965?
25.
Why does this country have such a low crime rate?
26.
What did China promise to do regarding Hong Kong? Why do some not believe it?
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Chapter 34 Reading Guide: Rebirth and Revolution:
Nation-Building in East Asia and the Pacific Rim
VISUALIZING THE PAST: PACIFIC RIM GROWTH
27.
List the countries that make up the Pacific Rim.
28.
What countries are known as the “little tigers” and why do you think they have this name?
IN DEPTH: THE PACIFIC RIM AS A U.S. POLICY ISSUE
29.
How did the Pacific Rim countries benefit from the Cold War?
30.
Why do some people want America to leave its basis in the Pacific Rim?
COMMON THEMES AND NEW PROBLEMS.
31.
What did the Westerners and the World Bank attempt to convince the “little tigers” they
needed to do before they could get loans?
MAO’S CHINA AND BEYOND.
32.
Chiang Kai-shek and the Guomindang (a.k.a. Kuomintang or Nationalists) nearly defeated the
Chinese Communists. What happened to interfere with his victory?
33.
Cite specific benefits Mao and his communists received from World War 2 that led to their
victory over the Guomindang.
34.
What did Mao do to improve the life of peasants and win their support?
THE COMMUNISTS COME TO POWER.
35.
What evidence is given in the 2nd paragraph that shows China’s strength was returning
during the mid-20th century after the long decline of the Qing Dynasty and the destructive
civil war between the Nationalists and Communists and World War 2?
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Chapter 34 Reading Guide: Rebirth and Revolution:
Nation-Building in East Asia and the Pacific Rim
36.
What led to the split between the communist Soviet Union and the communist People’s
Republic of China?
PLANNING FOR ECONOMIC GROWTH AND SOCIAL JUSTICE.
37.
How did Mao deal with the problem of landless peasants in the early 1950s and how does
this resemble the policy Stalin used against the kulaks? (See page 699, right column)
38.
How did Mao’s policies toward peasants change in the mid-1950s?
39.
The third paragraph is a bit confusing. It states that Mao was always on the side of the
peasants yet it immediately follows with a description of the “Mass Line” approach. What was
this approach and how did it harm peasants?
40.
The phrase “let a hundred flowers bloom” sounds very pretty and positive. It refers to allowing
differences of opinion in order to improve society. Evaluate how positive it was and if its goals
were accomplished.
THE GREAT LEAP BACKWARD:
41.
What was the “Great Leap Forward” and who was it intended to help?
42.
Why did the GLP fail?
43.
What challenge did (does!) Chinese society face regarding its population and how did it try to
address that issue?
44.
Evaluate China’s population control efforts in light of the April 10, 2010 article by Peter
Hitchens included at the back of the packet. Have they worked? What side effects have
resulted?
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Chapter 34 Reading Guide: Rebirth and Revolution:
Nation-Building in East Asia and the Pacific Rim
45.
What ancient Chinese factor is playing a role in the disproportionate ration of males to
females today?
46.
What problems lay ahead in China’s future given the article and how might China attempt to
address them?
“WOMEN HOLD UP HALF OF THE HEAVENS.”
47.
List improvements made to the lives of women in China under the communists.
48.
What difficulties remained for women in China?
DOCUMENT: WOMEN IN THE REVOLUTIONARY STRUGGLE
49.
Read the FIRST paragraph of the primary source. Compare the view of women in communist
East Asia to the view the capitalist West holds.
50.
We have read in past chapters how Russia saw itself as backward compared to the West
regarding industrialization and tried to catch up through state intervention. China was also
trying to catch the West’s industrial might but this source indicates it was trying to catch up
in another way as well. What? (The last paragraph supplies a hint.)
MAO’S LAST CAMPAIGN AND THE FALL OF THE GANG OF FOUR.
51.
Explain what the Cultural Revolution was and the role of the Red Guard in it.
52.
Following Mao’s death, how has China’s economy changed?
53.
How does your text evaluate the overall impact of the communists on the majority of China’s
population?
COLONIALISM AND REVOLUTION IN VIETNAM.
54.
How was Vietnam divided prior to 1750?
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Chapter 34 Reading Guide: Rebirth and Revolution:
Nation-Building in East Asia and the Pacific Rim
55.
What European power played a major role in Vietnam’s history?
56.
How did religion factor into this power’s involvement in Vietnam?
57.
What East Asian philosophy was favored over Catholicism?
58.
North Vietnam will be the first area to become communist. Look very closely at the 2 nd to last
paragraph. Besides the North’s proximity to communist China, what other factor explains its
sympathetic leanings toward communism?
59.
Your text states that Vietnam was a major rice-exporting country yet between 1900 & 1930
the peasantry was eating less. Explain why this was the case.
VIETNAMESE NATIONALISM: BOURGEOIS DEAD ENDS AND COMMUNIST SURVIVAL.
60.
How did the West’s education system once again play a role in helping start a nationalist
movement, this time in Vietnam?
61.
The right to vote has been called controlled violence. In the American South, following the
Civil War, most males were stripped of this right during Reconstruction and the KKK was
born in part out of a sense of powerlessness on the part of white males. The French
Revolution grew out of a similar sense among lower classes in the 3rd Estate. How did French
leaders in Vietnam fail to learn these lessons, thus benefitting the very groups that were the
most hostile to them?
62.
When and where did Ho Chi Minh discover Marxism (communism)?
THE WAR OF LIBERATION AGAINST THE FRENCH.
63.
How did the Viet Minh win support in the north? How does this compare with Mao’s tactics in
China?
64.
What country supported France’s efforts to hold onto Vietnam and why?
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Chapter 34 Reading Guide: Rebirth and Revolution:
Nation-Building in East Asia and the Pacific Rim
THE WAR OF LIBERATION AGAINST THE UNITED STATES.
65.
“The United States was an imperialist power as shown by its involvement in Vietnam.”
Evaluate that statement through comparison with France’s role in Vietnam.
66.
Why was Diem such a horrible choice as a leader for the U.S. to support?
67.
List the nations that occupied Vietnam since the 19th century.
AFTER VICTORY: THE STRUGGLE TO REBUILD VIETNAM.
68.
Evaluate the successfulness of communism in Vietnam from 1975 to the present.
69.
Compare Vietnam’s present economic condition to that of China and give at least one reason
for the disparity.
GLOBAL CONNECTIONS: EAST ASIA AND THE PACIFIC RIM IN THE CONTEMPORARY WORLD.
70.
Why might the 21st century be called the “century of east Asia”?
Gendercide: China's shameful massacre of unborn girls means there will soon be
30m more men than women
By Peter Hitchens
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1265068/China-The-worlds-new-superpowerbeginning-century-supremacy-alarming-surplus-males.html
Last updated on 10th April 2010
In the cruel old China, baby girls were often left to die in the gutters. In the cruel modern China, they
are aborted by the tens of millions, using all the latest technology. There is an ugly new word for this
mass slaughter: gendercide. Thanks to a state policy which has limited many families to one child
since 1979, combined with an ancient and ruthless prejudice in favour of sons, the world's new
superpower is beginning the century of its supremacy with an alarming surplus of males.
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Chapter 34 Reading Guide: Rebirth and Revolution:
Nation-Building in East Asia and the Pacific Rim
By the year 2020, there will be 30 million more men than women of marriageable age in this giant
empire, so large and so different (its current population is 1,336,410,000) that it often feels more like a
separate planet than just another country. Nothing like this has ever happened to any civilisation
before.
…
But men without women are altogether more troublesome than women without men, especially when
they are young. All kinds of speculation is now seething about what might happen; a war to cull the
surplus males, a rise in crime, a huge expansion in the prostitution that is already a major industry in
every Chinese city, a rise in homosexuality.
Three things are for sure. It cannot now be prevented, and it is already beginning to be obvious in the
schools. It is also stimulating a miserable trade in stolen children.
The Chinese state, never having intended this result and increasingly alarmed by it, is now using all its
huge propaganda resources to try to stop the slaughter of unborn girls.
But it will be hard to fight against the cold hard prejudice in favour of sons and against daughters,
rooted in a prehistoric belief that sons will care for their aged parents while daughters will cost money
in dowries, and desert to the families into which they marry.
….
In one class of ten-year-olds, only 20 out of 80 were girls. In another classroom, it was 25 out of 63.
All over this district, the evidence of government concern is on display. A 20-yard-long propaganda
poster …quotes a recent national census showing a growing imbalance and predicts: 'In 2040 there will
be 300million men and 250 million women under 40. At least 30million men will have difficulty
getting married. This will cause "elements of instability" and hinder economic growth. The harm
caused by this imbalance could include disintegration of families, high divorce rates, "sex offences"
and distortion of the birth rate.'
…
[My friend] asked the abortionist if he ever aborted boys. He gaped. 'Are you mad?' he almost shouted,
'Nobody aborts boys unless they are deformed. Girls are what we abort.'
…
Only a century ago, historians recorded that such sayings as 'There is no thief like a family with five
daughters' and 'Daughters are goods which lose you money' were common among Chinese peasants.
Parents in those disease threatened times would often dress little boys as girls in the hope of deceiving
the angel of death as it passed over their village. All this has survived into the 21st Century, and is now
combined with a government which puts frightening pressure on every couple to keep to just one child.
…
Boys are kidnapped by families who want a male heir and do not care where they get him. Girls are
taken to be brought up as child brides for cherished, spoiled boys, who will not have to worry about the
increasing shortage of girls.
…
Clans and whole villages can and do combine to shield child-thieves from the law because of the
strong and ancient prejudices in favour of continuing the male line.
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