Economic appeasement or economic nationalism? A political perspective on the British Empire, Japan, and the rise of Intra‐Asian Trade, 1933–37

Abstract

Over the last decade the study of the international history of East Asia in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries has undergone rapid change. This has occurred largely for two reasons: first, the appearance of new archival materials, particularly recently released documents from Taipei, Beijing and Moscow; and second, the rise of new methodological approaches, especially the growing interest in cultural history. These developments have led to significant revisions, such as a greater emphasis on the triangular relationship between Japan, China and Russia, and an increasing awareness of the importance of social forces and popular opinion. Although these new interpretations have gained great attention, they have, however, not been the only changes. Equally significant, if not perhaps as well known among political historians, has been the emergence of a major new interpretation of East Asian economic history. Over the last two decades Japanese economic historians led by Kaoru Sugihara, Heita Kawakatsu, and Takeshi Hamashita have published work stressing the significance in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries of the growth of intra-Asian trade.1 Challenging the idea that economic development should be measured solely in terms of trade with the West, they have demonstrated that in this period there was a rapid development of commercial ties between the countries of South, Southeast and East Asia. This, they argue, was largely the result of the growth of manufacturing in Japan and other Asian countries and the development of intra-regiona l networks of Chinese and Indian merchants. This process took place despite the fact that formal political power over much of the region was still held by European governments, and over time the trade became so substantial that it was more important to many of the Asian states than commercial links with the West. Moreover, drawing upon the 'Gentlemanly Capitalism' model of British imperialism conceived by Cain and Hopkins, they stress