The Connectedness and Disconnectedness between East Asian World and European World System from the 16th through the 18th Century

Abstract

The Connectedness and disconnectedness between East Asian world and European world system in the early modern time is clear: The two worlds were economically more connected than ever, but not so closely that we can speak of integration, needless to mention political integration. In fact, scholarships including Wallerstein’s The Modern World-System have empirically confirmed this multipolar character of the world system.<BR> More challenging question is, however, how to entangle the connectedness of East Asian and European world with their disconnectedness. This paper explores a possibility to write an entangled history using the relationship of East Asia to the emerging European world system. The emerging process of the modern world system was a hybridization and cross-fertilization of these two worlds, not a one-tailed expansion of European world system. Based upon this conjunctural analysis, we could get to a clearer image of the location of East Asia as a single world region.