The Origins of Japanese Trade Supremacy: Development and Technology in Asia from 1540 to the Pacific War by Christopher Howe

Abstract

TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 501 Jan Robert Selman Dr. Selman is professor of chemical engineering at the Illinois Institute of Tech­ nology in Chicago. His interest in East Asian science and technology arose from frequent contacts with Japanese and Chinese colleagues in the course of electro­ chemical research focusing on advanced batteries and fuel cells. The Origins ofJapanese Trade Supremacy: Development and Technology in Asia from 1540 to the Pacific War. By Christopher Howe. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996. Pp. xxvii+471; illustrations, ta­ bles, figures, notes, bibliography, index. $49.95 (cloth). This is the best analysis yet in English of the role of technology in Japan’s emergence as a global economic power. Its merits are numerous. Technology is placed firmly in the context of economic development. History in the long term, the horizons that shape so­ cial consciousness in Japan, forms the appropriate canvas. Many quantitative data are combined with literary sources. Case studies mingle with and enliven survey materials. Extensive use is made of works in Japanese, as well as some in Chinese. In rich detail, Howe explores two propositions; first, thatJapan’s rise to global competi­ tiveness in one industry after another is not a post-1945 phenome­ non; second, thatJapan’s successful utilization of foreign technolo­ gies built upon many accumulated skills, organizational as well as craft skills. The book is divided into four parts. The first offers an examina­ tion of trade policies in the Tokugawa era (1600-1867) and early Meiji era (1867-1912). In the former the ruling shogunate (domi­ nant baronial dynasty) buttressed its power by secluding the country from international trade (apart from a peephole on the West via Dutch traders annually admitted to the tiny island of Deshima off Nagasaki). In the early Meiji decades the restoration ofimperial gov­ ernment brought a commitment to economic development as a means of achieving military parity with the West. Particularly good in this part are the summaries of Buddhist and Confucian attitudes to trade, with both negative and positive aspects clearly explained. The second part spans the period 1880-1937 and in four chapters considers the balance of payments, public policy (on the gold stan­ dard, tariffs, and commercial policy), the establishment of a cotton industry before 1900, and the attainment of international competi­ tiveness in cotton textiles between 1914 and the late 1930s. While the outlines of these developments are well known—see, for exam­ ple, G. C. Allen’s classic A Short EconomicHistory ofModemJapan (New York: St. Martin’s, 1981, 4th ed.)—Howe presents data from recent Japanese scholars like Takamura and Nishikawa (on cotton). What may be less known is the early importance of organizational 502 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE abilities and of nonmechanical skills. Besides the roles ofestablished trading companies like Mitsui dating back to the Tokugawa era, there was the part played by the trade associations such as theJapan Cotton Spinners’ Association, which in 1893 negotiated an agree­ mentwith the national shipping company NYK giving cotton import­ ers preferential rates for bringing Indian cotton from Bombay. Trade networks were completed by the simultaneous formation of Japanese trading and banking firms in that Indian port. Out of these networks came skill in segmenting markets. As for nonmechanical skills, the Japanese excelled at the blending of raw cottons. The re­ sults were evidenced by a variety of measures. Particularly telling were the comparative costs achieved by Japanese cotton mills in China between the wars: half those of Chinese mills. The third part of the study treats the role of technology. Expect­ edly, Howe places much importance on the part played by govern­ ment, educational levels, and foreign skills and imports of capital equipment. Particularly interesting is his plotting of technology gaps, demonstrating in metallurgy an increasing speed of transfer over two hundred years before 1914 in acquiring Western technol­ ogy. Similarly novel is his alignment of Christopher Freeman’s and Carlota Perez’s epochs of innovation againstjapan’s decision to pur­ sue Western capitalism. “Japan’s first efforts at catching up began at the favourable early stage of the West’s second major technological epoch,” he writes (p. 241). Also important in the 1920s were stan...