east asia

tarim basin

Lowland desert region lying between the Tibetan Plateau in the south, and the Tien Shan in the west and north. Situated in the middle of Xinjiang province. Sparsely populated, except near oases.

korean peninsula

Peninsula projecting southeastward from Manchuria into the Pacific. Includes both Communist North Korea and democratic South Korea. East side of both North and South Korea mountainous; west side lower in elevation and more densely populated.

japanese archipelago

Four main islands of Japan: Hokkaido in the far north; Honshu in the middle (including Tokyo and most other large cities); Shikoku and Kyushu in the south. Mountainous islands formed by collision of Pacific and Eurasian plates. High risk of earthquakes and tsunamis.

ryukyu

Smaller islands governed by Japan, extending from just south of Kyushu to just northeast of Taiwan. Includes Okinawa, site of major US military bases.

taiwan

Mountainous island off China’s southeast coast. Governed by exiled “Republic of China” government since 1949 Communist takeover on Chinese mainland.

ainu

Formerly spoken on Hokkaido by indigenous hunter-gatherer population. Distinguished from ethnic Japanese majority by heavy beards and other physical traits superficially similar to Middle Eastern and brunet European populations (but genetically ancient East Asian).

korean war

• In August 1945, during the closing weeks of World War II in the Pacific, the Soviet Union joined the Western Allies in occupying Japan’s remaining colonial possessions on the East Asian mainland.

• In addition to driving Japanese forces out of Manchuria, the Soviets took control of the northern half of the Korean Peninsula. US troops, meanwhile, occupied Korea south of the 38th parallel (38°N).

• Two rival Korean governments emerged under Soviet and US tutelage: a Communist North Korea with its capital at Pyongyang, and an (eventually) democratic South Korea with its capital at Seoul.

• In June 1950, North Korean forces invaded South Korea with the aim of forcing unification under Communist rule. The US led a UN-backed coalition to help South Korea repel the attack.

• After 3 years of back-and-forth fighting that devastated most of the Peninsula, an armistice went into effect in the summer of 1953.

• Over time, South Korea developed a thriving economy and a liberal democratic government. The North remained authoritarian and increasingly isolated, with widespread poverty and an economy geared toward military production (including, since the 1990s, nuclear arms).

xinjiang

• Xinjiang, on China’s northwest frontier, was historically inhabited mainly by Turkic and Iranian-speaking Muslims. The largest Turkic ethnic group there, the Uighurs, number 11 million. Other non-Han groups include the Turkic Kazakhs (related to the people of Kazakhstan) and the Iranian Tajiks (related to the people of Tajikistan).

• Since the 1950s, the Chinese Communist government has aggressively sought to increase the Han Chinese present in Xinjiang, to the point that Han now make up 40 percent of the province’s inhabitants.

• Episodic unrest by Muslim Uighurs seeking greater self-rule led after 2009 to increasingly brutal repression by Chinese government authorities – more recently culminating in the mass-incarceration of several million Uighurs in so-called “reeducation” camps, where they have subject to forced labor, torture, and brainwashing.

taiwan

• A Japanese colony from 1895 until 1945, the island of Taiwan provided a refuge for the Nationalist government of Chiang Kai-shek following the Communist takeover of mainland China in 1949.

• Initially conservative and autocratic, Taiwan after Chiang’s death gradually evolved into a successful liberal democracy with a vibrant and growing economy – its 23 million inhabitants enjoying a per capital gross national income of over $38,000 (roughly 5 times that of mainland China).

• Despite functioning as a de facto independent country, Taiwan is still nominally a province of China, and Beijing’s desire to regain control of it remains a source of regional tension. Nevertheless, Taiwan-based companies pursue business on the mainland, and the mutual desire of the Chinese and Taiwanese governments for continued economic prosperity makes armed conflict unlikely.

north china plain

Densely-populated lowland area between lower Huang He (Yellow) and Yangtze river valleys in eastern China, from Beijing southward to Shanghai.

sino-tibetan macrofamily

• Speakers of the Sinitic subfamily of Sino-Tibetan – numbering over 1 billion persons – constitute the “Han Chinese” ethnic majority (90 percent of China’s population). Regional Sinitic (Chinese) dialects include Mandarin in north; Cantonese in south

• Tibeto-Burman subfamily: Tibetan; tribal languages of western Sichuan province.

Beginnings of Civilization in East Asia

• Farming began in the river valleys of China around 8000-7000 years ago (several thousand years later than in the Middle East).

• In the Huang He (Yellow) River Valley, where the climate was relatively cool and dry, the chief crops were wheat, millet, and soybeans. In the Yangtze River and southward, rice was predominant.

• Farming spread from northern China to Korea, and from southern China to Southeast Asia, by 3000BCE. All of Japan remained home to Ainu hunter- gatherers until 300BCE, when the ethnic Japanese arrived from the East Asian mainland (probably Korea).

pastoral nomadism

• On the Tibetan Plateau; the Taklimakan and Gobi Deserts; and the plains of Mongolia and Manchuria, infrequent rainfall and frigid winters limited population growth and rendered farming very difficult or impossible.

• Instead, the Tibetan, Turkic, Mongolian, and Manchu cultures of these drier areas on the periphery of China Proper developed societies based on pastoral nomadism, raising herds of yaks, horses, sheep, and Bactrian camels for meat, milk, wool, and hides by allowing them to graze on seasonal vegetation.

• Some nomadic peoples skilled in horsemanship – most notably the Mongols in the 13th century and the Manchus during the 17th – used their armies to conquer China and Korea, and rule them for extended periods.

Fukushima, Japan, 2011

NUCLEAR REACTOR MALFUNCTION

hong kong

• The port of Hong Kong, situated in southeast China on the delta of the Pearl River opposite the older city of Guangzhou, came under British colonial rule in the 1840s as a result of Manchu China’s defeat in the Opium War.

• In 1997, Britain returned the Hong Kong territory to Chinese rule on the understanding that the city – which had developed a liberal political culture under British rule – would retain a high degree of administrative autonomy (hence the slogan “One Country, Two Systems.”)

• Since 2014, however, the Chinese government, wary of political dissent among young Hong Kong residents, has moved to restrict civil liberties in the enclave, imposing tighter administrative and judicial controls.