AP World History: Topic 1.1- Development of East Asia

Key Terms

• Neo-Confucianism- the revival of the various strands of Confucian philosophy and political culture that began in the middle of the 9th century and reached new levels of intellectual and social creativity in the 11th century in the Northern Song Dynasty

• Sinification- the assimilation or spread of Chinese Culture

• Shogunate- the hereditary military dictatorship of Japan

• Champa Rice- a quick-maturing, drought-resistant rice variety, allowed farming to spread to lands where once rice could no grow

• Song Dynasty- A Chinese imperial dynasty known for its cultural achievements and technological innovations

• Filial Piety- an attitude of respect for parents and ancestors in societies influenced by Confucian though

• Shintoism- Japan’s native belief system, shared its spiritual, cultural, and political roles with Buddhism and Confucianism

• Goryeo- a Korean state founded in 918, during a time of national division called the Later Three Kingdoms period, that unified and ruled the Korean Peninsula until the establishment of Joseon in 1392, had developments in architecture, ceramics, printing, and papermaking

Important People

• Minamoto Tantomo

• Zheng He

Song Dynasty

Political Organization

• Built on achievements of previous dynasties

• Silk Road Trade = $$$

• Centralized government

• Emperor had supreme power

  • “Mandate of Heaven”

  • Continuity from previous eras

• Imperial Bureaucracy- a vast organization in which appointed officials carried out the empire’s policies

  • bureaucracy was a continuity across centuries and dynasties

• Government based on a vast imperial bureaucracy, a continuity from a previous dynasties

  • Consisted of appointed officials who carried out the empire’s policies and were selected through civil service exams

• Exams based on Confucian texts, which promoted moral values and social harmony among the officials and the people

• Bureaucracy was meritocracy

  • The Chinese system allowed for more upward mobility than any other hiring system of its time

  • Chosen based on ability and performance, not birth or wealth

  • Emperor Song Taizu expanded the educational opportunities to young men of the lower economic classes so they could score well on the civil service exams

• Bureaucracy was costly to maintain

  • Early on strengthened the dynasty

  • created many jobs and paid high salaries to the officials

  • Consumed much of China’s surplus wealth, which reduced the empire’s economic growth and military strength

  • Too large and complex, which made it inefficient and corrupt

  • weakened the authority of the emperor and the central government

  • increased the costs of government to the point that they began drying up China’s surplus wealth

Economic Organization

In Context:

• Tang and Song Dynasties were periods of economic prosperity and innovation

• Tang Dynasty promoted agricultural development by distributing land to peasants, improving irrigation systems, and introducing new crops such as rice and cotton

• Tang Dynasty improved roads and canals, encouraged foreign trade along the Silk Road and the Indian Ocean, and the spread technology such as papermaking, printing, gunpowder, and the compass

• Song Dynasty built upon Tang gunpowder use by making first weapons

  • spread technology across Silk Road

• The Grand Canal connected the Yellow River and the Yangtze River, linking northern and southern China

  • enabled rapid transportation and response to crisis (like famine)

  • inexpensive and efficient internal waterway transportation system that extended over 30,000 miles

  • enabled China to become the most populous trading area in the world

• Gunpowder- made the first guns, used in military

• Champa Rice imported from Vietnam

  • allowed farming to spread to lands where once rice could not grow, such as lowlands, riverbanks, and hills

  • in some areas, it allowed farmers to grow two crops of rice per year

• New elaborate Irrigation systems (ditches, water wheels, and terraces) and fertilizing methods increased production, when it grows faster there is more rice, with more rice comes more food, and the population grows, cities start to grow, and more luxury items come in

• New heavy plows pulled by water buffalo allowed previously unusable land to be cultivated

• China united by the Silk Road

• China’s population grew quickly

• China’s discovery of “black earth” coal enabled it to produce greater amounts of cast iron goods

• China had the greatest manufacturing capability in the world

• Manufactured steel

  • used it to make or reinforce bridges, gates, and ship anchors

  • make religious items, such as pagodas and Buddhist figurines

  • strengthened the agricultural equipment contributing to the abundance of food production

“Proto- Industrialization”- a set of economic changes in which people in rural areas made more goods than they could sell

• Steel and Iron production increased

• Textiles and porcelain produced for export

Song Dynasty continued to benefit from and improve on existing innovation

• paper money - upper-class, merchants

• compass- maritime navigation

• print paper- allowed them to print paper navigation charts made seafaring possible in open water, out of sight of land, and sailors became less reliant on the sky for direction

• shifts

• financial practices

China became the world’s most commercialized society

The Grand Canal supported a vibrant internal trade while advances in naval technology allowed China to control trade in the South China Sea

• Taxes promoted the growth of a commercial economy

• the government started to pay people to work on projects

• increased the amount of money in circulation, promoting economic growth

• Tributes- an arrangement in which other states had to pay money or provide goods to honor the Chinese Emperor

  • cemented China’s economic and political power over several foreign countries, created stability and stimulated trade for all parties involved

Social Structure

• Scholar-gentry a new class, educated in Confucian philosophy and became the most influential social class in China

• Farmers, artisans, merchants, peasants

• low status of merchants reflected Confucian respect for hard work and creating value

• Song government provided aid to the poor and established public hospitals where people could receive free care

Impact on Patriarchy:

• Song women had more rights (drastic difference from before), but still subordinate

• Foot Binding

  • used mainly in the Song Dynasty

  • placed women under tight supervision of men

  • kept the women at home

  • started with elite women, soon became a common practice with all classes

  • signified social status

• Filial Piety

Intellectual and Cultural Developments

• Woodblock printing

• Printed booklets on how to farm efficiently were distributed throughout rice-growing regions

• The development of paper and printing expanded the availability of books

• Confucian scholars not only consumed literature at a tremendous rate, they were also the major producers of literature throughout the era

• emphasis on schooling created generation of well-rounded scholar-bureaucrats

Religious Structure

• Buddhism imported from India along Silk Road

• Different Branches have different appeal:

  • Theravada- focused on personal spiritual growth through silent meditation and self-discipline. It became the strongest in Southeast Asia

  • Mahayana- focused on spiritual growth for all beings and on service. It became strongest in China and Korea

  • Tibetan- focused on chanting. It became the strongest in Tibet

• All three included the belief in the Four Noble Truths- idea that personal suffering can be alleviated by eliminating cravings or desires and by following Buddhist precepts

• Neo-Confucianism and Buddhism increasingly impact government and society

  • Neo-Confucianism emphasized ethics rather than the mysteries of God and nature

• Syncretism

  • Buddhism’s idea of dharma became translated as Dao

  • Buddhist doctrines combined with elements of Daoist traditions to create the fused faith Chan Buddhism (Zen Buddhism)

    • emphasized direct experience and meditation as opposed to formal learning based on studying scripture

  • Because of fusion Buddhism became very popular in China

• Tang Dynasty had trouble accepting that a foreign religion would have such prominence in society, made Daoist’s and Confucians jealous

  • despite monasteries’ closures Chan Buddhism remained popular among ordinary Chinese citizens

• Song Dynasty was more friendly towards Buddhism

• Buddhism had a strong presence and many Confucians began to adopts its ideals into their daily lives

• Song Dynasty benefitted from filial piety

  • the emphasis on respect for one’s elders helped the Song maintain their rule in China

• Influenced Other East Asian States (Japan, Korea, Vietnam)

Influence on East Asia

• Chinese literary and scholarly traditions and spread to Halen Japan and Korea

• Japanese rulers promoted Confucianism and Buddhism along with Shintoism

  • Syncretism

Sinification- Spread of Chinese Culture

Japan

• Imperial authority (emperor)

• Confucianism and Buddhism along with Shinto religion

• Women have way more responsibility and control of their lives

• Were able to avoid restrictions of women

• Learned how to woodblock from China

• Emulated Chinese traditions in politics, art, and literature

• Feudalism- feudal society without a centralized government

• Shogun- military ruler

• Japan had an emperor but he had little power

• Japan suffered from regional rivalries among aristocrats

• Not until the 17th century would shoguns create a strong central government that could unify the country

• Voluntary sinification

Korea

• Tributary relationship

• Scholars studied Chinese though

• Confucianism and Buddhism spread

• Civil Service Exam

  • not open to peasants

• Women had greater restrictions due to close proximity of China

• Centralized its government in the style of Chinese

• Educated elite studied Confucian classics

• Buddhist doctrine attracted the peasant masses

• Language structures between Korea and China remained structurally different

• Landed aristocracy were more powerful in Korea

• Korean elite were able to prevent certain Chinese reforms from ever being implemented

• No truly merit-based system for entering bureaucracy

Vietnam

• agricultural methods

• irrigation systems

• Confucianism

• contributed Champa rice!

• adapted the Chinese writing system and architectural styles

• had a more adversarial relationship with China

• launched violent rebellions against Chinese influence

• Vietnamese women enjoyed greater independence in their married lived compared to Chinese women

• Preferred Nuclear Families (just a wife, husband, and children)

• Villages operated independently of a national government; political centralization was nonexistent

• adopted a merit-based bureaucracy of educated men, the Vietnamese system did not function like the Chinese scholar-bureaucracy

• Instead of loyalty to the emperor, scholar-officials in Vietnam owed more allegiance to the village peasants

  • Vietnamese scholar-officials often led revolts against the government if they deemed it too oppressive

• Vietnamese women resented their inferior status under the Chinese

  • they rejected the customs of foot binding and polygyny, the practice of having more than one wife at the same time

• Sinification occurred despite efforts to maintain the purity of their own culture

• In their battles against the Chinese, they showed a strong capacity for guerilla warfare, perhaps due to their deep knowledge of their own land

China is like a big brother:

• other states want to be like China

• China bullies them

Kowtow- bow down to the emperor (you’re inferior and he is superior)