Asias Globalization on the World

Matt Parkl

Dr. Daughton Pd.2

World Cultures 6.0H

21 December 2012

For generations, the western hemisphere has dominated the world on an international level culturally, economically, and technologically. In theory, many think that the western hemisphere will dominate the world for many years to come, but they are absolutely incorrect. As of now, major countries that are growing at a staggering rate are challenging the domination of the western hemisphere are in eastern Asia. In Asia, the major countries include China, Japan, Korea, Singapore, and Thailand. Over the past century, these countries were economically unstable, behind in technology, and had little impact on the world. Now, in the 21st century, Asia is affecting the world at an international level due to the fact that the countries in those areas have some of the largest economies, a widely favored and followed culture, and a leading technology advancement that the general public uses today.

In an economic standpoint, the eastern part of Asia has grown the most. In a more specific point, the country of Korea has grown at a dramatic rate. Over the past five decades, with a gross national income (GNI), Korea rose from US $2.98 billion in 1962 to $966.6 billion in 2009. This is an exponential amount of GNI rise for a country. During and after the Korean War, South Korea was one of the poorest, the most economically unstable country in the world. Now, in the 21st century, South Korea now ranks as having the 13th largest economy in the world, and also the 3rd largest economy in Asia. Another factor that shows Asian countries are growing to affect the world is the fact that some Asian countries have a high growth rate economically. For the past century, western powers have exceeded the limits that humans thought and have risen their economic power to an unimaginable high. In the past five decades, Asia has kept their staggering rate of economic growth. "If the Korean economy goes on growing at 4.5% a year and America's at 2.5%, Korea would overtake America (in PPP terms) only a few years later."(The Economist 1) Soon enough, Korea most likely can surpass the United States within a few years. That will be a dream that the country will try to fulfill and become an economically self-sustained powerhouse.

Another country that has shown economic growth is China. During the early 20th century, China was going through a rough phase. In the first half of the 20th Century, China was going through revolutions, political instability and wars. They were trying to have a more stable and a well-made economy. "Chinas economic growth has been the result of a pragmatic sequencing of reform policies" (China 1). With reforms, "the first thing that they did was to give state enterprises some autonomy in production decisions rather than simply carrying out the production targets under a system of central planning. Next, they were trying to make them financially independent, allowing them to keep the earnings as their own profits after paying taxes to the state, rather than as revenue belonging to the government. Afterwards, the next step was to introduce a contract responsibility system, first to selected parts of the enterprise under the important reform decision of October 1984, and later to an enterprise in 1987. Under the contract responsibility system, a part of an enterprise or the entire enterprise was allowed to keep all the gain (such as output produced) profit after surrendering a fixed amount of it to the enterprise controlling the part. Either that or they could've had the government controlling the enterprise. The fourth was the reform of the price system that gradually allowed prices to be determined by the market forces of demand and supply. In the meantime, a two-tear price system was introduced to allocate scarce resources formerly under the control of central planning, including material inputs to state enterprises and foreign exchange. Under such a system, the government continued to distribute the scarce resource to designated users at an official, below market price. At the same time a second market was allowed to trade the scarce resource at market price. The fifth, introduced in 1997, was to restructure the state enterprises into share-holding companies."(Gregory Chow 1) this reform jumped china to become one of the biggest economies in the world, making them the country with the second biggest economy in world.

The country of Japan was a strong and mighty country until they lost to the United Nations in WWII. After WWII, Japan's economy collapsed only making their capita 1/5 of the United States. Ever since the WWII, Japan has tried to rebuild up their economy. "In its ideal form, lifetime employment was a pragmatic device in a labor scarce market as the nation put its collective shoulders to the task of rebuilding and catching up with and surpassing competition in the international industrial world"(Japan 1). Many statistics show that Japan was very successful in rebuilding its country. "Overall industrialization forged ahead quickly, as the following figures show: industry was 44.4%, agriculture was 45.5%, mining was 5.1%, and fishing was 5.1 %"( A History of Japan 1). From 1950 to 1970, the percentage of Japanese citizens living in the cities almost doubled; thus increasing demands for services. During the 60's, Japan's average for exports grew 18.4% per year, thus making them the second largest economy in 1968. Japan also has the second largest market economy in the world, and has a capita income that ranks third. In 1996, Japan registered a gross domestic product of $4.63 trillion. This immediately shows that the eastern part of Asia has become some of the biggest economies in the world.

Asian countries also produce some of the greatest technology that many people in the world use today. Asian automotive businesses are a big factor to the world due to the fact that they change things at an international level. Car companies such as Hyundai motors and Kia motors are now within the top 20 Asian auto manufactures. In reference to the statement of Asian car manufacturers being a big factor to the world, the statistics of Hyundai motors making $14,282,809,000 in sales and having a profit of $107,900,000 a year proves that statement. Also, another Asian car manufacturing brand called Kia motors makes $8,213,200,000 in sales, and has a profit of $8,700,000 per year. To calculate how many people drive an Asian manufactured car, you can calculate it if you divide 14,282,800,000 by 25,000, which is roughly on average a regular price for a car lets you get roughly 500,000. This means that at least around 1/14,000 of the world's population drives an Asian car.

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