Monsoon Asian (chapter 10 objectives)

1. Monsoon Asian (chapter 10 objectives) This chapter should enable you to: • Recognize the role of seasonal monsoon winds and rains in livelihoods and perceptions • Appreciate China and India as the demographic giants and surging economies of early 21st century Asia • Learn how unique spatial and spiritual considerations have influenced the layout of Asian settlements • Know the basic beliefs of Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Daoism • Become familiar with the pros and cons of the Green Revolution • Understand the geopolitical dimensions of tension between India and Pakistan, North Korea and the West, and Islamists and governments in Pakistan and Indonesia

2. Fig. 10-1, p. 272

3. Table 10-1, p. 273

4. SUMMARY • Monsoon Asia includes the countries of Japan, North and South Korea, China, Taiwan, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, Maldives, Myanmar (Burma), Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines, Brunei, East Timor, and numerous islands scattered along the edges of this major continental block. The term monsoon is used because of the central role this wind and precipitation pattern plays throughout this region. • This is the most populous world region, with fully 54 percent of the world’s people. It includes the world’s most populous countries, China and India. Population growth rates in the region vary widely, from almost zero growth in Japan to almost 3 percent per year in Pakistan.

5. SUMMARY • Three concentric arcs make up the broad physiography of the region. The inner arc includes the highest mountain ranges of the Himalaya, Karakoram, and Hindu Kush. The middle arc is composed of major floodplains, deltas, and relatively low mountains. These include the Indus, Ganges, and Brahmaputra Rivers in South Asia; the Irrawaddy, Chao Praya (Menam), Mekong, and Red Rivers in Southeast Asia; and the Chiang Jiang (Yangtze) and Huang He (Yellow) in East Asia. The outer arc is an offshore fringe of thousands of islands, including the archipelagos of the East Indies, Philippines, and Japan. • The region’s climate types and biomes include tropical rain forest, savanna, humid subtropical, humid continental, steppe, desert, and undifferentiated highland. Varying types of agriculture are practiced depending on local conditions, including shifting cultivation and wet rice cultivation. Wet rice cultivation produces very high yields and is associated with dense human populations.

6. SUMMARY • Although Monsoon Asia has some of the world’s largest cities, about 63 percent of the region’s population is still rural. Many uniquely Asian traditions helped shape village settlement planning and home design. • Monsoon Asia’s ethnic and linguistic compositions are diverse. Major language families are Indo-European, Dravidian, Sino- Tibetan, Altaic, Austric, and Papuan. • Major religions and sociopolitical philosophies of Monsoon Asia are Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, Confucianism, Daoism, and Christianity. • Great Britain, the Netherlands, France, and Portugal were the most important colonial powers in this region. Most of these domains were relinquished by the middle of the 20th century, and the later British return of Hong Kong and the Portuguese return of Macao (both to China) closed the colonial period.

7. SUMMARY • Japan has the region’s strongest economy, and it is second only to that of the United States. Recent decades have seen strong economic growth among the Tigers and Tiger Cubs of the region, including South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Thailand, and Malaysia. The most important emerging economic power is China, whose large and inexpensive labor force has recently been attracting investment away from other parts of the region. India’s well-educated and inexpensive labor force is contributing to its strong economic growth. There are fears in the United States about the outsourcing of American jobs to India. • The Green Revolution is the name of a broad effort to increase agricultural productivity in dominant crops through expanded use of chemical fertilizers, new seed stock, a more exacting crop calendar, and better access to good market roads, markets, and credit. Biotechnology has produced crops that are more drought and pest resistant and capable of creating much higher yields, but genetic engineering of crops has perceived risks. Profits and other benefits from the Green Revolution are not uniformly spread. It has been difficult to overcome the entrenchment of strong traditional agricultural practices.

8. SUMMARY • There are several major geopolitical issues in Monsoon Asia. The traditional enemies Pakistan and India (both pivotal countries from the U.S. point of view) now possess nuclear weapons. There are fears that destabilization in Pakistan might allow the weapons to fall into the “wrong” hands. Pakistan’s support of the United States in its war on terrorism is very risky because a popular backlash could bring down the government. North Korea has nuclear weapons and is apparently trying to use them as bargaining chips to get more food aid and other assistance from the West. Antigovernment and anti-Western Islamists are active in Indonesia, another country viewed as pivotal by the United States. Strife and fragmentation in Indonesia could threaten vital oceanic shipping lanes.