Unit 1 / Learning environment 1

Essential reading

The historical evolution and cultural

construction of Asia

Index

1 Geography and demography of Asia

2 Historical context and shared experiences

3 Foreign powers and division

4 Common assumptions of the East

Key words: Asia, history, culture in Asia, geography, Asian economy.

Introduction
There is a growing body of literature that recognizes the importance of studying the historical
evolution of Asia, not only under just an economical scope, but also under its diverse cultural
construction. Thus, this reading is aimed to help forge students’ vision of Asia as a group of different
actors in the international community, rather than preserving the incorrect common idea that Asia is
a unique, homogeneous entity.

1. Geography and demography of Asia

Figure 1. Map of Asia.

Source: Vectorportal (2015).

A combination of being largest continent and the fact it holds almost 60% of world’s population have
created the notion that Asia is a rather unified actor due to its common heritage, but the reality is
very far from that idea. Due to the vast space and diversity that Asia possesses, it is only a Western-
made concept that integrates several subregions, nations, cultures and languages, not to mention the
numerous sets of values of each country of this region.

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Asia as an image represents a challenge not only to the understanding of foreign eyes, but also to
people that are part of the dynamics of this region. Some of its habitants have struggled for centuries
to maintain an impossible unique identity created by the roots of Eurocentric epistemology, however
this reflection of a postcolonial project of configuration has also allowed for people in the Asian
continent to create their own definition of distinctiveness that enhances their differences with the
rest of the world.

In order to have an initial approach to Asia as a very diverse continent not only in itself but compared
to the entire planet, it is useful to look first at its location and extension. As seen in Figure 1,
Asia is located on the east side of Europe, nevertheless the features of these two continents are
very different in several important ways, especially in geography, a determinant aspect for Asia’s
characterization that includes 5 physical regions in which the Asian landmass can be divided:

1.1. The mountain systems

Here are included the Ural Mountains that form a line from Russia to Kazakhstan; the Himalayan
mountains that cross the northern states of India, Bhutan and Nepal; and the Tien Shan Mountains
that define the border between the states of Kyrgyzstan and China.

Most of these regions represent a very different lifestyle for the communities that are located near,
since they are not very rich farming lands, tourism is the only economic activity that provides them
with a way of living. Currently, there are very few modern job opportunities in these places, creating a
very hostile environment where there are those who intend to stay in the regions and others that find
a way to exit poverty by migrating.

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Figure 2. The Himalayas.
Source: Gorey (2019).

1.2. The plateaus

They are in Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and it includes the largest and highest plateau in the world: the
Tibetan Plateau. Plains, steppes and deserts also make part of the various physical territories that can
be found in the continent. These divisions of the landmass, even in ancient times, did not represent
any barriers to horsemen that used to cross them looking to interact with other communities.

History shows that the Eurasian grassland has always served as a facilitator of communication
between people, thus migration has not always been resulting of scarce resources or increasing
poverty, but it has also emerged from the curiosity of men to interact and share lifestyles, art,
religious ideas and languages with other societies.

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Figure 3. Plateau.
Source: Hanan (2018).

1.3. The West Siberian Plain

This zone is considered to be one of the world largest regions of continuous flatland and which
is located in Russia. Although there is evidence that this territory played a significant role in the
interaction of the different societies for both Europe and the Asia, since 1991 discoveries of oil and
gas deposits have led to the construction of a powerful mining complex that provides with 70% of
Russian gas and oil production, and about 30% of coal reserves, transforming the different towns
nearby into powerful logistic zones in charge of the exploitation of these resources.

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Figure 4. Mining complex.
Source: Rozetsky (2017).

1.4. Bodies of water

It is worth mentioning the resources that involve both freshwater and saltwater. A good example of
these is Lake Baikal, situated in the southern area of Russia. This lake is the deepest in the world, it
contains around 20% of the entire world’s unfrozen fresh water, and it’s considered to be the largest
water reservoir on Earth.

Regarding China, this country benefits from a great long river called Yangtze, another of Asia’s
freshwater sources, which is not only the third longest river in the world, but it is also an essential part
of China’s economy.

Two other famous rivers in the Asia are the Tigris and Euphrates, they originate in the highlands of
eastern Turkey and go over Syria and Iraq, before flowing into the Persian Gulf. The region between
these rivers is more than a natural landscape, it has a strong historical significance being the birthplace
of the first civilizations of the world.

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It can be argued that the importance of these freshwater sources surpasses that of the ones in
other continents, because around these bodies of water is where many of the earliest civilizations
developed, including the Sumer and Akkadian empires. These and so many societies have used Tigris
and Euphrates for agriculture and industrial activities for centuries until current days.

Saltwater environments, on the other hand, also have a considerable impact in the area. The Persian
Gulf, a wide territory that borders Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Oman, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain,
Iraq and Kuwait, contains half of the world’s oil reserves, a resource that has become a central
concern in the new global economy. In addition, this resource is constantly triggering disputes among
countries, not only in the zone, but in the entire world, feeding an unstable environment in this
specific area throughout the last decades.

The Bay of Bengal, located near Bangladesh, and surrounding India, Sri Lanka and Burma, is
considered as the largest bay in the world and another landmark for the continent. Many great rivers
flow into this bay, including the Ganges and Brahmaputra.

Figure 5. Asian river.

Source: NASA (2016).

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 1.5. Flora and fauna

These are as diverse as the continent’s climates. Several researchers have recognized Asia as a rich
continent in plants and animals, they have even given China the nickname of “Mother of gardens”
due to its unimaginable diversity in flowering plant species. Most of these species and some fruit
trees have shown the ability to adapt to climates all over the world, thus promoting trade with other
countries and influencing the lifestyle in the region in terms of supplies for medicines and food.

A number of animal species have also had a great impact on the economies of the Asian countries as
well, this is due to the use for transportation during centuries, like yaks and the two-humped Bactrian
camel. Other animals are for consumption, as the thousands types of fish, shrimps and crabs. There
are also other animals that supply clothing and even company to these societies, providing several
options for communities to settle in environments with hostile weather.

Figure 6. Animals and people.

Source: Khadka (2018).

This brief list of characteristics and geographic zones that apply for the subregions of Asia are crucial
when recognizing the powerful topography that has not only provided a wide amount of resources to
nations located there, but that also played an important role in the formation and transformation of
its demographic and cultural aspects.

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Demography is another approach that serves as a strong tool to deconstruct the idealistic perception
of Asia as a sole unit. As far as it concerns, the term “Asian” is often used to describe all the
civilizations of the East, which greatly rises a major issue in correctly referring to the diverse mix of
cultures in every country of the continent. Only in terms of subregions, scholars usually speak of six:

»» Western Asia

»» Central Asia

»» Southern Asia

»» Eastern Asia

»» Southeastern Asia

»» Northern Asia

And these areas embrace the following list of countries: Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain,
Bangladesh, Bhutan, Brunei, Cambodia, China, Georgia, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Japan,
Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Lebanon, Malaysia, Maldives, Mongolia, Myanmar
(Burma), Nepal, North Korea, Oman, the Palestinian Territories, Pakistan, Philippines, Qatar, Russia,
Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Syria, Tajikistan, Thailand, Timor-Leste (East Timor),
Turkey, Turkmenistan, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, and Yemen.

Thus, a common image of a unique culture is, as previously said, subject to considerable discussion,
due to the immense number of contexts and stories behind the construction of each of these nations.

However, these countries do get to share some significant traits. The most important one, as
previously stated, is to have been the home of the earliest civilizations that adopted agriculture as
their main livelihood and that represented the first time humans learned to influence the natural
environment for their own benefit.

These civilizations also initiated many other practices that define the grounds of society as it is known
today, such as religion and the social and political order. Consequently, regardless of the western
origins of the term or the label to name its people, Asia is also seen as the place where all of the
world’s major religions originated, increasing its historical significance as a spiritual entity. The next
section explores more these traits that give significance to the common grounds of the complex
region, looking to provide a complete understanding of the meaning of the term “Asian”.

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2. Historical context and shared experiences
History provides a useful account of how significant religions have been for both Eastern and Western
civilizations and their configurations, and more than arguing on the Asian continent’s dissimilarity
under this aspect, the notion of Asia as the birthplace of the world’s great religions provides for its
population a significant appropriation of the idea that their territory has essentially a spiritual identity.

The component of cultural practices and the way in which they spread into distant territories defined aspects
such as trading routes and social groups, which provided the conditions for the improvements of human
societies. This was evident in the case of Islam, which influenced the northern tip of Sumatra throughout
Indonesia and the Malayan Peninsula, small parts of Cambodia and central Vietnam, regions in which social
units where divided at times by their beliefs or faith, and where trade was seen differently than under the
other religions. Buddhism also played a key role in societies, not only due to its unique art, but also in the
way it influenced the trade land and sea routes around Nepal, India, Burma and Cambodia, highlighting the
influential function religions have had throughout history.

Art trade was a considerable force that contributed greatly to the growth of the region. Classic
Buddhist art was represented through sculptures, paintings and icons when trade routes emerged,
giving this particular religion a larger scale of importance.

Figure 7. Religious art.

Source: Pereyra (2018).

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Hinduism, on the other hand, developed in Thailand, Laos and some parts of Indonesia, and it easily
went over to southern Asian states as a result of the many communities that visited the zone and
spread this beliefs. Its influence grew in such a way that nowadays it is still considered to be one of the
four major religions of the world.

Next to religion, evidence suggests that agriculture was also among the most important coercive
forces in the continent. The impact that various innovations had on the structure of societies such as
tools, irrigation, the wheel and domestication of animals, made the creation of cities and communities
that worked together to comply with their basic needs possible, as well as for those people who were
not engaged in agriculture to have time to acquire skills in trade, spread religions, writing, and other
crucial processes of the development of the civilizations.

Figure 8. Agriculture.
Source: Morsy (2015).

Finally, although language has represented for centuries a barrier among communities around the
globe, migration, the flow of people into and across the region, became the main influence in the
creation of literature. One of the oldest collection of poems in world literature is the Shih Ching,
translated as “The Book of Songs”, a compilation of books that are essential for Confucianism, a
philosophy that still governs many aspects of Chinese culture.

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Arab, Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Pakistani cultures illustrate the way in which societies that have so
few in common, have fame and recognition for the prose and poetry of their own literary production, and
although each of them has their own specific characteristics and they consist in different figures, harmony
and brevity prevailed as distinctive qualities in the construction of their works.

Figure 9. Wall.
Source: Tao (2016).

3. Foreign powers and division

If there is anything that heavily impacts and sometimes determines a country’s history is being
colonized. This practice, formerly used for establishing domination, was common in different
territories around the world. Colonizers would usually find themselves attracted to the abundance
of resources of territories and establish their settlements there to display either a pacific attitude
and pursue negotiations through trade or exchange, they would also be driven by greed and attack
communities to steal their possessions, including the land itself.

Asian countries were not exempt from this practice. In fact, this one key feature of occupation that
some Asian countries went through with European colonizers, provoked directly or indirectly the
struggle with building a nation for decades and even centuries.

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Previous to colonization, dynasties and empires in the Asian continent represented the most
advanced civilizations regarding technological and military advances in the entire world. Nevertheless,
after the invasion of foreign powers, and the strong Eurocentrism that characterized the entire world
for ages, Asian powers were highly undervalued.

Figure 10. Chinese soldiers.

Source: Bustamante (2019).

Before the 19th century the influence of European powers in Asia was rather modest. Several
western communities approached Asia and, depending on the nation, the attitude displayed towards
them would be different. For instance, Portugal became the first European power to gain access to
the Asian continent, claiming several parts of Indonesia, China, India and in the Southeast in general.
It is believed that their main driver was trade, although the strong desire to spread Catholicism played
a determinant motive as well. Nevertheless, Portugal’s power eventually vanished in the 18th century
and new empires such as the Dutch, French and the British took over Portugal’s claims in Asia. The
only remaining territory dominated by Portuguese was East Timor.

Spain was also part of this first wave of colonizers driven by the desire to spread religion around the
world, as a consequence, Philippines was conquered and ruled by the Spanish until their reign faced

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defeat in the war against America in 1898. Great Britain and France, as part of these European
powers that continuously sought to enlarge their influence and sovereignty, were also part of the
actors that became interested in eastern territories while trade was continuously increasing in Asia.
The French then moved into the region through Vietnam and subsequently conquered most of
Indochina, which included the lands of Annam, Laos, Cambodia, Cochin China and Tongking.

The British Empire, on the other hand, was the largest empire to have expanded its power previous to
the World War II, a vast portion of the world was under its rule or influence. India, Oman, Yemen, the
United Arab Emirates, Iraq, Palestine, Sri Lanka and Malaysia were only some of the territories that
the British crown claimed and controlled.

One aspect to be highlighted between British colonials and the rest of the population coming from
the other European colonizing powers, was that their behavior towards local people was guided by
their practices in Great Britain. British colonizers traveled to these conquered lands with the deeply
rooted ideas of separation of classes, therefore they did not create such strong bonds with local
people but rather kept themselves apart, merely hiring locals as domestic help, different to Spaniards
or French colonizers.

The Dutch also had particular goals in their attempt to control some parts of Asia. This power
competed mostly for the domination of trade in the Indian Ocean. For them, the campaign towards
Asia had a unique impulse, which was possessions and money, they did not have the desire to transfer
any cultural or religious influence. And since their interest was essentially based on control, there
were episodes of ruthless captures, slavery and even massacre of locals.

Under this framework of European influence in the 19th century, it is possible to mention that the
distinct colonizers promoted the formation of even more diverse cultures and nations. Nonetheless,
some economic and political links prevailed as part of a common history of division in the continent.

4. Common assumptions of the East

The concept of Asia that exists in the West is a clear example of how sometimes geopolitical history
helps to create a notion of an entire region, which might eventually prevail and spread around the rest
of the world. Thus, current consensus on the vision of Asia is undoubtedly the result of the European
colonization process, and on the current Manichean and competitive vision of the West (United
States and Western Europe) and the East (primarily China).

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This group of ideas that have emerged due to the East-West dichotomy, often fails to describe in a
genuine manner what could be understood by “Asian values”, and as a result the tendency is to have
an exaggerated or generalized group of traits attributed to the region. However, it is possible to point
out some traits that in fact most of Asian countries do share and which are frequently a common
condition to their cultural systems. These are:

»» The conception of the family as the basis of society: It tends to reinforce the way in which the
community is far more important than the individualism in the region, boosting teamwork and
basing people’s actions upon group orientation. This consciousness of groups is greater and more
well based than the one in the West, improving in Asian economies the desire of cohesion and the
stability of society.

»» Political perspectives do not comply with the common liberal idea of democracy in the
purest sense that Western nations promote: most of the countries in Asia have found their
foundation through a process of change in terms of separation of powers, which have led to a
different conception of civil rights or political rights.

Mixed economies, meaning a free market combined with some intervention from the government
are common in Asia. The consolidation of the state’s authority in the market of an Asian country is
frequently thought to be grounded on the interests of the “common good”, linking the first trait with
the standpoint of the second.

»» Component of religion in their cultural values: Although the process of secularization from
Western ideas has influenced nations in Eastern Asia, statesmen argue that separating
religion from the state promotes the negative aspects of individualism and they rather
encourage population to maintain the moral properties of their beliefs. Therefore religion, no
matter which, still plays a crucial part in the identity of most Asian communities and fosters
the stability of their notorious group-oriented behavior, strengthening the difference with
population in Western countries, that believe religions have a unique spiritual function and
have gone through a process of separating religion from other issues.

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References
Allen, G.C. & Donnithorne, A.W. (1954). Western Enterprise and Far Eastern Economic Development.
London, England: Allen and Unwin.

De Vries, J. (2003). Connecting Europe and Asia: A Quantitative Analysis of the Cape Trade Route,
1497–1795. In D.O. Flynn, A., Giráldez, & R. von Glahn (Eds.), Global Connections and Monetary
History, 1470–1800 (pp. 35-106). Surrey, England: Ashgate Publishing.

Frank, A.G. (1998). ReOrient: Global Economy in the Asian Age. Berkeley, United States: University
of California Press.

Prakash, O. (1998). European Commercial Enterprise in Pre-colonial India. Cambridge, England:

Cambridge University Press.

Teng, S.Y., Fairbank, J.K. (Eds.). (1954). China’s Response to the West: A Documentary Survey.
Cambridge, United States: Harvard University Press.

Van Leur, J.C. (1955). Indonesian Trade and Society. The Hague, the Netherlands: W. van Hoeve.

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Figure references
Bustamante, V. (2019). Untitled [photography]. Retrieved from https://unsplash.com/photos/
whPNzkxm-LA

Gorey, A. (2019). Mountains during daytime [photography]. Retrieved from https://unsplash.com/

photos/rPO3EQBKCzw

Hanan. (2018). Green grass field near mountain and clouds [photography]. Retrieved from https://
unsplash.com/photos/hJc3J-aiEAs

Khadka, S. (2018). Lo Manthang, Nepal [photography]. Retrieved from https://unsplash.com/photos/

J8CCCYIG8ic

Morsy, L. (2015). Arduous work, person walking on rice field [photography]. Retrieved from https://
unsplash.com/search/photos/agriculture-asia

NASA. (2016). Snaking Rivers [Photography]. Retrieved from https://unsplash.com/photos/

whDrFMucHkc

Pereyra, J. (2018). Gautama statue [photography]. Retrieved from https://unsplash.com/photos/

U6HOr6-CPSA

Rozetsky, A. (2017). Tall building under orange clouds at daytime [photography]. Retrieved from
https://unsplash.com/photos/TBNQU6sA0bg

Tao, J-J. (2016). Chinese script [photography]. Retrieved from https://unsplash.com/photos/

grGyMpBXhDk

Vectorportal. (2015). Vector illustration of the map of the world with country borders [vector].
Retrieved from https://www.vectorportal.com/StockVectors/Clip-art/VECTOR-WORLD-
MAP/13853.aspx#

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 TECHNICAL INFORMATION

Module: Cultura y Economía Regional de Asia

Unit 1: Historical, cultural and economic framework of Asia
Learning environment 1: The historical evolution and
cultural construction of Asia

Author: Juliana Correa

Pedagogical Advisor: Adriana Alexandra Bolaños Contreras

Graphic Designer: Eveling Peñaranda
Assistant: Laura Andrea Delgado Forero

This material belongs to Politécnico Grancolombiano

Its partial or total reproduction is prohibited

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