Japanese Colonialism

It is interesting to find that only some political economists emphasize the fact that Japanese colonialism in Korea played a large part in the development of a high-growth economy. In both readings we get to see that Japanese colonialism greatly differed from European colonialism. In one way, this is because European colonialism rarely introduced heavy industry into the economy, or even pushed the economy with such a heavy hand. As well, Japan left Korea with a relatively high level of industrialization, not something we commonly see with European colonialism. In Kohli's article we see that Japan came into Korea at the very beginning of its colonial rule and transformed the state, not just when creating speedy economic growth. I liked this article in that Kohli took a very systematic approach to writing it, noting the many steps it took for Korea to industrialize, as well as noting extensively the extent to which Japan played a role. Bruce Cumings' article was different in that it looked more towards Japan,
Taiwan, and Korea. In his article, he not only looks at
Japan as a colonizer, but also an industrializer. I think that in both of the readings, it is amazing that each of the countries examined were able to industrialize so quickly. Northeast Asia industrialized in only decades, whereas it's taken the rest of the world centuries to do the same. In response to this, it is important to note the argument around the state's role in economic development, what Atul Kohli says is
"the extent to which state intervention was 'market conforming' versus 'market distorting' or, to use a related set of concepts, the extent to which the state
'led' rather than 'followed' the market." In each article we see what factors went into each country's economic development. It is interesting to note that
Japanese colonial governments were fairly harsh in ruling its colonies, but despite this, its subjects continued to work hard and obey.