A world-systems perspective on the sociocultural history of East Asia: The cases of China, Japan, and Korea

This study is an attempt to apply a world-systems perspective to the sociocultural history of China, Japan, and Korea. It covers more than 2,000 years of East Asian history and shows the dramatic contrast between the traditional and modern periods in terms of relations between the East Asian countries. In the traditional period, before the impact of the West, standard world-systems concepts are difficult to apply to the relations of the East Asian countries, such as hierarchy and economic exploitation. While in the modern period, the relations between China, Japan, and Korea reflect the incorporation of these countries into the “modern world-system.”...