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Showing papers on "Westernization published in 1968"


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The Maoist restoration of peace and a tenuous unity is an historic achievement as discussed by the authors, which is the result of ignoring the insistent demands of the proselytizing imperial culture of the West, with only Japan adopting "defensive Westernization" to protect its unique tradition and status.
Abstract: Twentieth-century Asia has been dragged, screaming and bloody, through the consequences of European imperialism, world war, and social revolution. No major country from Siberia to Suez has been able to set its own pace or march to its own distant drum. The cost of ignoring the insistent demands of the proselytizing imperial culture of the West has been defeat and dismemberment with only Japan adopting "defensive Westernization" to protect its unique tradition and status. China was first torn apart by competing imperial powers, then bled dry in a war of attrition with the Japanese, and finally shattered by the degrading urgencies of a civil war. The Maoist restoration of peace and a tenuous unity is an historic achievement. South and Southeast Asia has experienced less violence and social upheaval, largely because the colonial powers provided effective climates of security for their subject peoples. India in the twilight of the Moghuls was rent by civil strife and the breakdown of authority; the British restored the king's peace. The East Indies had never known a single government; the Dutch integrated many islands and provided opportunities for orderly trade in secure seas. Indochina, a factious region trapped between Siamese and Chinese expansionists, found in French rule relative calm and consolidation. And throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, while Europe was warring over privilege and prerogative, over nationalism and religion, over ideology and personality, Asian international politics was managed at very low levels of conflict.

2 citations