Lighting Pattern
Check out this night view of the world, that shows which areas are lit up:
Notice the
contrast between how India (and Japan) are lit up in their entirety whereas
China dims from its east to the center and then just goes dark?
This blog isn’t to
gloat. Rather, it is about the “why” behind the China lighting pattern. The
fact that parts of China are uninhabitable deserts is only part of the answer.
In his book, Divided, Tim Marshall explains the major reasons.
From Genghis Khan
onwards, the famous Silk Road route was on the ascendant. It traversed from
China through Central Asia to the Middle East and modern-day Turkey. Surely,
that should have resulted in the parts of China along the route, and regions
radiating outwards from it, to be richer and more developed, and thus better
lit up in our map, right? So why is that not the case today?
The reversal in
economic priority from the land routes to the sea lanes happened not by choice,
says Marshall. Instead, it was forced:
“(As
a result of the Opium Wars in the 19th century), the British and
other foreign powers had used their military strength to force favourable
trading terms with China.”
The trading route
shifted to the coast, the “trading prospects of the interior” declined, setting
off a vicious cycle: more and more money was spent on improving the
infrastructure along the new trade route, i.e., the coast.
When the Communists came to power, they cut off trade links with the world. And with that, the coastal areas became as poor as the interior. After Mao’s death, Deng Xiaoping took a gamble, writes Marshall. If the Chinese were too poor to buy what they could produce, perhaps it was time to sell to the world... via the coast. And so, again the coastal regions began to prosper. And that is why the map looks the way we see it today.
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