Historical Research for formation of the Pacific Rim Economy -Analysis of Investment and Foreign Trade-

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In this research, economic statistics on national trade and investment of Pacific Rim economies were first collected and then a large database from the 19th to the middle of the 20th century was created. Analysis of this large database led to the following findings. First, although conventionally, Asia was bundled up as unitary market, it was actually very diverse. No common trend exists between the economic development of India, China, Southeast Asia, and Japan. Second, Japanese trade expanded consistently in Asia during the first half of the 20th century, while that of China and India either stagnated or declined. An important thing is that the advance of Japan to the Asian market has caused the recession of Chinese and Indian trade with Asia. Third, while on one hand, Japan had widely exported light-industry articles to the world market from the end of the 1920s, it has also been consistently forming a self exclusive economic bloc on the other. Such capitalism that spread in Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and Manchuria should be specified as East Asia Capitalism. Fourth, the Japanese Empire was divided after the Second World War, and East Asia Capitalism was decomposed into independent national economies. Lastly, after the U.S. emerged as a huge market for industrial products, the development of today's East Asia economy was brought about by Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan having strong industrial associations, and making exports to the U.S increase rapidly.