Westernization and Southernization

Westernization Westernization is a process that every industrial country in the world has experienced to at least some extent. They all have their own paths to industrialization, however. These paths represent their beliefs about he West and its relative strengths or weaknesses. The 19th and early 20th century offers three prominent examples – Russia, China, and Japan

Japan Westernization Japan adapted the best to western technology, economics, and culture because it embraced the process of Westernization the most. After centuries of trying to keep the West out, Japan suddenly opened up in 1854.

Did Westernization Benefit Japan? Japanese decided that the only way to maintain their sovereignty was to remain competitive by adopting Western ideas. In less than half a century, it had largely caught up with the West in terms of industrial output and had begun being a colonial power to be reckoned with

Russia Russia embraced Westernization only gingerly because the tsars were reluctant to allow anything in the country that would undermine their authority. They wanted to have Western technology, but did not want the cultural background for that technology. This, however, eventually lead to the Russian Revolution.

China Western technology was seen as a threat to traditional Chinese culture. Although Chinese bureaucrats attempted to implement certain reforms to help modernize the country and keep it competitive, these reforms accomplished very little. The Chinese were just too suspicious of anything from the West.

Westernization? These three nations demonstrate three different approaches to Westernization. Countries can either embrace it whole heartedly, reject it completely, or attempt to find some balance. In the end, those countries that attempt industrialization without liberalization are very likely to see revolt and even revolution.

Southernization The West began to have an impact on the rest of the globe from about the fifteenth century. According to the historian Lynda Shaffer in a seminal article in the Journal of World History in 1994, the South began to have a similar impact a millennium earlier. “The term southernization is meant to be analogous to westernization.”

When? Where? A process called southernization first began in Southern Asia. By the fifth century C.E. , developments associated with southernization were present in India, where they spread to China and then to the Middle East and the Mediterranean basin. After 1200 they began to have an impact on southern Europe.

What? These developments included the discovery of bullion sources, the emergence of a new mathematics, the pioneering of trade routes, the trade in tropical spices, the cultivation of southern crops such as sugar and cotton, and the invention of various technologies.

. “Southernization was not overtaken by westernization until the Industrial Revolution in the eighteenth century…. Only after the northwestern Europeans had added to their own repertoire every one of the elements of southernization did the world become divided into a powerful, prestigious, and rich north and an impoverished south perceived to be in need of development.”