I am very grateful to have been a part of this session of the USC US-China Institute. Although I have a B.S. in History, I never took Asian History courses in college, so this course has been extremely helpful in bringing me up to snuff as far as modern developments in Asia and their historical antecedents go. I found all of it quite interesting: the history, the economics, and topics from film to food.
As an economics teacher these classes have made me much more aware of the growing influence and impact of this part of the world on our daily lives. Everywhere you look, Asian commerce and culture has become part of the fabric of our own. We eat sushi, phở, and bibimbap, watch anime and martial arts films, and buy cars, phones, and other goods made in Japan, China, and Korea. This course has shown me that these countries have experienced dynamic economic growth in the last century beginning with Japan after the Meiji Restoration and China in the more recent past as it adopted market capitalism during the leadership of Deng Xiaoping. Of particular interest to me are the methods by which the Asian “Tiger” economies reimagined themselves to raise the standard of living for so many people, something that has important ramifications for us in the United States.
The most fundamental problem in economics derives from scarcity; Unlimited demands upon limited resources. As China’s fast-growing middle class asserts its consumption habits we will increasingly feel the reality of scarcity as supply for things like basic materials and energy becomes much more competitive. We would do well to observe closely how China, Korea, and Japan deal with issues like labor, aging populations, and policies aimed at empowering consumer demand, for we may need to emulate them to stay economically viable in the future.
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