The 58th Tobunken-ASNET seminar will be held as follows. This seminar is open to public without entry.

Date：18th October 2012, 17:00-18:00

Venue：Main Conference Room, 3rd Floor, Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia, University of Tokyo

Presenter：Joyman Lee (Ph.D. Candidate, History, Yale University, and Visiting Fellow, Graduate School of Economics, The University of Tokyo)

Title： “Chinese industrialization as viewed from the Japanese economic sector, 1910-1940”

Language ：English

Abstract
China’s partially successful industrialization in the interwar period invited a range of responses from Japan’s economic actors. This paper focuses on the responses of the industrialist Mutō Sanji, the Kobe and Tokyo chambers of commerce and industry and the economist Nawa Tōichi. Although these actors understood the closely interconnected nature of the interwar Chinese and Japanese economies, their thinking demonstrated the existence of a number of “blind spots”, most notably the failure to recognize the legitimacy of Chinese nationalism as a genuine political and social force that could threaten Japan’s economic base. My presentation, being part of a broader project on the Japanese influence on Chinese industrial policy, explores this mismatch between economic perception and reality, which in turn prevented the construction of a political framework to mediate between Chinese and Japanese economic interests.

Contact to:Network for Education and Research on Asia
tel :03-5841-5868
e-mail: asnet[at]asnet.u-tokyo.ac.jp