2.3 Exchange in East Asia

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Identify the factors that affected exchanges between Japan, its East Asian neighbors, and Europeans
• Analyze how interactions with Europe influenced China during the Ming and Qing dynasties
• Describe China’s relationship with its neighbors during the Ming and Qing dynasties
• Discuss the importance of education, culture, and science to Korean national identity

Indian Ocean societies welcomed cultural and economic exchanges among people of many different ethnicities and religions. East Asian societies, however, had a different response to such exchanges. While Japan, China, and Korea were members of the same economic networks as the societies of the Indian Ocean and participated in some of the same cultural trades, they attempted, with varying degrees of success, to limit the effects at home of contact with outsiders and their ideas.