Asia

F

Transport

In most of Asia transport systems are poorly developed. No comprehensive continental land transport system exists. Few railways cross international boundaries, and where they do, as between China and the former Soviet republics, they are underused. Much the same is true of roads, and, for the most part, navigable rivers are also not international transport routes; the Amur River, between Russia and China, is a major exception. Most of Asia's international communication is by sea and by air. All major Asian ports are connected by both liner and tramp shipping services. Port facilities are varied, but few ports other than those in China, India, Japan, Hong Kong, and Singapore can handle the largest cargo ships. Singapore and Hong Kong are particularly important as entrepôts, to which small shipments are brought from a vast hinterland by small vessels and then shipped abroad. Air services link all major cities. Tokyo is the most important Asian air centre, and Bangkok is the second, by virtue of its crossroads location in South East Asia.

Domestic transport networks in most countries also tend to be limited. Rural settlements are often poorly connected with each other or with larger towns. Highways are few, and rural roads are usually unpaved. Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Malaysia, Israel, Turkey, and much of the Philippines are the main exceptions. Where navigable, rivers are often the main commercial highways, but not all countries have them. In China the Yangzi River has long been the east-west transport artery; it is connected by canal with the North China Plain. In South East Asia the Mekong, Menam, and Irrawaddy rivers have all acted as integrators of national territories. In India, however, the rivers have been much less important as a transport medium.

The continent's chief mode of transport is the railway. Japan has a dense railway network. China, which has the world's sixth longest railway system, had by the mid-1970s linked all its major manufacturing centres and provincial capitals into one vast network. Even so capacity is well below demand and major extensions of the network are under way or planned. Korea and Taiwan also are well served. The countries of South East Asia, except for Thailand and Malaysia, and those of South-west Asia have railway systems that are small and truncated. In South Asia an integrated railway system, originally built by the British, was divided by the political separation of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. The Trans-Caspian and Turk-Sib railways are the most important railway lines in Central Asia; the Trans-Siberian railway and its branches, such as the Baikal-Amur line, form the main transport system in Russian Siberia.

G

Trade

As a whole, the continent of Asia plays a more important role in world trade than either Africa or South America. A very high proportion of this trade is with countries outside the continent. The important exceptions are the flow of oil from the Persian Gulf to Japan; the lesser flows from Indonesia and Brunei to Japan; China's trade with Japan and South East Asia; and, above all, the flow of raw materials to Japan, chiefly from South East Asia, and the return flood of Japanese manufactured goods. Japan ranks among world leaders in the value of its international trade, but only about a third is with other Asian countries. China and India both have a large-value international trade, also chiefly with countries outside the continent. Malaysia and Indonesia are major traders in raw materials. In per capita terms, however, all countries other than Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, and Singapore, Hong Kong S. A. R., the island of Taiwan, the major South-west Asian oil exporters, and some former Soviet republics rank low on the world scale of international trade.

V

History

While Africa is generally accepted as the birthplace of the human species, Asia is believed to contain the cradle of civilization. Yet this civilization was not one and uniform; the sheer size of the Asian mainland made it almost inevitable that several different civilizations would arise, independently. The following historical survey attempts to show the interactions, collisions, and successions of these civilizations in continental terms. For additional information on countries or regions mentioned, see the history sections of articles on the individual Asian countries. See also Asia Minor; Assyria; Babylonia; Indus Valley Civilization; Middle East; Persia; Siberia; Sumer.

A

Ancient Civilizations

Apart from ancient Egypt, the earliest known civilizations arose in the great river valleys of south-west Asia, north-west India, and northern China, and despite their differences all had certain common features. All were agricultural societies that needed advanced social and political structures to maintain irrigation and flood-control systems. Raiding nomadic herders from Central Asia also forced the farmers in all of them to live in walled cities for defence and to entrust their protection to an aristocratic class of leaders. The invention of the plough in about 3000 bc reduced the need for farm labour, freeing workers to become artisans. Increased agricultural yields and the work of the artisans in turn provided trade items, and trade brought exchanges between cultures.

A

1

Mesopotamia

The land that fostered the Sumer-Akkad culture of the Tigris-Euphrates Valley—that is, Mesopotamia—is often called the cradle of civilization. By 3000 bc, the Sumerians irrigated their fields from precisely measured canals, used bronze and polished stone tools, made textiles and wheel-turned pottery, built temples and palaces, and travelled in wheeled carts and sailing ships. Their accurate calendars predicted seasons, and their cuneiform writing was an international script until the 4th century bc. They worshipped a sun god and lived by written laws.

Although the Sumer-Akkad kingdom fell to northern invaders, Mesopotamia remained the centre of western Asian civilization until the 6th century bc. Most important of the later rulers were the Babylonians (c. 1900-600 bc), the Assyrians (9th-7th century bc), and the Chaldeans (7th-6th century bc). It was the Chaldean Nebuchadnezzar II who destroyed Jerusalem and deported the Jews. (Already, however, Judaism was a major religious force.) About 1600 bc, invaders from south-western Asia and Anatolia swept into Babylonia, sometimes to destroy but overall to build and advance the civilization founded by the Sumerians.