This chapter focuses on the so-called Self-Strengthening era during the second half of the nineteenth century when the Qing empire was expanding state involvement in industry and technology from its traditional ideology. The origin and motivation of state involvement in the private market during this era is different from that in the early twentieth century, which began to take lessons from Meiji Japan and the ideology of modernization (see Bian’s chapter in this volume). There were some elements of continuity here – in remnants of “Self-Strengthening” through the state efforts both to build up modern enterprises and develop to science and technology. This chapter explains the impact of the state sector’s emergence that was manifested in the development and expansion of state arsenals and modern enterprises.

The Great Qing Empire (1644–1912) was the most populous political entity that had yet existed on the landmass that we now refer to as “China,” and its economy was possibly one of the most developed. But by the first several decades of the nineteenth century, the Jiaqing and early Daoguang reigns, there had emerged a general consensus among elites both in and out of government that the empire was facing a multifaceted and potentially catastrophic crisis of the economy, polity, and society. By this point the Qing had already begun to be significantly incorporated into the early modern world economy, although it had not yet experienced, as it very shortly would, military conflict with the West and the invasion by Western agents of economic and cultural change that would follow in its wake.

Monetary policy in Korea is implemented by, and is the responsibility of, the Bank of Korea. More precisely, it is the Monetary Policy Board (MPB), an autonomous administrative agency modelled after the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System in the United States, which determines monetary policy through collective decisions. This monetary policy system was only established when the Bank of Korea became independent in 1998. This chapter looks at the history, organisation and decision-making structure of the BoK and its relationship with the Korean government.

This chapter examines the evolution of monetary standards in Korea, through which commodity money is replaced by paper money, and then paper money by electronic and digital payment instruments.

By the mid-eighteenth century, the Qing dynasty (1644–1911) was the dominant power within Asia. Its political system and institutions of state building were founded on structures inherited from previous Chinese dynasties as well as on the social and cultural codes of interaction among polities across Central Eurasia, East Asia, and Southeast Asia. Foreign trade between China and other countries within and outside Asia was a calculated matter of political strategy and economic gain. In the decades leading up to the First Opium War of 1839 to 1842, China’s stance with respect to the Sino-Western trade became increasingly at odds with British ambitions in Asia. The growing tensions stemmed from abiding differences in the political economy of not just two nations, but two empires. The overseas influence of the British Empire took on a forceful new impetus with the British Industrial Revolution, and, over the nineteenth century, technological improvements in transport continued to power Western expansion in global trade.

The rural economy will predominate in almost any preindustrial society – perhaps particularly so in China. No barriers comparable to medieval Europe’s guild rules made large sectors into urban monopolies; and though China was probably the world’s most urbanized large society c. 1200, and perhaps still as urban as Europe in the late 1600s, much of its elite lived in the countryside rather than in cities or fortified castles (especially between roughly 1100 and 1550). Moreover, the property systems prevailing in China’s most commercialized areas created incentives for most nonelite families to remain in the countryside, transferring labor not needed for farming to handicrafts without moving to town. The result was a highly diversified rural economy and cities that, though often quite large, were much smaller than the rural surplus could have supported.

Chapter Two lays out the history of the Donggu Revolutionary Base Area. It emphasizes some of the unique characteristics of this place – its relative isolation nestled in the mountainous countryside of eastern Ji’an county, the close ties among a number of classmates, and the ties of kinship that made their alliance with local bandits possible. This core leadership group was able to stay together even after their original leader, Lai Jingbang, was killed. Lai was replaced by Li Wenlin, a graduate of Whampoa Military Academy, who led the Donggu Revolutionary Base area to expand to cover some 24 townships in the area.

For over two millennia, China has sustained the largest single human society on the planet through the development of one of the most sophisticated agrarian systems in history. Even until quite recent, agriculture occupied a central place in the Chinese economy, commanding a dominant 60 to 70 percent of the total economy throughout. Agricultural institutions define the Chinese economic system and agricultural production drove long-run economic change or growth in China. Agriculture was at the center of the Great Divergence debate. Agricultural harvest or failures sometimes spelled the rise and fall of dynasties throughout history. Moving to the modern era, Chinese agriculture became the scapegoat for China’s modernization failure and was regarded as the incubator for Communist revolution. However, given its overriding importance, research on modern Chinese agriculture has been surprisingly understudied for the last few decades.