State formation and nation-building in East Asia.

The region "East Asia" is understood here to refer to China, Korea and Japan. Geographically, the Pacific littoral of the Soviet Union could be included in East Asia, but it is a part of a social and political unit whose centre is not in East Asia. Similarly the Mongolian Peoples Republic could be included but is not considered because of the author's limitations of knowledge. Looking at China, Korea and Japan in terms of the formation of a distinctive politico-cultural unit, we are impressed by the early formation and continuous development of such units by all three. In the case of China, this can be traced back to the Chou and the Chin dynasties. Chinese characters, Confucianism and other Chinese philosophies which have influenced not only the Chinese people but also the Koreans and the Japanese until the nineteenth, or even twentieth century, the idea of the Middle Kingdom which contained the assumption of the cultural unity and supremacy of China over external barbarians, all these were the products of the period of the Chou dynasty. In terms of political integration, the first emperor of the Chin dynasty, Shih Huang Ti took such important steps as the creation of a centralized administrative organization, the unification of weights and measures, and the construction of roads leading to the capital, of canals connecting north and south, and of the famous Great Wall which constituted part of the boundary of his empire.