This paper explores the ways in which global resource allocation affected the pattern of Japanese (and later East Asia’s) industrialisation, and how it eventually came to underpin the course of Japanese imperialism and aggression in the 1930s.

Modern Asian economic history has often been written in terms of Western impact and Asia's response to it. This volume argues that the growth of intra-regional trade, migration, and capital and money flows was a crucial factor that determined the course of East Asian economic development. Twelve...