Asia

D

Education

Millions of people throughout Asia are illiterate, which is defined as the inability of people over age 15 to write a short, simple statement about their everyday life. Although fewer than 15 percent of the people in Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and South Korea are illiterate, the illiteracy rate in Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Yemen is greater than 50 percent. In many areas more women than men are illiterate and sometimes the gap is very wide.

The education systems of most countries have emphasized elementary or primary school instruction. In Southeast and Southwest Asia, elementary instruction is often conducted by religious groups, such as Buddhists and Muslims. Japan, Russia, and Israel have led the development of adequate educational systems. In Japan, nine years of schooling are free and compulsory, and the country has many universities. China’s educational system concentrates on the elimination of illiteracy. India has benefited from schools and colleges that were established during the period of British rule; like China, it has stressed mass literacy.

School participation rates vary throughout Asia. In the majority of countries almost all students undertake primary school education, reflecting the priority this has generally been given by governments. There is universal primary education in China, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, and Myanmar. In a handful of South and Southwest Asian countries, such as Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Yemen, only 50 to 75 percent of the school-aged children are enrolled. Far fewer girls than boys attend primary school in these countries. Secondary education has lower levels of enrollment throughout Asia, and even fewer students attend institutions of higher education.

E

Health

Asia has some of the world’s major health problems. These are compounded by widespread ignorance of basic sanitation concepts and, in some areas, by high population densities. In Southeast, South, and Southwest Asia, subtropical and tropical climates favor the development and survival of parasites in soils, water, and hosts (insects, animals, and humans that carry the parasites). Streams are often used for sewage disposal in the southern parts of Asia. Where these same streams are also used for drinking and bathing water, they are a source of chronic infections. Sanitary conditions are improving, especially in cities, as international aid programs give high priority to health problems caused by the environment. Construction of better drinking water facilities—together with improved systems of sewage disposal, rubbish collection, and wastewater drainage—is helping create healthier settlements.

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Untreated human manure is used as a fertilizer on some farms in East and Southeast Asia, contributing to the spread of disease. In recent years, sanitary practices in China have been greatly improved by first treating human manure before adding it to soils.

The major diseases of Asia include cholera, typhoid fever, scarlet fever, poliomyelitis, amebic and bacillary dysentery, and malaria. Cholera, caused by a bacterium usually transmitted through polluted water, has existed in Asia for centuries.

Elephantiasis, which is common in the tropical areas of India and China, is another disease that occurs in Asia. The parasitic worms that cause this disease are usually carried by mosquitoes, which are also the hosts of the organisms that cause malaria. Although not always successful, enormous efforts have been made to eliminate mosquitoes in many areas by the use of insecticides.

The spread of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome(AIDS) is a growing threat in Asia, particularly in South and Southeast Asia. Many countries do not keep accurate statistics of AIDS cases, either because they lack the health services to track the disease, or because they deny that AIDS is a significant problem. However, the World Health Organization (WHO) of the United Nations (UN) estimates that in the late 1990s 5.8 million people in South and Southeast Asia had AIDS or were infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes AIDS.

Millions of people in Asia are infected with hookworms, which typically cause malnutrition and a lack of energy. Malnutrition itself causes diseases, including kwashiorkor, a protein deficiency that stunts the growth of children and occasionally causes their death. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has attempted to combat the problem of protein deficiency in many ways, including encouraging ocean fishing and fish farming, the use of powdered milk, and the production of milk-like products from protein-rich soybeans. The WHO has attacked the problems of health more directly: Mass inoculations and international quarantines have helped control many diseases, and smallpox has been wiped out in Asia.

The quality of health care systems varies in Asia. The most advanced systems of health delivery are found in Japan, Israel, and Russia. Singapore and Hong Kong also have good systems and a ratio, respectively, of one doctor for every 714 and 758 people. In Cambodia the impact of war and genocide has left the country with just one doctor for every 6,400 people. Countries such as Nepal, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, and the Philippines have more than 5,000 people per doctor.

Many Asians seek traditional healers for treatment of a wide range of illnesses. Chinese traditional medicine is probably the best-known alternative to Western medicine. Techniques such as acupuncture, acupressure, and the use of herbal medicines are widely used by Chinese people throughout Asia, and many of these techniques are practiced in Western countries.

IV

Patterns of Economic Development

Much of Asia is economically underdeveloped. Even though the majority of the continent’s population is employed in agriculture, most agriculture is characterized by low yields and poor labor productivity. Relatively few people are employed in manufacturing. The services sector is dominated by low-income positions, such as street vendors or pedicab operators. Urban centers and their industries are often poorly integrated into the rural economy. Transportation systems, both within countries and between them, are often underdeveloped.

Russia and most states of Central Asia have struggled economically since the early 1990s when the USSR and its centrally planned economy dissolved. In contrast, the economies of China and Vietnam have grown since the late 1980s when their governments began making a transformation from a centrally planned to a mixed-market system. Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and the smaller states of South Asia, as well as Laos and Cambodia in Southeast Asia, have achieved only modest economic gains. Their economies face a variety of hurdles, including a poor resource base, widespread poverty, and, often, inadequate government planning.

The value of some East and Southeast Asian currencies fell dramatically in the late 1990s, impeding the ability of certain governments, banks, and businesses to repay their foreign debt. Some countries, notably Indonesia, Thailand, and South Korea, obtained large loans from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to meet their debt obligations. Nevertheless, the economic crisis has not reversed the years of growth; Asia’s overall economic performance has been very good since the 1980s, and most analysts expect continued long-term growth. Japan is a global economic superpower with one of the world’s highest average incomes per person. Economists often refer to Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan as Asia’s “Four Tigers,” because they rapidly achieved high economic growth and a standard of living among the highest in the world. Thailand and Malaysia were close behind. Because of their impressive annual growth rates during the early and mid-1990s, ranging from 5 to 10 percent, these countries are sometimes collectively referred to as the “newly industrialized economies” (NIEs). This term is applied loosely, however, and sometimes includes Indonesia, China, and Vietnam, which also achieved rapid growth in early and mid-1990s. Government policies that emphasize foreign investment and production of labor-intensive manufactured goods for export are central to Asia’s economic success. In the early 1990s the Philippines and India introduced economic reforms modeled on those of their successful Asian neighbors. The Southwest Asian states with large petroleum resources have also done well, although the wealth generated is often concentrated in very few hands.

A

Agriculture

Less than one-third of Asia’s land is in agricultural use. The basic unit for organizing production in the rural areas is either the farm or the village, depending on the way in which rural society is structured. In South, Southeast, and East Asia, agriculture is characterized by small farms in alluvial lowlands, too many people on too little land, production largely for subsistence, and a heavy dependence on cereals and other food staples. Farming with simple handheld tools or plows pulled by draft animals is very common. Many farmers are tenants, not owning the land they work. Communal farming was once common in socialist countries. Most rural communes have disintegrated in China and Vietnam, however, and the rights to use the land have reverted to farm families.

Rice, usually grown under wet conditions, is the staple food crop of South, Southeast, and East Asia. In South and Southeast Asia, controlled irrigation facilities are poorly developed, yields are often low, and double-cropping (planting and harvesting two crops in one calendar year) is seldom practiced. Although high-yield varieties of wet rice have been introduced since the 1960s, this has not increased production as hoped.

In India, irrigation schemes have helped stabilize annual yields and increase overall production, but the average rice yield per hectare in the mid-1990s was only about half that of Japan. Nevertheless, Asian countries produce about 90 percent of the world’s rice. China and India alone account for nearly 60 percent of the world total.

In addition to subsistence and small-farm agriculture, South and Southeast Asia also have large-scale estate agriculture. These farms produce crops for export, such as rubber, palm oil, coconut products, tea, pineapples, and manila hemp. Estate production originated in the late 18th and early 19th centuries when European colonial powers controlled much of the region. Many estates remain under foreign ownership and control.

In East Asia, agriculture is based on flooded-field cultivation to a latitude of about 35° north in China and about 40° north elsewhere. In contrast to Southeast Asia, yields are high, double-cropping is common, irrigation is highly controlled, and fertilizer is used extensively. These practices make Japan’s wet-rice agriculture very productive, despite the small size of Japanese farms.

North of the Huai River in China’s Anhui province, rice gives way to wheat and other dry grains, especially sorghum and corn. Fish farming and swine and poultry raising are practiced throughout East Asia. Dairy and beef cattle, though, are commonly raised only in Japan and Korea.

Farmers grow some grains in Asia’s dry interior regions, and the raising of cattle, sheep, and horses is important. Semiarid regions of Central and Southwest Asia have agriculture centered around oases. For the most part, however, productivity levels are low.

B

Forestry and Fishing

Although lumbering is an important industry in Southeast Asia, the pattern of commercial production is being altered, due in part to increased concern regarding deforestation. For example, in 1985 Indonesia—a significant source of tropical hardwoods—banned the export of unprocessed logs in an attempt to slow production and increase domestic timber processing industries. The bans were replaced by a high export tax in 1992. Thailand, once a major source of teak timbers, instituted a ban on commercial logging in 1989. Many companies then shifted their attention to the forests of neighboring Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar, where some firms developed alliances with dissident groups to illegally exploit local timbers.

Slash-and-burn agriculture is still practiced in parts of Southeast Asia, as well as in the more remote parts of humid South Asia and southern China. In the heavily populated areas of India and China, however, the original forest cover has long since been removed.

Lumbering is a major industry in Japan, where large areas of planted conifers have replaced much of the original temperate forests in the south and deciduous hardwoods in the north. Siberian timber reserves are enormous but relatively untapped; the region’s inaccessibility and harsh climate prohibit logging, and the quality of the trees is generally insufficient for world markets.

Marine fisheries are extremely important in Asia. Japan is the world’s leading fishing country, and China is not far behind. The fishing industry is also important in Russia, Thailand, Indonesia, Korea, and the Philippines. Pisciculture (raising fish in ponds) is also an important activity, especially in China. Although fishing in the less developed countries is largely for domestic consumption, emphasis has increasingly been placed on exports of dried, frozen, and canned fish.

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