Asia

C

Mining

Mining is also an important activity in most Asian countries, and it is a major export industry in several. Manganese is mined in India; tin in Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia (which combined produce most of the world’s supply of this metal); and chromium ore in the Philippines. The most important mineral export, however, is petroleum, with Asian outputs accounting for about half the world’s total. Southwest Asia contains the world’s largest reserves of oil outside Russia, and most of the production is exported. Indonesia and, more recently, China and Malaysia are also exporters. In South Asia, modest petroleum and natural gas deposits are exploited in Bangladesh, Pakistan, and off the western coast of India. Coal mining is important in China—which contributes about 30 percent to the world’s total coal output—and in central and eastern Siberia, northeastern India, Iran, and Turkey. Other significant mineral products include iron, manganese, and tungsten in China; sulfur, zinc, and molybdenum in Japan; and gold in Uzbekistan and Siberia.

D

Manufacturing

Asia’s manufacturing capacity is unevenly spread but growing quickly. Japan has a highly diversified industrial sector, constituting about one-quarter of the labor force. China, Russia, and India also have large manufacturing centers. In China, manufacturing employs some 15 percent of the workforce. It is concentrated in Liaoning province in the northeastern part of the country; in Shanghai’s port cities of Tianjin, Qingdao, and Wuhan; and in selected interior regions where raw materials are available. Steel production in particular is important. Manufacturing in Siberia is clustered near the Ural Mountains; near major urban areas along the Trans-Siberian Railroad, such as Novosibirsk; and near isolated centers in far eastern Russia. India’s manufacturing sector employs some 16 percent of the labor force. Manufacturing is heavily concentrated in and near Kolkata, in the Mumbai area, in the central peninsula, and in several other areas where resources are available.

Since the 1960s manufacturing has grown rapidly in parts of East and Southeast Asia. South Korea’s annual manufacturing output was less than one-quarter that of India’s in the 1970s, but by the early 1990s South Korea had doubled the output of India. Thailand and Indonesia, particularly near Bangkok and Jakarta, have also developed significant manufacturing industries, as have Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia, and the Philippines. The trend in Southeast Asian countries is to take advantage of the relatively inexpensive labor by establishing manufacturing industries geared to export. Emphasis has been on clothing and shoes, and on electronic equipment such as televisions, video recorders, and compact disc players. In other countries, industries are more often concerned with processing local agricultural, mineral, and forest raw materials; with light manufacturing for domestic markets; and with the assembly of machinery and vehicles imported from other countries.

E

Energy

Petroleum-rich Southwest Asia has few other sources for energy. India has immense hydroelectric potential, and about half the electricity generated there comes from waterpower. Nonetheless, much of the energy consumed in rural India continues to be derived from the burning of dung and brushwood. Both China and Japan have shown that small-scale hydroelectric plants can be effective providers of energy to small towns and rural areas. China has thousands of small hydroelectric plants, concentrated mainly in the south, in addition to about 20 large plants. Coal, however, remains China’s chief energy source. In Japan, petroleum is the largest energy source and almost all of it is imported. Siberia has great hydroelectric potential that has only recently begun to be tapped. In Southeast Asia, oil production is substantial in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Brunei, but the chief domestic sources of energy are waterpower and fuelwood.

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Although overall energy production has increased greatly since the 1960s, energy consumption per capita remains extremely low in most Asian countries. The more economically developed countries or areas have moderate to high consumption levels. These include Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Russian Asia, and the states of Central Asia.

F

Transportation

Transportation systems are poorly developed throughout most of Asia. No comprehensive continental land transportation system exists. Few railroads cross international boundaries, except for the route between China and Russia, and one connecting Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand. The international road network is also poorly developed, and in Central and Southwest Asia routes are often closed due to local skirmishes. Navigable rivers provide limited international transport. The Amur River, which links Russia and China, is one exception. The Mekong River starts in southwest China and meanders through Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, and Cambodia before emptying into the South China Sea off Vietnam. Because of local political instability and problems with navigability, however, the river has not been used to its full capacity. Recent improved cooperation between nations along the Mekong and funding support from the Asian Development Bank have led to plans to remove obstacles to river transport.

Most of Asia’s international transportation is by sea or air. Both regularly scheduled and general-service ships connect all major Asian ports with each other. Port facilities are varied. Japan and China contain large ports. Shanghai is the largest Chinese port, but Qinhuangdao, Dalian, and Qingdao are also important. Singapore is the major port of Southeast Asia, well ahead of the ports for Bangkok, Jakarta (at Tanjung Priok), Kuala Lumpur (at Kelang), and Manila. Mumbai and Kolkata are important ports of the Indian subcontinent, and there are large oil exporting ports in the Persian Gulf, such as Iran’s Kharg Island. Singapore and Hong Kong are particularly important as entrepôts, serving as major redistribution points. Air services link all major cities. A high-volume air corridor links Tokyo, Seoul, Taipei, Hong Kong, Bangkok, and Singapore. These airports are in the most developed countries along the Pacific coast of Asia and therefore generate more demand for business and tourist travel than interior Asia. Singapore and Bangkok have large international air terminals and sophisticated facilities in an attempt to maximize their share of Asian air services.

Domestic transportation in most countries is limited. Rural settlements are poorly connected with one another or with larger towns. Highways are few and rural roads are often unpaved. Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Malaysia, and much of the Philippines are the exceptions. Malaysia has recently completed construction of a freeway that runs from the far north of the country to Johor Baharu, which is adjacent to Singapore. Highways in many other countries are directed toward the capital city’s greater metropolitan region and its connection to the airport. An example is Jakarta, where in-city tollways and overpasses ease congestion in the city and outlying freeways link Jakarta to the satellite towns of Bekasi, Tangerang, and Bogor.

Navigable rivers are often the main highways of commerce, but not all countries have them. In China, the Yangtze River has long been the major east-west transportation artery. It is connected to Beijing and the Huabei Pingyuan (North China Plain) by the Grand Canal, which intersects the Yangtze near Shanghai.

The continent’s chief transportation mode is the railroad. Japan has a dense railroad network, the centerpiece of which is the Shinkansen, a high-speed rail which connects Tokyo, Nagoya, Kyōto, Ōsaka, Okayama, and Hiroshima. Traveling at speeds of up to 249 km/h (155 mph), the bullet train is one of the world’s fastest. China has the world’s sixth longest railroad system and by the mid-1970s had linked all of its major manufacturing centers and provincial capitals into one vast network. Despite its enormous size, the Chinese rail network is unable to meet demand for either freight or passenger traffic. Korea and Taiwan are well served by rail. The countries of Southeast Asia, except for Thailand and Malaysia, and those of Southwest Asia have railroad systems that are small and truncated. In South Asia an integrated railroad system, originally built by the British, was divided by the political separation of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. The Trans-Caspian and Turk-Sib railroads are the most important rail lines in Central Asia. The Trans-Siberian Railroad and its branches, such as the Baikal-Amur Mainline (BAM) line, form the main transportation system in Siberia.

G

Trade

Some Asian countries carry on extensive international trade. Asia has 17 of the world’s top 50 exporters, compared to 4 each from Africa and South America. In order of importance, the most notable exporting centers are Japan, Hong Kong, China, Taiwan, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, the United Arab Emirates, India, Iran, Turkey, Israel, the Philippines, and Oman.

Much of this trade is between Asian countries, particularly the export of raw material to Japan and Japan’s export of manufactured goods to Asian markets. Examples include the flow of oil to Japan from the Persian Gulf, and to a lesser extent from Indonesia and Brunei. Japan’s import and export trade with Southeast Asian countries is particularly strong.

The NIEs have growing exports of manufactured goods. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are oil exporters. Hong Kong and Singapore re-export goods from China and Malaysia, respectively. Indonesia and Malaysia are major traders in raw materials.

Several organizations support the economic development and growth of trade among Asian countries. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is based in Manila. Like the World Bank, it loans money to member countries, sometimes at subsidized rates, for developmental purposes. Its Asian membership includes most of the countries of East, Southeast, and South Asia, as well as Afghanistan and Turkey. Based in Bangkok, the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) assists with the coordination of the UN’s development agencies, such as the FAO and the WHO. Asian membership in ESCAP includes the same group as the Asian Development Bank, excluding Turkey, plus Russia and several Central Asian states.

Two more localized organizations of importance are the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). ASEAN was formed in 1967 to support a range of links between member nations. Its core membership of Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines, and Brunei was supplemented by the addition of Vietnam in 1995, Myanmar and Laos in 1997, and Cambodia in 1998. Member states have created an ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA), which commits them to significantly reducing trade barriers, such as quotas and tariffs, by the early 21st century.

The CIS was formed in December 1991 as a loose successor to the Soviet Union. Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine were the founding members; they were soon joined by Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. CIS members—which share characteristics from having been members of the USSR—initially formed to coordinate economic and foreign policy, although the organization’s roll has diminished since its founding in 1991.

In 1989 an organization called the Asian-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) was formed to facilitate trade between North America, Oceania, and Asia. Asian members include Brunei, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam. Since its modest launch APEC has grown in importance, with regular meetings of heads of government. While promoting “open regionalism,” which means it will not support trade barriers aimed at nonmember countries, it also seeks to reduce barriers to trade among members.