Asia in the World Essay Questions
- In what ways did Buddhism reflect Hindu traditions, and in what ways did it challenge them?
- Why were Indian influences far more prevalent than Chinese influences in the pre-modern states of Southeast Asia? Provide specific examples to support your arguments.
- How did the Tang Dynasty in China create what is considered to be a ‘Golden Age’ in Chinese history? In what areas did the Dynasty provide for growth and prosperity?
- How did Koreans maintain their own distinct culture, despite long periods of Chinese domination and heavy Chinese cultural influence? Provide specific examples to support your arguments.
- “Japan is often seen as a unique society and a unique polity. Yet, in its reliance on cultural borrowings, it is typical of many Asian societies.” Do you agree or disagree with this statement, and why?
- How did Mongol rule change China? In what ways were the Mongols changed by China?
- What were the factors that made Southeast Asia far more susceptible to Western intervention and colonisation than states in East Asia during the nineteenth century?
- In what ways did the Tokugawa shogunate develop the political, social, economic and educational foundations for Japan’s rapid modernisation after 1869?
- Why do the Chinese, even today, refer to the hundred years following the first Opium War as the “century of humiliation”?
- What factors contributed to the gradual political decline of Chosŏn Korea during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and why did it finally succumb to Japanese intervention in 1894?
- How did Mao Zedong gain such rapid ascendancy in the Chinese Communist Party and why did he shift the base of his revolution from urban industrial workers to rural peasants?
- How did World War II and the Japanese Occupation accelerate the process of decolonization in Southeast Asia? In your answer refer to two occupied territories.
