242 i PERIOD 6 Accelerating Global Change and Realignments (c. 1900 to the present)
The Middle East (Southwest Asia)
- In 1960, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) was founded
to regulate oil prices and control oil distribution. - Southwest Asia participated in the international drug trade.
Asia
- By the 1920s, Japanese exports of silk were reduced after the West began production of
synthetic fabrics. - Between the world wars, China prospered in the global drug trade.
- Southeast Asian economies based on rubber exports were damaged by the decline of the
U.S. and European automobile industry during the Great Depression. - By the 1930s, Japanese industrial manufacturers were entering international trade
markets. - By the 1930s, Vietnam had become one of the world’s leading ex porters of rice. Like
other plantation economies, the production of an export crop left the Vietnamese people
without suffi cient crops for their families. - Before World War II, Japan’s regional empire supplied it with food and raw materials.
Korean peasants were forced to produce rice for export to Japan and other countries. - In the 1960s and 1970s, the production of automobiles and electronics in Japan cut into
U.S. and Western European manufacture of those products. - By the 1970s, South Korea was producing inexpensive consumer goods, textiles, steel,
and automobiles for worldwide markets. - By the 1970s, Taiwan competed successfully in global textile trade, including supplying
a variety of products to Japan. - By the 1980s, Hong Kong was noted for its exports of clothing and heavy industry.
- The “McDonaldization” of world trade extended to the Soviet Union, which opened a
McDonald’s in Moscow during the Gorbachev regime. - Singapore became the world’s fourth largest port. Its factories produced textiles, elec-
tronics, and refi ned oil. - Indonesia exported exotic woods.
- Korea’s Hyundai Corporation exported automobiles, supertankers, and electronics.
- In 2001, China joined the World Trade Organization (WTO).
- Because of signifi cant industrial growth, India and China have markedly increased their
demand for oil. - China, India, the Philippines, and other Asian nations benefi tted from employment that
was outsourced by U.S. companies. By 2008, India, for years the foremost location for
outsourcing, lost some of its outsourcing contracts to other nations such as China and
the Philippines. - The global economic crisis of 2008–2009 negatively affected the volume of world trade.
Africa
- After World War I, most African nations did not have the economic resources to purchase
industrial goods from other regions. - European and South African miners prospered in the 1930s from exports of gold and
copper from South African mines.