ABSTRACT

This chapter provides a framework for understanding and analyzing the interplay between internal constraints and transformations and external responses and adjustments. The Confucian cultural and value system developed over several thousands of years under feudal systems, while Marxism emerged in a European context in the 18th century. The size of China's economy and its integration with the world economy has contributed to uncertainty about the global inflationary environment. Historically China has been able to display the capacity of absorbing foreign ideas and influences as well as sinicizing and transforming them into an integral part of native value systems, such as the sinicization of Buddhism and Marxism-Leninism. The classical Marxist conceptualization identifies East Asia societies with the Asiatic Mode of Production (AMP). The concept of the AMP endorses the privileged position of Occidental over Oriental history: the dynamic and progressive character of the West versus the stationary and regressive features of the East.