OCCUPIED TERITORITY

Occupied territories is a term of art in international law. In accordance with Article 42 of the Laws and Customs of War on Land (Fourth Hague Convention); October 18, 1907^[1], Territory is considered occupied when it is actually placed under the authority of the hostile army. The occupation extends only to the territory where such authority has been established and can be exercised.

The Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928 made the threat or use of military force in contravention of international law^[2], as well as territorial acquisitions resulting from it unlawful. Though that Pact was not universally subscribed to, and was in fact gravely breached by its signatories, subsequent treaty law, specifically the Charter of the United Nations, done at San Francisco in 1945, and adhered to by nearly all nations, contains a similar prohibition.

This was soon followed by the judgment of the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg in the matter of several of the political and military leaders of the former Nazi entity, regarding crimes against peace, as well as other charges under the law of war and the law of nations, including war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. The Tribunal declared that waging a war of aggression and territorial aggrandizement was not only criminal, but that "to initiate a war of aggression...is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime, differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole." Those found guilty for planning the war of aggression in question were hanged or received long prison sentences. As the judgement of the IMT was recognized as fully declarative of the law of nations and the laws and customs of war, the prohibition against wars of aggression thus entered into the customary international law, making it binding on all civilized nations and peoples without exclusion, reservation, or exception.

It must be noted that the grossly criminal act of levying a war of aggression is distinguished from the war without legal standing, which refers to military action not done for purposes of conquest and gross territorial gain, and not legitimated by self-defense, and not authorized by Article 51 or the Security Council. This class of wars might include the settlement of long-running territorial disputes, suppression or punishment of atrocities or outrages against a belligerent nation, suppression of alleged threats to national security, defense of allies or allied peoples, peace-enforcement or peace-keeping, or prejudicial resolution of ideological differences. Wars without legal standing are unlawful; however, they are common, and not criminal like a war of aggression is. Wars without legal standing often result in the occupation of territory by the victorious nation in such a war.

At the end of a war, usually the victorious side is in possession of territories previously possessed by another state. These territories are known as occupied territories. Acquisition of occupied territories is incidental to a war, where the military forces of the occupying power come into the possession of territories previously held by another state. Military occupation is usually temporary; and under the subsequent articles of the Hague convention (articles 43, 44, and etc.), the status quo must be maintained pending the signing of a peace treaty, the resolution of specific conditions outlined in a peace treaty, or the formation of a new civilian government.

Examples of occupied territories include Germany and Japan after World War II; Cambodia by Vietnam from 1979 until 1989; Iraq after the 2003 invasion by the United States and allied forces removed the government of Saddam Hussein from power, and the Israeli-occupied territories.

During World War II the use of annexation deprived whole populations of the safeguards provided by international laws governing military occupations. Changes were introduced to international law through the Fourth Geneva Convention that makes it much more difficult for a state to bypass international law through the use of annexation.^[3] GCIV Article 47, the first paragraph in Section III: Occupied territories, restricted the territorial gains which could be made through war,^[3] and Article 49 prohibits mass movement of people out of or into occupied territory.^[4]

If a state unilaterally declares a territory that has been under military occupation to be annexed, bodies such as the United Nations Security Council frequently describe such territories as "occupied" when that annexation is in breach of international law or not accepted by the United Nations General Assembly, even if the territory is governed through the civil laws of the state that has integrated the occupied territory into their own territories.^[5][6][7][8]

History and definitions

Generally, any disputed territory can be seen as occupied by the party that lacks control over it at that moment. Thus, the Germanic tribes displaced the Celts of central Europe, and Egypt was conquered and absorbed in the 7th century by Arabs who were not its original population. This is particularly true of the region between Egypt and Turkey where repeated population movements and military conquests have occurred during the past several thousand years.

Regarding the West Bank (58% Israeli-administered, with the remainder under Israeli suzerainty), Gaza Strip (whose land and sea access is blockaded by Israel) and Israel proper, the use of this expression is often controversial and hotly disputed.

Additionally, occupation has two distinct meanings:

1. The state of being lived in (as in: "Isle of Man is occupied by the Manx", or this house is occupied by the Smith family);
2. The state of military control following conquest by war but prior to annexation.

Although (1) and (2) are obviously distinct, they are sometimes intermingled. Under (1), the territory in question is under normal civilian law; under (2) the territory is usually under military law within the terms of the Laws of war, such as the Fourth Geneva Convention (according to the UN).

Occupied territories since 1907

For a list of occupied territories since the Hague Convention of 1907 Laws and Customs of War on Land (Hague IV); October 18, 1907 first clarified and supplemented the customary laws of belligerent military occupation see the list of military occupations and the list of territorial disputes.

Disputed

International Court of Justice Opinion

In July 2004, The International Court of Justice delivered an Advisory Opinion on the 'Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory'. The Court observed that under customary international law as reflected in Article 42 of the Regulations Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land annexed to the Fourth Hague Convention of 18 October 1907, territory is considered occupied when it is actually placed under the authority of the hostile army, and the occupation extends only to the territory where such authority has been established and can be exercised.

The State of Israel raised a number of exceptions and objections,^[9] but the Court found them unpersuasive. The Court ruled that territories had been occupied by the Israeli armed forces in 1967, during the conflict between Israel and Jordan, and that subsequent events in those territories, had done nothing to alter the situation. 'All these territories (including East Jerusalem) remain occupied territories and Israel has continued to have the status of occupying Power.'

BORDERS

Borders define geographic boundaries of political entities or legal jurisdictions, such as governments, states or subnational administrative divisions. They may foster the setting up of buffer zones. Some borders are fully or partially controlled, and may be crossed legally only at designated border checkpoints.

There has been a renaissance in the study of borders during the past two decades, partially resulting from the creation of a counter narrative to notions of a borderless world which have been advanced as part of globalization theory^[1]. This is reflected in a large number of international workshops and conferences, the BRIT (Border Regions in Transition) network of scholars [1], IBRU (the International Boundaries Research Unit) [2] at the University of Durham, UK, the Association of Borderland Scholars (ABS) in the USA[ http://www.absborderlands.org/], and the founding of smaller border research centres at Nijmegen (Holland) [3], Queens University (Belfast) [4], to name but a few. The Journal of Borderland Studies [5] deals exclusively with border related material, while other international journals such as, Geopolitics, [6] and Political Geography [7], publish material dealing with the changing significances and functions of borders in the contemporary world.

Leading scholars in the contemporary study of borders include Anssi Paasi [8] (University of Oulu, Finland), Henk van Houtum [9] (Radboud University Nijmegen , Netherlands), Doris Wastl Water (University of Bern, Switzerland), David Newman [10] (Ben Gurion University, Israel), Emanuel Brunet Jailly [11] (University of Victoria, Canada), Irasema Coronado (University of Texas at El Paso).

Definitions of borders

In the past many borders were not clearly defined lines, but were neutral zones called marchlands. This has been reflected in recent times with the neutral zones that were set up along part of Saudi Arabia's borders with Kuwait and Iraq (however, these zones no longer exist). In modern times the concept of a marchland has been replaced by that of the clearly defined and demarcated border.

For the purposes of border control, airports and seaports are also classed as borders. Most countries have some form of border control to restrict or limit the movement of people, animals, plants, and goods into or out of the country. Under international law, each country is generally permitted to define the conditions which have to be met by a person to legally cross its borders by its own laws, and to prevent persons from crossing its border when this happens in violation of those laws.

In order to cross borders, the presentation of passports and visas or other appropriate forms of identity document is required by some legal orders. To stay or work within a country's borders aliens (foreign persons) may need special immigration documents or permits that authorise them to do so.

Moving goods across a border often requires the payment of excise tax, often collected by customs officials. Animals (and occasionally humans) moving across borders may need to go into quarantine to prevent the spread of exotic or infectious diseases. Most countries prohibit carrying illegal drugs or endangered animals across their borders. Moving goods, animals or people illegally across a border, without declaring them, seeking permission, or deliberately evading official inspection constitutes smuggling.

Border economics

The presence of borders often fosters certain economic features or anomalies. Wherever two jurisdictions come into contact, special economic opportunities arise for border trade. Smuggling provides a classic case; contrariwise, a border region may flourish on the provision of excise or of import–export services — legal or quasi-legal, corrupt or corruption-free. Different regulations on either side of a border may encourage services to position themselves at or near that border: thus the provision of pornography, of prostitution, of alcohol and/or of narcotics may cluster around borders, city limits, county lines, ports and airports. In a more planned and official context, Special Economic Zones (SEZs) often tend to cluster near borders or ports.

Human economic traffic across borders (apart from kidnapping), may involve mass commuting between workplaces and residential settlements. The removal of internal barriers to commerce, as in France after the French Revolution or in Europe since the 1940s, de-emphasises border-based economic activity and fosters free trade.

Border politics

Political borders have a variety of meanings for those whom they affect. Many borders in the world have checkpoints where border control agents inspect those crossing the boundary.

In much of Europe, such controls were abolished by the Schengen Agreement and subsequent European Union legislation. Since the Treaty of Amsterdam, the competence to pass laws on crossing internal and external boders within the European Union and the associated Schengen States (Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein) lies exclusively within the jurisdiction of the European Union, except where states have used a specific right to opt-out (United Kingdom and Ireland, which maintain a common travel area amongst themselves). For details, see Schengen Agreement.

The United States has notably increased measures taken in border control on the Canada–United States border and the United States–Mexico border during its War on Terrorism. The 3600-km (2000-mile) US-Mexico border is probably "the world's longest boundary between a First World and Third World country."^[2]

Historic borders such as the Great Wall of China, the Maginot Line, and Hadrian's Wall have played a great many roles and been marked in different ways. While the stone walls, the Great Wall of China and the Roman Hadrian's Wall in Britain had military functions, the entirety of the Roman borders were very porous, a policy which encouraged Roman economic activity with its neighbors^[3]. On the other hand, a border like the Maginot Line was entirely military and was meant to prevent any access in what was to be World War II to France by its neighbor, Germany.

Image gallery

The following pictures show in how many different ways international and regional borders can be closed off, monitored, at least marked as such, or simply unremarkable.

Border at Tijuana, Mexico and San Ysidro, California, USA. A straight-line border surveyed when the region was thinly populated.	Ceuta border fence between Spain and Morocco.	A militarized frontier: the Berlin Wall used to be one of the most famous guarded borders in the world.	A sign welcoming visitors to the U.S. state of Alabama.
A warning marker at the Canada – United States border at Point Roberts, Washington.	A sign at the Polish-Czech border near the Králický Sněžník, indicating that the crossing of the border is only permitted to citizens of the European Union and of five more states. When the Schengen rules became applicable there in 2007, the sign became obsolete.	Several markers designating the border between Nicholas and Greenbrier counties in West Virginia, USA along a secondary road. Notice the older stone survey markers a few meters behind the modern highway sign.	A typical Schengen internal border (here near Kufstein between Germany and Austria): the traffic island marks the spot where a control post once stood; it was removed in 2000.
Self-illuminating Border flower pot between Burghausen, Salzach in Germany and Ach in Austria.	A border within a closely built-up area – here near Aachen between Germany and the Netherlands: Take the left lane in the Netherlands to actually turn left in Germany.	Border between the Netherlands and Belgium next to a street café. Some European borders originate from former aristocratic land ownership limits.	This recently-built building of the Eurode Business Centre straddles the border between the Netherlands and Germany, in Kerkrade and Herzogenrath.
The bridge over the Inari River in Karigasniemi, on the border of Finland and Norway.	Italy/Switzerland border stone at Passo San Giacomo. Some borders were broadly defined by treaty, and surveyors would then choose a suitable line on the ground.	The "Europe Sign" in Atyrau, Kazakhstan, after crossing the Ural River bridge west.	The "Asia Sign" in Atyrau, Kazakhstan, after crossing the Ural River bridge east.

[edit] Helmstedt-Marienborn border crossing BRD/DDR

GLOBALIZATION

Globalization (globalisation) in its literal sense is the process of transformation of local or regional phenomena into global ones. It can be described as a process by which the people of the world are unified into a single society and function together.

This process is a combination of economic, technological, sociocultural and political forces.^[1] Globalization is often used to refer to economic globalization, that is, integration of national economies into the international economy through trade, foreign direct investment, capital flows, migration, and the spread of technology.^[2]

Tom G. Palmer of the Cato Institute defines globalization as "the diminution or elimination of state-enforced restrictions on exchanges across borders and the increasingly integrated and complex global system of production and exchange that has emerged as a result."^[3]

Thomas L. Friedman "examines the impact of the 'flattening' of the globe", and argues that globalized trade, outsourcing, supply-chaining, and political forces have changed the world permanently, for both better and worse. He also argues that the pace of globalization is quickening and will continue to have a growing impact on business organization and practice.^[4]

Noam Chomsky argues that the word globalization is also used, in a doctrinal sense, to describe the neoliberal form of economic globalization.^[5]

Herman E. Daly argues that sometimes the terms internationalization and globalization are used interchangeably but there is a slight formal difference. The term "internationalization" refers to the importance of international trade, relations, treaties etc. International means between or among nations.

History

The term "globalization" has been used by economists since the 1980s although it was used in social sciences in the 1960s; however, its concepts did not become popular until the latter half of the 1980s and 1990s. The earliest written theoretical concepts of globalization were penned by an American entrepreneur-turned-minister Charles Taze Russell who coined the term 'corporate giants' in 1897.^[6]

Globalization is viewed as a centuries long process, tracking the expansion of human population and the growth of civilization, that has accelerated dramatically in the past 50 years. Early forms of globalization existed during the Roman Empire, the Parthian empire, and the Han Dynasty, when the Silk Road started in China, reached the boundaries of the Parthian empire, and continued onwards towards Rome.

The Islamic Golden Age is also an example, when Muslim traders and explorers established an early global economy across the Old World resulting in a globalization of crops, trade, knowledge and technology; and later during the Mongol Empire, when there was greater integration along the Silk Road. Globalization in a wider context began shortly before the turn of the 16th century, with two Kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula - the Kingdom of Portugal and the Kingdom of Castile.

Portugal's global explorations in the 16th century, especially, linked continents, economies and cultures to a massive extent. Portugal's exploration and trade with most of the coast of Africa, Eastern South America, and Southern and Eastern Asia, was the first major trade based form of globalization. A wave of global trade, colonization, and enculturation reached all corners of the world.

Global integration continued through the expansion of European trade in the 16th and 17th centuries, when the Portuguese and Spanish Empires colonized the Americas, followed eventually by France and England. Globalization has had a tremendous impact on cultures, particularly indigenous cultures, around the world. In the 15th century, Portugal's Company of Guinea was one of the first chartered commercial companies established by Europeans in other continent during the Age of Discovery, whose task was to deal with the spices and to fix the prices of the goods.

In the 17th century, globalization became a business phenomenon when the British East India Company (founded in 1600), which is often described as the first multinational corporation, was established, as well as the Dutch East India Company (founded in 1602) and the Portuguese East India Company (founded in 1628). Because of the high risks involved with international trade, the British East India Company became the first company in the world to share risk and enable joint ownership of companies through the issuance of shares of stock: an important driver for globalization.

Globalization was achieved by the British Empire (the largest empire in history) due to its sheer size and power. British ideals and culture were imposed on other nations during this period.

The 19th century is sometimes called "The First Era of Globalization." It was a period characterized by rapid growth in international trade and investment between the European imperial powers, their colonies, and, later, the United States.

It was in this period that areas of sub-saharan Africa and the Island Pacific were incorporated into the world system. The "First Era of Globalization" began to break down at the beginning of the 20th century with the first World War. Said John Maynard Keynes^[7],

“

The inhabitant of London could order by telephone, sipping his morning tea, the various products of the whole earth, and reasonably expect their early delivery upon his doorstep. Militarism and imperialism of racial and cultural rivalries were little more than the amusements of his daily newspaper. What an extraordinary episode in the economic progress of man was that age which came to an end in August 1914.

”

The "First Era of Globalization" later collapsed during the gold standard crisis in the late 1920s and early 1930s.

Modern globalization

Globalization, since World War II, is largely the result of planning by politicians to breakdown borders hampering trade to increase prosperity and interdependance thereby decreasing the chance of future war. Their work led to the Bretton Woods conference, an agreement by the world's leading politicians to lay down the framework for international commerce and finance, and the founding of several international institutions intended to oversee the processes of globalization.

These institutions include the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (the World Bank), and the International Monetary Fund. Globalization has been facilitated by advances in technology which have reduced the costs of trade, and trade negotiation rounds, originally under the auspices of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which led to a series of agreements to remove restrictions on free trade.

Since World War II, barriers to international trade have been considerably lowered through international agreements - GATT. Particular initiatives carried out as a result of GATT and the World Trade Organization (WTO), for which GATT is the foundation, have included:

• Promotion of free trade:
  • Reduction or elimination of tariffs; creation of free trade zones with small or no tariffs
  • Reduced transportation costs, especially resulting from development of containerization for ocean shipping.
  • Reduction or elimination of capital controls
  • Reduction, elimination, or harmonization of subsidies for local businesses
  • Creation of subsidies for global corporations
  • Harmonization of intellectual property laws across the majority of states, with more restrictions.
  • Supranational recognition of intellectual property restrictions (e.g. patents granted by China would be recognized in the United States)

Cultural globalization, driven by communication technology and the worldwide marketing of Western cultural industries, was understood at first as a process of homogenization, as the global domination of American culture at the expense of traditional diversity. However, a contrasting trend soon became evident in the emergence of movements protesting against globalization and giving new momentum to the defense of local uniqueness, individuality, and identity, but largely without success. ^[8]

The Uruguay Round (1986 to 1994)^[9] led to a treaty to create the WTO to mediate trade disputes and set up a uniform platform of trading. Other bilateral and multilateral trade agreements, including sections of Europe's Maastricht Treaty and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) have also been signed in pursuit of the goal of reducing tariffs and barriers to trade.

Global conflicts, such as the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States of America, is interrelated with globalization because it was primary source of the "war on terror", which had started the steady increase of the prices of oil and gas, due to the fact that most OPEC member countries were in the Arabian Peninsula.^[10]

World exports rose from 8.5% of gross world product in 1970 to 16.1% of gross world product in 2001. [6]

INDUSTRIELIZATION

ndustrialisation ( US spelling Industrialization) is the process of social and economic change whereby a human group is transformed from a pre-industrial society into an industrial one. It is a part of a wider modernization process, where social change and economic development are closely related with technological innovation, particularly with the development of large-scale energy and it metallurgy production. Industrialization also introduces a form of philosophical change, where people obtain a different attitude towards their perception of nature.

There is considerable literature on the factors facilitating industrial modernization and enterprise development.^[1] Key positive factors identified by researchers have ranged from favorable political-legal environments for industry and commerce, through abundant natural resources of various kinds, to plentiful supplies of relatively low-cost, skilled and adaptable labor.

One survey of countries in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America and the Caribbean in the late 20th century found that high levels of structural differentiation, functional specialization, and autonomy of economic systems from government were likely to contribute greatly to industrial-commercial growth and prosperity. Amongst other things, relatively open trading systems with zero or low duties on goods imports tended to stimulate industrial cost-efficiency and innovation across the board. Free and flexible labor and other markets also helped raise general business-economic performance levels, as did rapid popular learning capabilities. Positive work ethics in populations at large combined with skills in quickly utilizing new technologies and scientific discoveries were likely to boost production and income levels – and as the latter rose, markets for consumer goods and services of all kinds tended to expand and provide a further stimulus to industrial investment and economic growth. By the end of the century, East Asia was one of the most economically successful regions of the world – with free market countries such as Hong Kong being widely seen as models for other, less developed countries around the world to emulate.^[2]

Description

According to the original sector classification of Jean Fourastié, an economy consists of a "Primary sector" of commodity production (farming, livestock breeding, exploitation of mineral resources), a "secondary sector" of manufacturing and processing, and a "Tertiary Sector" of service industries. The industrialization process is historically based on the expansion of the secondary sector in an economy dominated by primary activities.

The first ever transformation to an industrial economy from an agrarian one was called the Industrial Revolution and this took place in the late 18th and early 19th centuries in a few countries of Western Europe and North America, beginning in Great Britain. This was the first industrialization in the world's history.

The Second Industrial Revolution describes a later, somewhat less dramatic change which came about in the late 19th century with the widespread availability of electric power, internal-combustion engines, and assembly lines to the already industrialized nations.

The lack of an industrial sector in a country is widely seen as a major handicap in improving a country's economy, and power, pushing many governments to encourage or enforce industrialization.

History

Main article: Pre-industrial society

Map showing the global distribution of industrial output in 2005, based on a percentage of the top producer, which is the United States

Most pre-industrial economies had standards of living not much above subsistence, meaning that the majority of the population were focused on producing their means of survival. For example, in medieval Europe, 80% of the labor force was employed in subsistence agriculture.

Some pre-industrial economies, such as classical Athens, have had trade and commerce as significant factors, enjoying wealth far beyond a sustenance standard of living. Famines were frequent in most pre-industrial societies, although some, such as the Netherlands and England of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the Italian city states of the fifteenth century, the medieval Islamic Caliphate, and the ancient Greek and Roman civilizations were able to escape the famine cycle through increasing trade and commercialization of the agricultural sector. It is estimated that during the seventeenth century Netherlands imported nearly 70% of its grain supply and in the fifth century BC Athens imported three quarters of its total food supply.

During the Arab Agricultural Revolution from the 8th to 13th centuries, the agricultural sector was revolutionized by the global economy established by Jewish, Arab and Muslim traders and explorers across much of the Old World, enabling the diffusion of many crops and farming techniques between many different regions within and beyond the medieval Islamic world.^[3] As a result, the Islamic Caliphate experienced major changes in its economy, population distribution,^[4] vegetation cover,^[5] agricultural production and income, population levels, urban growth, the distribution of the workforce, linked industries, cooking, diet and clothing.^[3]

Industrialization through innovation in manufacturing processes first started with the Industrial Revolution in the north-west and midlands of England in the eighteenth century.^[6] It spread to Europe and North America in the nineteenth century, and to the rest of the world in the twentieth.

Industrial revolution in Western Europe

Main article: Industrial Revolution

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Great Britain experienced a massive increase in agricultural productivity known as the British Agricultural Revolution, which enabled an unprecedented population growth, freeing up a significant percentage of the workforce from farming, and helping to drive the Industrial revolution.

Due to the limited amount of arable land and the overwhelming efficiency of mechanized farming, the increased population could not be dedicated to agriculture. New agricultural techniques allowed a single peasant to feed more workers than previously; however, these techniques also increased the demand for machines and other hardware which had traditionally been provided by the urban artisans. Artisans, collectively called bourgeoisie, employed rural exodus' workers to increase their output and meet the country's needs. The growth of their business coupled with the lack of experience of the new workers pushed a rationalization and standardization of the duties the in workshops, thus leading to a division of work, that is, a primitive form of Fordism. The process of creating a good was divided into simple tasks, each one of them being gradually mechanized in order to boost productivity and thus increase income. The accumulation of capital allowed investments in the conception and application of new technologies, enabling the industrialization process to continue to evolve.

The industrialization process formed a class of industrial workers who had more money to spend than their agricultural cousins. They spent this on items such as tobacco and sugar; creating new mass markets which stimulated more investment as merchants sought to exploit them. ^[7]

The mechanization of production spread to the countries surrounding England in western and northern Europe and to British settler colonies, making those areas the wealthiest and shaping what is now know as the Western world.

Some economic historians argue that the possession of so-called ‘exploitation colonies’ eased the accumulation of capital to the countries that possessed them, speeding up their development. The consequence was that the subject country integrated a bigger economic system in a subaltern position, emulating the countryside who demands manufactured goods and offers raw materials, while the metropole stressed its urban posture, providing goods and importing food. A classical example of this mechanism is said to be the triangular trade, who involved England, southern United States and western Africa. Critics argue that this polarity still affects the world, and has deeply retarded the industrialization of what is now known as the Third World.

Some have stressed the importance of natural or financial resources that Britain received from its many overseas colonies or that profits from the British slave trade between Africa and the Caribbean helped fuel industrial investment.

Early industrialization in other countries

After the Convention of Kanagawa, which was issued by Commodore Matthew C. Perry, had forced Japan to open the ports of Shimoda and Hakodate to American trade, the Japanese government realized that drastic reforms were necessary in order to stave off Western influence. The Tokugawa shogunate abolished the feudal system. The government instituted military reforms to modernize the Japanese army and also constructed the base for industrialization. In the 1870s, the Meiji government vigorously promoted technological and industrial development which eventually brought Japan to become a powerful modern country.

In a similar way, Russia suffered during the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War. The Soviet Union's centrally controlled economy decided to invest a big part of its resources to enhance its industrial production and infrastructures in order to assure its own survival, thus becoming a world superpower. ^[8]

During the cold war, the other European communist countries, organized under the Comecon framework, followed the same developing scheme, albeit with a less emphasis on heavy industry.

Southern European countries saw a moderate industrialization during the 1950s-1970s, caused by a healthy integration of the European economy, though their level of development, as well as those of eastern countries, doesn't match the western standards.^{[9] [10]}

The Third World

Main article: Third World

A similar state-led developing programme was pursued in virtually all the Third World countries during the Cold War, including the socialist ones, but especially in Sub-Saharan Africa after the decolonisation period.^{[citation needed]} The primary scope of those projects was to achieve self-sufficiency through the local production of previously imported goods, the mechanisation of agriculture and the spread of education and health care. However, all those experiences failed bitterly due to lack of realism: most countries didn't have a pre-industrial bourgeoisie able to carry on a capitalistic development or even a stable and peaceful state. Those aborted experiences left huge debts toward western countries and fueled public corruption.

Petrol producing countries

Oil-rich countries saw similar failures in their economic choices. An EIA report stated that OPEC member nations were projected to earn a net amount of $1.251 trillion in 2008 from their oil exports.^[11] Because oil is both important and expensive, regions that had big reserves of oil had huge liquidity incomes. However, this was rarely followed by economic development. Experience shows that local elites were unable to re-invest the petrodollars obtained through oil export, and currency is wasted in luxury goods.^[12] This is particularly evident in the Persian Gulf states, where the per capita income is comparable to those of western nations, but where no industrialization has started. Apart from two little countries (Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates), Arab states have not diversified their economies, and no replacement for the upcoming end of oil reserves is envisaged.^[13]

Industrialization in Asia

Apart from Japan, where industrialization began in the late 19th century, a different pattern of industrialization followed in East Asia. One of the fastest rates of industrialization occurred in the late 20th century across four countries known as the Asian tigers thanks to the existence of stable governments and well structured societies, strategic locations, heavy foreign investments, a low cost skilled and motivated workforce, a competitive exchange rate, and low custom duties. In the case of South Korea, the largest of the four Asian tigers, a very fast paced industrialization took place as it quickly moved away from the manufacturing of value added goods in the 1950s and 60s into the more advanced steel, shipbuilding and automobile industry in the 1970s and 80s, focusing on the high-tech and service industry in the 1990s and 2000s. As a result, South Korea became a major global economic power today and is one of the wealthiest countries in Asia.

This starting model was afterwards successfully copied in other larger Eastern and Southern Asian countries, including communist ones. The success of this phenomenon led to a huge wave of offshoring – i.e., Western factories or tertiary corporations choosing to move their activities to countries where the workforce was less expensive and less collectively organised.

China and India, while roughly following this development pattern, made adaptations in line with their own histories and cultures, their major size and importance in the world, and the geo-political ambitions of their governments (etc.).

Currently, China's government is actively investing in expanding its own infrastructures and securing the required energy and raw materials supply channels, is supporting its exports by financing the United States balance payment deficit through the purchase of US treasury bonds, and is strengthening its military in order to endorse a major geopolitical role.

Meanwhile, India's government is investing in specific vanguard economic sectors such as bioengineering, nuclear technology, pharmaceutics, informatics, and technologically-oriented higher education, openly overpassing its needs, with the goal of creating several specialisation poles able to conquer foreign markets.

Both Chinese and Indian corporations have also started to make huge investments in Third World countries, making them significant players in today's world economy.

Newly industrialised countries

Main article: Newly industrialized country

The countries in green are considered to be newly industrialising nations. China and India (in dark green) are special cases.

In recent years, countries like Mexico, Brazil, and Turkey have experienced moderate industrial growth, fueled by exportations going to countries that have bigger economies: the United States, China, and the European Union, respectively.^{[citation needed]} They are sometimes called newly-industrialised countries. Most African and Latin American and Balkanian nations seem to follow a similar scheme.^{[citation needed]} Despite this trend being artificially influenced by the oil price increases since 2003, the phenomenon is not entirely new nor totally speculative (for instance see: Maquiladora). Most analysts conclude in the next few decades the whole world will experience industrialization, and international inequality will be replaced with social inequality