Core countries
In world-systems theory, core countries are the industrialized capitalist and/or imperialist countries. Core countries control and benefit the most resources from the global market. They are usually recognized as wealthy states with a wide variety of resources and are in a favorable location compared to other states. They have strong state institutions, a powerful military, and powerful global political alliances. In the 20th-21st centuries they consist of Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Western European countries, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The population of the core countries is on average by far the wealthiest of the world, with the highest life expectancy, literacy rate, best education and social welfare on the planet.
Core countries do not always stay "core" permanently. Throughout world history, core countries have been changing, and new ones have been added to the "core" list. These were the Asian, Indian, and Middle Eastern empires in the ages up to the 16th century; prominently Medieval India and the Chinese Empire, which were the richest regions in the world until the European Great Powers took the lead during the early modern period, although the major Asian powers were still very influential in the region. Europe remained ahead of the pack until the 20th century, when the two World Wars were disastrous for the European economies. It was then that the victorious United States and Soviet Union, up to the late 1980s, became the two hegemonic powers, creating a bipolar world order during the Cold War. In 1991, the collapse of the Soviet Union left the United States as the world's sole remaining superpower, sometimes referred to as a hyperpower.
Definition
Core countries control and profit the most from the world socio-economic and political system, and thus they are the "core" of the world economic system. These countries can exercise control over other countries or groups of countries by military, economic, and political means.In the 20th-21st centuries, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Western European countries, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States are considered examples of present core countries that have the most power in the world economic system.
Throughout history
Pre–13th century
In Asia, the Chinese Empire was considered the "Middle Kingdom" and controlled the region. The two empires communicated and traded through the Silk Road, which takes its name from the extensive trade of Chinese silk. The period of Imperial China lasted more than two millennia, connecting ancient and modern history. Although Chinese dynasties or empires rose and fell during those centuries, including during periods of strife and war, Imperial China endured with remarkable constancy. The defining characteristics of all Chinese empires were their large scale and the diversity of their peoples.Originally emerged as a loose collection of various Han Chinese-speaking entities during the Warring States period, the Qin's wars of unification brought most of the Huaxia realm into one single dynasty, establishing Qin as the first imperial dynasty in 221 BCE, the year where the first Chinese Empire was established. Imperial China would continue to expand even after the collapse of the Qin dynasty, with the Han dynasty expanding to the north, south and west. During the Tang dynasty four centuries later, China achieved a golden age in terms of its economic, military and political power. Tang's territory spanned Central Asia, Northeast Asia, and parts of Southeast Asia, until the dynasty ended following the An Lushan rebellion in the 8th century CE. Imperial China marked its revival under the Mongol-based Yuan dynasty, when Inner Asian territories such as Tibet and Mongolia were incorporated. The Qing dynasty, founded three centuries after the fall of the Yuan dynasty, laid ground to most of China's modern border with its re-expansion into Inner Asia.
Until the 13th century Medieval India, often referred to as "Greater India", extended its religious, cultural, and trading influence on vast Asian regions, from Persia and Central Asia to Cambodia, Indonesia, the Malaysian Archipelago, and Sri Lanka. With Buddhism and Hinduism, two of the most followed religions in Asia and the world as a whole, having originated there, India's cultural impact spread throughout Asia. A notable example is Imperial China, where Buddhism became the prominent religion. Sanskrit was a prominent scholarly language in all the Southeastern kingdoms until the 10th century CE. Angkor Wat in Cambodia, the largest temple complex in the world, was originally a Hindu temple and later transformed into a Buddhist monastery.
Middle Ages to the early modern period
Mongol Empire
The Pax Mongolica is a particularly important period which started in 1206 and ended, according to contradicting sources, between late 14th and early 15th centuries. The trade during this period took on a truly multi-continental dimension, efficient and safe trade routes were established, and many of the modern rules of trade were emerging. The Mongol Empire was the largest contiguous empire in world history. It stretched from as far east as Medieval China all the way to the Eurasian Steppe, taking up large parts of Central Asia, the Middle East, and the Indian subcontinent.Many trade routes went through the Mongol territories, even though they were not the easiest ones to travel, due to the rough Asian terrain. Yet, they attracted many merchants, because these routes were relatively cheap and safe to travel. The Mongols controlled their territories through military force and taxation. In many former regions of the Mongol Empire, its rule is remembered as brutal and destructive to this day. Yet, some argue that many economic and cultural improvements were made during the Mongol rule.
Arab and Middle Eastern empires
The Ottoman Empire, which emerged in 1299, quickly became a power to be reckoned with. By 1450, the Ottoman Empire took up the connecting territory between the Black and Mediterranean seas. Despite lasting three times longer than the Mongol Empire, the Ottoman Empire never came to be anywhere near as expansive.The Arab slave trade supplied the early Muslim conquests throughout the Arab-Muslim world from the 7th to the 20th centuries, peaking in the 18th and 19th centuries. This term, which covers the Arab-Muslim slave trade, is symmetrical with the term "Western slave trade", which refers to the triangular trade on the Western coasts of Africa that supplied the European colonization of the Americas, and which includes the Atlantic slave trade.
File:Slavezanzibar2.JPG|thumb|upright=0.8|A photograph of a slave boy in the Sultanate of Zanzibar: An Arab master's punishment for a slight offence. From at least the 1860s onwards, photography was a powerful weapon in the abolitionist arsenal.
The slaves of the Eastern slave trade came mainly from Sub-Saharan Africa, Northwestern Africa, Southern Europe, Slavic countries, the Caucasus, and the Indian subcontinent, and were imported by the Arab-Muslim slave traders into the Middle East and North Africa, the Horn of Africa, and the islands of the Indian Ocean. For centuries, Arab-Muslim slave traders took and transported an estimated 10 to 15 million native Africans to slavery throughout the Arab-Muslim world. They also enslaved Europeans, as well as Caucasian and Turkic peoples, from coastal areas of the Mediterranean Region, the Balkans, Central Asia, and the Eurasian steppes.
The slave trade in the Ottoman Empire supplied the ranks of the Ottoman army between the 15th and 19th centuries. They were useful in preventing both the slave rebellions and the breakup of the Empire itself, especially due to the rising tide of nationalism among European peoples in its Balkan provinces from the 17th century onwards. Along with the Balkans, the Black Sea Region remained a significant source of high-value slaves for the Ottomans. Throughout the 16th to 19th centuries, the Barbary States sent pirates to raid nearby parts of Europe in order to capture Christian slaves to sell at slave markets in the Muslim world, primarily in North Africa and the Ottoman Empire, throughout the Renaissance and early modern period. According to historian Robert Davis, from the 16th to 19th centuries, Barbary pirates captured 1 million to 1.25 million Europeans as slaves, although these numbers are disputed. These slaves were captured mainly from the crews of captured vessels, from coastal villages in Spain and Portugal, and from farther places like the Italian Peninsula, France, or England, the Netherlands, Ireland, the Azores Islands, and even Iceland. For a long time, until the early 18th century, the Crimean Khanate maintained a massive slave trade with the Ottoman Empire and the Middle East. The Crimean Tatars frequently mounted raids into the Danubian Principalities, Poland–Lithuania, and Russia to enslave people whom they could capture.
The 18th century was profoundly marked by the profitability of the Atlantic slave trade, which played a significant role in the economic development of contemporary core countries in Europe and the Americas. The widespread exploitation of enslaved Africans in the early 16th century was started by the Portuguese. This practice was embraced by many of today's core countries, such as the United States, United Kingdom, France, and the Netherlands, until the late 19th century.
Slavery existed in Africa prior to Europeans' capitalization on the practice, with Africans sometimes engaging in the sale of enslaved people. However, those enslaved and sold by Africans were usually prisoners of war or criminals, which European trading companies embraced as a convenient supply of human capital. Additionally, chattel slavery, where an enslaved person is considered property, was not a common practice among Africans at the time and peaked due to widespread implementation in the Americas. Because of the explosion of the Atlantic slave trade, many African nations experienced irreparable damage to their economies and societies as a whole. Meanwhile, this trade of humans was incredibly profitable for core countries, with estimates that the United States alone saw over $14 trillion worth of profit from enslaved Africans' labor.