The road from Nissan to Samsung: a historical overview of East Asian investment in a UK region

Abstract

Japan's relationship with the North East of England is often charted from the 1984 investment by the car manufacturer, Nissan, in its Sunderland plant. The aftermath of that investment decision saw not only a wave of Japanese manufacturing investment descending upon the North East but also other investments from Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong following in its wake. This article attempts to situate the experience of Japanese investment in the North East in the wider context of the region's more long-term associations with Japan. It looks to the legacy of the past in the building of Japanese battleships on Tyneside and other episodes of technology transfer in the late nineteenth century. It juxtaposes the subsequent changes in the region's industrial base with the post-war history of Japanese investment in the UK. With the arrival of NSK, the Japanese ball-bearings manufacturer, in County Durham in 1974, a new relationship can be seen to have emerged along with a regional infrastructure which supported further East Asian investment at the height of the bubble economy. The spreading out of that investment, its social and cultural impact and the consequences of the bubble bursting are explored at a time when claims for the dawning of ‘the Pacific century’ have been seriously called into question.