Originally Posted by sinoflyer

There is very little development right on the Chinese coast until farther north, I venture to say Qingdao on the Shandong peninsula. It's the same with Japan. People in that part of the world know from millennia of experience that it's just a matter of time before whatever they build gets wiped away by a typhoon or tsunami. Look at what happened to Sendai and Fukushima in our recent memory. There is also the legacy of pirates and invasions.