East Asian Economic Development

East Asia, a region of the world that at its broadest encompasses Hong Kong, the Republic of Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand, is one of the more fascinating global regions in that the economic development activities taking place there have fostered dramatic growth, a reduction in poverty, and improvements in the standard of living. Danny M. Leipziger and Vinod Thomas have stated that if economists in the early 1950s had been asked to predict which countries would be successful in terms of industrialization in the ensuing three decades, only a seer would have chosen the initial East Asian "tigers" - Hong Kong, the Republic of Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan.

These countries were bereft of natural resources and as of the early 1950s had difficulty providing the basic necessities for their populations. Nevertheless, in relatively short order, the first generation of Asian "tigers" created opportunities which led a second generation of rapidly industrializing Asian "cubs," consisting of Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand to move ahead economically. Though they are often spoken of as a single group, the East Asian economies are actually quite diverse and each economy has pursued a diverse mix of policies with varying degrees of government intervention and external assistance.

At issue in the present report is the question of how Japan, China, and the United States affected East Asian economic development. Each of these three c

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nflation, a stable framework of law, relatively undistorted prices, and a booming educational sector. Other analysts have also examined the role of China and attempted to determine how it influenced East Asian economic development. Grace Goodell takes the position that the rapid development of South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore was due in part to Confucian work ethics and in part to a strong market capitalist orientation that did not involve any mandatory democratic institutions. In contrast, Fan and Scott believe that the East Asian tigers succeeded because they embraced participation in the global economic order before China and therefore outstripped China in terms of economic development. These authors contend that China's history of socialism ensured that it would be less influential in shaping economic development in the region than either Japan or the market economies of the West. Yet another approach to assessing Chinese influence is taken by Kevin Cai who claims that it is only recently, with China's decision to move with the ASEAN toward a free trade area that China has shown itself as determined on playing as big an economic role in East Asia as its political role. In essence, what most of the res

Category: Economics - E