The East and the World Today

My initial task was to take a broad overview of social, economic, and political developments in "the East," but a more modest request is surely in order. Even to confine myself to "Asia" would mean to address an area equivalent to one-third of the planet's land surface, with more than half the world's population. I have chosen to primarily discuss the nations of the region that have loomed large in the discussion of "the East Asian Economic Miracle." My method is not so much as to consider particular countries in isolation, but rather to discuss the emergence of a regional economy. I concentrate on the role of Japan and the growing importance of China. I also talk about the four newly industrializing economies, or the four dragons or four tigers (Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan) and the ASEAN-4 (Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand). At this point enough research, case studies, and comparative analyses on the "Asian Model" have been done so that easy generalization of the determinants of developmental success is no longer tenable. If we are to generalize, it is along the lines of Bradford's (1990: 4) judgment that: differences in economic performance seem to have relatively less to do with stylized differences between regions in development strategies, trade regimes, and macroeconomic adjustment policy designs than with the social, political, and institutional context within which broadly similar plans and intentions were adopted. That is to say, the receiving environment, the state of the world economy, the disposition and nature of intervention by imperial powers, domestic social relations, and development of the forces of production in a country have been determinative. There is much to untangle in the story behind the Asian Development Model and much to criticize, but this is not to say that the economic achievements have not been breathtaking. There has been a basic reorienting of the world capitalist order, a shifting of its axis eastward. Capitalism is strong and getting stronger in the region. A new, international pattern of growth has emerged in a coherent, if also unstable and socially costly, manner. The phenomenon is a complex pattern in which the achievements of Japan differ greatly from those of the NIEs. The premised development of the supposed "new Japans" will be quite different yet. This is because most of Asia is being incorporated into a production system best described as dependent development. The contradictions of this course must be analyzed, for the less-developed counties are being urged to take this path to a new, tightly enmeshing dependent development. Today the commodities and allure of Western-style capitalism are once again "the heavy artillery with which it batters down all Chinese walls." Yet even beyond that, the products of China are being exported in huge quantities to the markets of the world. That so much of what recently seemed solid has "melted into air" is a tribute to the vitality of capitalism and to a bourgeoisie that "cannot exist without constantly revolutionizing the instruments of production," exploits the world market, and gives "a cosmopolitan character to production and consumption in every country." The appropriation of social knowledge and monopoly rents empower the transnational corporations (TNCs) of our own era and foster industrialization and economic growth in the periphery. Low-wage manufacturing in Asia is revolutionizing the geography of capitalism. The East Asian Newly Industrializing Countries (NICs) The annual growth in exports over the decade of the 1970s was 23% for Hong Kong and 36% for South Korea. The ASEAN-4 GDPs grew at a six to eight percent annual rate over the decade. By 1980, three Asian NICs (Hong Kong, Taiwan, and South Korea) accounted for 72% of all finished consumer goods exported by the Third World to the OECD nations, with other Asian countries supplying another 19%. …