Ann Arbor (MI): Association for Asian Studies, 2009. xviii, 77 pp. (Tables, B&W photos.) US$10.00, paper. ISBN 978-0924304-545.
This is the third volume in the Association for Asian Studies’ Key Issues in Asian Studies series, aimed at providing teaching materials for teachers and students at undergraduate institutions and high schools. It packs a great deal of information and analysis into a small package, arguing for the importance of the topic on its own merits, as well as for understanding important issues in East Asia, and for developing countries more broadly. After introducing the topic, Professor Zhu reviews the experiences of Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and the People’s Republic of China (PRC). He then compares and contrasts the cases and finally draws on their experiences for lessons for other countries.
He starts by introducing “the flying geese pattern” where the “four little dragons” followed the lead of Japan, emphasizing how low expectations were for East Asia’s development as compared with many other countries of the postwar world. It is within this context that the East Asian experience can be called “miraculous.” This leads to discussions of the activist role of the state in each case, and how it relates to the market at home and globally. There is a helpful discussion of the developmental state model and the risks of devolving into crony capitalism, as exposed in the 1997 financial crisis. A book of this length cannot delve deeply into the details of each case, and the author hits most of the important points. I would have done more on land reform as well as contrasting Japan’s keiretsu and Korea’s chaebol with Taiwan’s guanxi qiye (not mentioned) and plethora of small enterprises. There is a helpful list of suggestions for further reading at the end.
The similarities he notes among the cases include export-oriented policies, stable domestic conditions (although he downplays the role of authoritarian repression in achieving this, particularly in South Korea and Taiwan), activist state, visionary leaders and investment in human resources. He highlights the following differences, primarily between the PRC and the others: the external environment; unequal income distribution; China’s continuous modification of strategies; and the fact that there are really several Chinas, some of which have successfully implemented lessons from the earlier developers, while others lag far behind. There is no discussion of how the states gained the power and capacity to formulate and implement policies, and the statement that “visionary individual leaders…had a strong commitment to promoting the well-being of the public” (54) is more than a bit naïve, as it glosses over the desperate situation they all found themselves in, where regime survival was clearly the primary objective.
The last chapter briefly introduces debates over East Asia, mentioning the positions of economists Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz, but for an area studies audience, there should have been a sustained discussion of the Confucianism and the development hypothesis as well.
As well as introducing the concept of “flying geese,” the author should have discussed other relevant concepts, such as product life cycle and global commodity chains, to highlight the ways in which the East Asian economies, with a great deal of hands-on research, guidance and financial allocation from the states, have successfully anticipated many economic trends and built comparative advantage virtually from scratch. Part of the challenge they all face is to keep doing this in order to stay at the top of the curve. Related to this, Zhu should have paid more attention to the ways in which Japan, Korea and Taiwan, and now the PRC, are investing heavily abroad, in the region and beyond, to take advantage of cheap labour, lax regulations on labour and the environment, tax incentives and market access. This replicates what America and Japan did for the little dragon economies decades earlier, minus the Cold War atmosphere. Another area receiving too little attention is the trade-off between development and the environment. Although he mentions China’s severe environmental degradation, this is a noticeable consequence of industrialization throughout the region which the other states, often pressed by civil society, are now addressing.
Given my own experience teaching The Sociology of Development and Globalization, I would also have advised more attention to the Cold War and its implications for East Asia, in particular the phenomena of divided nations and a garrison mentality in Korea and Taiwan. I find my students (as well as East Asian youth!) have little or no understanding of this period, or even what the Soviet Union was, and how the competition between the “free” and “communist” worlds drove so much of the global political economy for decades.
The language varies from rather complex sentences conveying sophisticated ideas and intellectual debates to high school level near-fragments. And an index would have helped.
Thomas B. Gold
The University of California, Berkeley, USA
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