Name: Dang Tran Bich Ngoc
Student ID: BB110407
Assignment 1: Case Studies: Case studies in east and Southeast Asia in comparative perspective to show the similarities and differences of the development experiences in the region.

I. Introduction:

This paper reviews the pattern and trends of the development in East and Southeast Asia to recognize the similarities and differences in the region. It offers an extensive view of the Southeast Asian economic miracles in comparative East Asian perspective by comparing and contrasting the Southeast Asian experiences with those of the other high performing East Asian economies, as the World Bank (1993) chose to describe them.

The following discussion will focus on the development experiences of Southeast Asia that have been considered high-growth economies, as well as East Asia countries. The Southeast Asia economies have been rather successful in applying public policies to realize their chosen developmental objectives, from the viewpoint of better advancing the course of human development, will be identified.

II. East and Southeast Asia (ESA) economies

• Human Development (HD):

As well as being substantially different in the starting level of human development achieved, and although all have made substantial progress over the two decades, these economies show marked differences in the pace of this progress. Being already high-achieving, Japan recorded a modest rate growth of 0.26%, Singapore 0.61% and South Korea 0.92%. This pattern appears to exactly mirror the pattern of difference in their initial. Improvements in other less developed ESA economies are mixed. While China was behind Indonesia and the Philippines in 1990, it overtook them in 2007. Vietnam was behind China at the starting year, while its rate of growth is actually below that of China over the period. Malaysia was ahead of Thailand in 1990, but its rate of growth is actually above that of Thailand. These patterns indicate substantial differences in the progress in HD between the ESA economies

• Economic Growth:

Among the ESA economies, Japan maintained a high rate of economic growth from 1955 to the 1980s, and subsequently became one of the world’s most developed economies. Since the early 1990s, however, its growth rate has markedly slowed down, and even went into negative during the East Asian financial crisis and again in the current global financial crisis. Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea, and Singapore are the so-called four Asian Dragons, as they had achieved very high rates of growth and had rapidly industrialized and even transformed themselves into services – oriented economies during the 1960s – 1980s periods. Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia equally experienced strong economic growth in the 1990s, and they were severely affected by the East Asian financial crisis. While recovery followed after the crisis, on the whole their rates of growth have not gone back to the same high levels as before. The Philippines appears to have largely escaped the severe impact of the crisis, but its rate of growth has always been low in the region. Laos, Mongolia, Myanmar, Vietnam, Cambodia (countries that have experienced economic transition) suffered less severe negative impacts of the crisis, and have recorded no negative growth, during both financial crises.

From the 80s, and especially in the early and mid 90s, there has been industrialization of the East Asian region, including Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia. Although the Southeast Asia economies are quite complicated, and at rather different levels of development, the high growth economies in the region have had some similar policies that distinguish them from the other high-growth economies of the East Asian region. Most importantly, the Southeast Asian high growth economies have relied much more heavily on foreign direct investment to develop most of their internationally competitive industrial capabilities.

Yoshihara Kunio (1988) argued that the fast growing Southeast Asian economies were characterized by ersatz capitalism because of the compromised and inferior role of their states, their treatment of ethnic Chinese and their failure to develop better technological capabilities. The World Bank (1993) argued that the Southeast Asian high performing economies were the preferable model for emulation by other countries seeking late development.

The East Asian countries have grown at historically unprecedented rates since the 1960s. Compared to Southeast Asia, the East Asian economies have sustained higher rates of economic growth for longer periods, with the result that the East Asian countries (except China) now rank among the most prosperous in the world. In contrast to the East Asian countries, the Southeast Asian countries have never been able to make a change in those periods of rapid development. Until now, the Southeast Asian economies remain dependent greatly on exploiting low-cost labor and natural resources. By any comparison, East Asian countries have been more successful than Southeast Asian countries. The path followed by East Asian countries has lead to successfulness, stability, and international respect while Southeast Asia countries have followed a more devious path and an uncertain future, influenced by the social inequity and instability.

From my point of view, for Cambodia, Vietnam and other economies that are still in the early stage of urbanization, they should secure basic public service provisions such as education, health care and transportation. And they should also proactively develop urban economy and urban infrastructures. For Indonesia, Mongolia and other economies that are experiencing rapid urbanization, the governments must secure connecting infrastructures. At the same time, they should reduce the forced and helpless migrant population in order to ease and avoid the slums caused by over-urbanization. For South Korea, Malaysia, Philippines and other economies that are in the mature stage of urbanization, the need to further improve their infrastructure conditions and deals with slums by enhancing the urban economic capacities.

In comparing Vietnam’s recent development with East and Southeast Asian development models, I think there are some limitations on using human and social factors: In the East Asian development model, while the governments are able to exert the political resolution to change if necessary, according to David Dapice, in Southeast Asia, hardly any country has been able to do so. In Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand, the government has rarely ever succeeded without even polarizing the society. Although Malaysia did better at encouraging the resolution of the society, some problems have arisen again recently. According to Dr. Dapice and his team, “The quality of education of Vietnam’s universities is sub-standard. Indeed, Southeast Asia’s unremarkable universities outshine Vietnam’s. Meanwhile, as a percentage of GDP, Vietnam spends more on education than most countries in the region. Vietnam’s universities are considered the worst in comparison with those of developing countries in Southeast Asia, let alone East Asia” (Refer 2).

III. Conclusion:

To avoid following the footsteps of the Southeast Asian model, the choosing process must be implemented under wise methods. It is not necessary to follow each and every step of the developed countries all the time because there are cases which require changes. It is obvious that the experiences of South Korea and Taiwan on the way to an industrial society are valuable in many aspects. However, in my opinion, the experiences of complicated social and political problems of East Asian countries along with experiences of failure of Southeast Asian countries.

The last two decades have also seen major advances on the governance front in the region. Thus significant moves were achieved towards full democratization in some ESA economies. And while formal democracy has not yet been established in all the economies in the region, a wide range of indicators suggest that improvements in governance were nevertheless significant and widespread in other respects, even though here again major differences remain between the economies. On the whole, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong are region’s higher performers in almost all aspects of governance, while North Korea, Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam are comparatively the poor ones. However, in spite of these differences, on the whole most economies in the region appear to have made important progress towards good governance, even though at times this progress may seem to be haphazard.

REFERENCES:

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