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| Home > V6N4 Winter 2011 |
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V6N4 Winter 2011
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Sink or Swim
Can Asia Save Capitalism From the West?
The economic uncertainties that continue to grip the world over how the US and Europe will resolve their respective financial crises are front and center in the minds of policy makers worldwide. Here in Asia there is much that could be done to assist the global recovery.
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A Letter from the Editors
Chung-in Moon and David Plott
Dear Reader,
As the graphics that accompany the cover articles in this issue of Global Asia vividly illustrate, the gap between men and women across a broad array of metrics from employment to education and political participation to social standing is there for all to see. Moreover, in many areas, that gap is wider than in more developed parts of the world, suggesting that Asia must do more to mitigate the disadvantages under which women in this region now live and unleash the under-tapped potential women possess to add to Asia’s future prosperity, stability and well-being.
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Cover Stories
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The US Fiscal Dilemma: Stimulus is Needed, Austerity Means Doom
By Jeff Madrick
When the US financial crisis triggered the Great Recession that afflicted much of the world in 2008-2009, policy makers in the US and elsewhere clearly understood that their economies needed massive stimulus measures, and fast.
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Europe’s Public Debt Crisis: What Will Work and What Won’t
By Juergen von Hagen
Even as the 17 European Union countries that use the euro agreed at a summit in Brussels in December to a treaty that would submit their respective government budgets to greater fiscal discipline, uncertainty persists about whether Europe is finally on a road to recovery from its debt crisis.
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Emerging Force: China in the Region and the World
By Zhang Yunling
China stands out as a silver lining in the clouds that hang over the global economy, and there is much the country can do to assist a recovery in the US and Europe, such as stimulating demand in its domestic economy.
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Will Chinese Consumers Come to the West’s Rescue?
By John Berthelsen
China’s surging growth and huge domestic market have long fueled dreams that once its consumers are unleashed rising demand will help heal ailing Western economies.
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Capital Flows and Financial Stability: Lessons for Europe from Emerging Economies
By Hyun Song Shin
As Europe continues to reel from its financial crisis, policy-makers there would do well to cast an eye on the Asian financial crisis of 1997-1998 and other emerging market crises of that decade to avoid the pursuit of remedies that will only make things worse, argues Hyun Song Shin. If not, the negative repercussions could affect Asia and the rest of the world.
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Can Asia Save the Sinking World Economy?
By Choong Yong Ahn
While Asia’s leading economies have been largely immune from the current European economic crisis, the long-term prospects are perilous unless the region uses its strength to assist the global economy. Greater Asian economic integration can stimulate regional demand, boost growth and create more export opportunities for the US and Europe, writes Choong Yong Ahn
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The Debate
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Could Corruption Derail Indonesia’s Economic Growth?
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Corruption Erodes and Undermines Indonesia’s Growth
By Yohanes Sulaiman
As a developing country riddled with corruption at every level, Indonesia appears to defy expectations with consistently high growth rates in recent years. But this cannot last: sooner or later, corruption will stifle growth as more and more people demand their share and the costs of doing business rocket. It is only a matter of time. |
Corruption Harms Development? It’s Not That Simple
By Hal Hill
Indonesia’s unexpected and stellar growth over four decades shows clearly that corruption does not have to be a barrier to a booming economy. The key is only allowing the ‘right’ sort of corruption: Small bribes that oil the wheels of commerce for everyone are less of a problem than high-profile scandals involving officials pocketing millions of dollars. |
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Feature Essays
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What Price Democracy? How the West Could Learn From East Asia
By Timo Kivimäki
It is taken as orthodoxy in much of the democratic West that intrusive efforts to promote democracy, up to and including armed intervention of the kind seen recently in NATO’s support of the Libyan uprising, are means justified by the ends — namely to support democratic governance.
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Biding and Hiding No Longer: A More Assertive China Rattles the Region
By Nick Bisley
China’s newfound assertiveness, particularly in its maritime disputes with its neighbors, has disturbed the region and reawakened US attention to a part of the world it had largely been neglecting.
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Security Co-operation in Northeast Asia: The Relevance of Europe’s Experience
By Frances Mautner-Markhof
Despite its potential for conflict rooted in historical grievances, Northeast Asia lags far behind Europe in developing multilateral systems to ensure effective regional security co-operation. Frances Mautner-Markhof argues that the experiences of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe provide the region with a potential road map.
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A Proposal for a Nuclear Weapons-Free Zone in Northeast Asia
By Morton H. Halperin
As the Six-Party talks aimed at eliminating North Korea’s nuclear program remain stalled, a fresh approach incorporating the concept of a nuclear weapons-free zone in Northeast Asia should be considered as a way of ensuring peace and security in the region, Morton H. Halperin argues.
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A Nuclear-Free Taiwan by 2025? An Unlikely Target
By Henry Philippens
Nuclear energy, long a contentious issue in Taiwanese politics, has been catapulted into the spotlight by upcoming presidential elections and the nuclear disaster at Fukushima in March 2011. |
Dawei Port: Thailand’s Megaproject in Burma
By Pavin Chachavalpongpun
If the political process under way in Burma genuinely heralds the end of the country’s long torpor under military rule, the opening of the economy is a key factor. In that context, the role of Thailand in the massive Dawei deep-water port project is crucial, writes Pavin Chachavalpongpun. He examines the potential political and economic impact of Dawei on Burma’s future. |
The Spin Doctor’s Unsettling Rise In Indonesia
By Andreas Ufen
One by-product of democracy over the last dozen years in Indonesia has been the creation of a political polling and consulting industry. This mass commercialization of elections rewards popularity and diminishes the role of party insiders but it also increases the hold of big business on the political process, writes Andreas Ufen. |
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Book Reviews
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Long Reviews
The Man Who Made Modern Korea
Reviewed by Charles K. Armstrong
Thirty-two years after his death, Park Chung Hee (1917–1979) is currently the most revered former president in the history of South Korea. Park’s popularity is largely a posthumous phenomenon. |
Short Reviews
A Salute to the East Asian Model
Reviewed by Taehwan Kim
This book is the latest addition to the more than a century-old great debate on the relations between the state and the market as determining factors of economic performance. British sociologist and political economist Jeffrey Henderson clearly sides with the “state school” faction.
Who Said West Must Be Best?
Reviewed by Taehwan Kim
“Why and how did the West come to dominate the rest of the world after around 1500?” Using this provocative question as a starting point, renowned British economic historian and bestselling author Niall Ferguson argues in this book that six “killer applications” propelled the West to a position of global predominance: competition, science, property rights, medicine, a consumer society and the work ethic.
Leading Lights Of Asia’s Rise
Reviewed by Taehwan Kim
How has Asia ascended from centuries of stagnation to become the rising force of the global economy? How did the Asian economic miracle happen? Not content with the existing cultural, statist and market-oriented answers, Michael Schuman, a Time magazine correspondent and former reporter for The Wall Street Journal, tries to complete the puzzle by focusing on the political and economic leaders from the region who played key roles in that growth — some 60 of whom are listed at the start of the book.
How to Grow and Keep Growing
Reviewed by John Delury
Patrick French’s latest book on India purports to be “an intimate portrait of 1.2 billion people,” and it is just that — a dazzling kaleidoscope of the people who make modern India tick. Divided neatly into politics, economics and society, India:
What Underpins China’s Finances?
Reviewed by John Delury
A kind of economic companion volume to political scientist Susan Shirk’s China: Fragile Superpower, this book by practicing capitalists Carl Walter and Fraser Howie sets out to explain “the financial side of the story behind a 30-year boom that changed the lives of one billion people.” More than that, it tells the inside story of how the leadership of the Chinese communist party created a unique set of “institutional arrangements” to move capital about without removing the party from power.
Prepare for the Water Wars
Reviewed by John Delury
From the Kuriles to the South China Sea, maritime conflict has resurfaced with a vengeance across Asia, but Brahma Chellaney’s masterful, pioneering study argues that oceanic territorial disputes are just a tiny tip of the iceberg. Freshwater is fast emerging as Asia’s new battlefield, and strategists, economists, diplomats and generals had best prepare for it now.
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