As goods pile up in wharves from بنکاک ته د شانګهای د, and workers are laid off in record numbers, people in ختیځ آسیا are beginning to realize they aren’t only experiencing an economic downturn but living through the end of an era.
For over 40 years now, the cutting edge of the region’s economy has been export-oriented industrialization (EOI). د تايوان او کوریا first adopted this strategy of growth in the mid-1960s, with Korean dictator Park Chung-Hee coaxing his country’s entrepreneurs to export by, among other measures, cutting off electricity to their factories if they refused to comply.
د بریالیتوب کوریا او د تايوان convinced the World Bank that EOI was the wave of the future. In the mid-1970s, then-Bank President Robert McNamara enshrined it as نظر، تبلیغ کوي چې "په ډیری هیوادونو کې باید ځانګړې هڅې وشي ترڅو خپل تولیدي تصدۍ د نسبتا کوچني بازارونو څخه د وارداتو بدیل سره تړلي لوی فرصتونو ته د صادراتو د ودې په لور وګرځوي."
EOI became one of the key points of consensus between the Bank and سویل ختیځ آسیا‘s governments. Both realized import substitution industrialization could only continue if domestic purchasing power were increased via significant redistribution of income and wealth, and this was simply out of the question for the region’s elites. Export markets, especially the relatively open د امریکا د market, appeared to be a painless substitute.
د جاپان پلازمینه د صادراتو پلیټ فارم جوړوي
The World Bank endorsed the establishment of export processing zones, where foreign capital could be married to cheap (usually female) labor. It also supported the establishment of tax incentives for exporters and, less successfully, promoted trade liberalization. Not until the mid-1980s, however, did the economies of Southeast Asia take off, and this wasn’t so much because of the Bank but because of aggressive د امریکا د trade policy. In 1985, in what became known as the Plaza Accord, the متحده ایالات forced the drastic revaluation of the Japanese yen relative to the dollar and other major currencies. By making Japanese imports more expensive to American consumers, واشنګټن hoped to reduce its trade deficit with د توکیو د. Production in جاپان became prohibitive in terms of labor costs, forcing the Japanese to move the more labor-intensive parts of their manufacturing operations to low-wage areas, in particular to چین او سویل ختیځ آسیا. At least $15 billion worth of Japanese direct investment flowed into سویل ختیځ آسیا د 1985 او 1990 ترمنځ.
د جاپاني پانګې راتګ د سویل ختیځ آسیا "نوي صنعتي هیوادونو" ته اجازه ورکړه چې د 1980 لسیزې په لومړیو کې د دریمې نړۍ د پور بحران لخوا رامینځته شوي د کریډیټ فشار څخه ځان خلاص کړي، د 1980 لسیزې په نیمایي کې د نړیوال بحران څخه تیر شي، او د لوړې کچې په لور حرکت وکړي. سرعت وده. د مرکزيت endaka, or currency revaluation, was reflected in the ratio of foreign direct investment inflows to gross capital formation, which leaped spectacularly in the late 1980s and 1990s in انډونیزیا, ملایزیا، او تایلینډ.
The dynamics of foreign-investment-driven growth was best illustrated in تایلینډ, which received $24 billion worth of investment from capital-rich جاپان, کوریا، او د تايوان in just five years, between 1987 and 1991. Whatever might have been the Thai government’s economic policy preferences — protectionist, mercantilist, or pro-market — this vast amount of East Asian capital coming into تایلینډ could not but trigger rapid growth. The same was true in the two other favored nations of northeast Asian capital, ملایزیا او انډونیزیا.
که څه هم، دا یوازې د جاپاني پانګونې اندازه نه وه چې د پنځو کلونو په موده کې مهمه وه؛ دا پروسه وه. د جاپان حکومت او keiretsu, or conglomerates, planned and cooperated closely in the transfer of corporate industrial facilities to سویل ختیځ آسیا. One key dimension of this plan was to relocate not just big corporations like د ټویوټا or Matsushita, but also small and medium enterprises that provided their inputs and components. Another was to integrate complementary manufacturing operations that were spread across the region in different countries. The aim was to create an Asia Pacific platform for re-export to جاپان and export to third-country markets. This was industrial policy and planning on a grand scale, managed jointly by the Japanese government and corporations and driven by the need to adjust to the post-Plaza Accord world. As one Japanese diplomat put it rather candidly, "جاپان is creating an exclusive Japanese market in which Asia Pacific nations are incorporated into the so-called keiretsu [مالي - صنعتي بلاک] سیسټم."
چین په ماډل کې ماسټري
If د تايوان او کوریا pioneered the model and Southeast Asia successfully followed in their wake, چین perfected the strategy of export-oriented industrialization. With its reserve army of cheap labor unmatched by any country in the world, چین became the "workshop of the world," drawing in $50 billion in foreign investment annually by the first half of this decade. To survive, transnational firms had no choice but to transfer their labor-intensive operations to China to take advantage of what came to be known as the "China price," provoking in the process a tremendous crisis in the advanced capitalist countries’ labor forces.
This process depended on the د امریکا د market. As long as د امریکا د consumers splurged, the export economies of ختیځ آسیا could continue in high gear. The low د امریکا د savings rate was no barrier since credit was available on a grand scale. چین and other Asian countries snapped up د امریکا د treasury bills and loaned massively to د امریکا د financial institutions, which in turn loaned to consumers and homebuyers. But now the د امریکا د credit economy has imploded, and the د امریکا د market is unlikely to serve as the same dynamic source of demand for a long time to come. As a result, اسیا‘s export economies have been marooned.
د "Decoupling" تصور
د څو کلونو لپاره چین has seemed to be a dynamic alternative to the د امریکا د لپاره بازار جاپان او ختیځ آسیا‘s smaller economies. Chinese demand, after all, had pulled the Asian economies, including کوریا او جاپان, from the depths of stagnation and the morass of the Asian financial crisis in the first half of this decade. In 2003, for instance, جاپان broke a decade-long stagnation by meeting چین‘s thirst for capital and technology-intensive goods. Japanese exports shot up to record levels. Indeed, چین had become by the middle of the decade, "the overwhelming driver of export growth in د تايوان او د فلیپین, and the majority buyer of products from جاپان, سویلي کوریا, ملایزیا، او آسټرالیا."
حتی که څه هم چین appeared to be a new driver of export-led growth, some analysts still considered the notion of Asia "decoupling" from the د امریکا د locomotive to be a pipe dream. For instance, research by economists C.P. Chandrasekhar and Jayati Ghosh, underlined that China was indeed importing intermediate goods and parts from Japan, Korea, and ASEAN, but only to put them together mainly for export as finished goods to the United States and Europe, not for its domestic market. Thus, "if demand for Chinese exports from the United States and the EU slow down, as will be likely with a U.S. recession," they ټينګار وشو, "دا به نه یوازې د چینایي تولیدي تولید اغیزه وکړي، بلکې د آسیا پراختیایي هیوادونو څخه د وارداتو لپاره د چین غوښتنې هم اغیزمنې کړي."
د سقوط اسیا‘s key market has banished all talk of decoupling. The image of decoupled locomotives — one coming to a halt, the other chugging along on a separate track — no longer applies, if it ever had. Rather, U.S.-East Asia economic relations today resemble a chain-gang linking not only چین او د متحده ایالات but a host of other satellite economies. They are all linked to debt-financed middle-class spending in the متحده ایالات, which has collapsed.
چین‘s growth in 2008 fell to 9%, from 11% a year earlier. جاپان is now in deep recession, its mighty export-oriented consumer goods industries reeling from plummeting sales. سویلي کوریا, the hardest hit of اسیا‘s economies so far, has seen its currency collapse by some 30% relative to the dollar. سویل ختیځ آسیا‘s growth in 2009 will likely be half that of 2008.
راتلونکی قهر
د صادراتو دورې ناڅاپه پای به ځینې بدې پایلې ولري. په تیرو دریو لسیزو کې، چټکې ودې په ډیری هیوادونو کې د فقر تر کرښې لاندې ژوند کولو شمیر کم کړی. په عملي توګه په ټولو هیوادونو کې، د عاید او شتمنۍ نابرابرۍ زیاتې شوې. مګر د مصرف کونکي پیرود ځواک پراختیا د ټولنیزو شخړو څخه ډیره برخه واخیستله. اوس، د ودې دوره پای ته رسیدو سره، د لوی نابرابرۍ په منځ کې د بې وزلۍ زیاتوالی به یو سوځیدونکی ترکیب وي.
In چین, about 20 million workers have lost their jobs in the last few months, many of them heading back to the countryside, where they will find little work. The authorities are rightly worried that what they label "mass group incidents," which have been increasing in the last decade, might spin out of control. With the safety valve of foreign demand for Indonesian and Filipino workers shut off, hundreds of thousands of workers are returning home to few jobs and dying farms. Suffering is likely to be accompanied by rising protest, as it already has in ویتنام, where strikes are spreading like wildfire. کوریا, with its tradition of militant labor and peasant protest, is a ticking time bomb. Indeed, ختیځ آسیا may be entering a period of radical protest and social revolution that went out of style when export-oriented industrialization became the fashion three decades ago.
Walden Bello a په فاکس کې بهرنۍ پالیسۍ کالم لیکونکی، په بنکاک کې د فوکس په نړیوال سویل کې یو لوړ پوړی شنونکی، د پور څخه د آزادۍ ایتلاف مشر، او د فیلیپین په پوهنتون کې د ټولنپوهنې پروفیسور.
سرچینې
Hisahiko Okasaki, "New Strategies toward Super-Asian Bloc," This Is (د توکیو د), August 1992. Reproduced in Foreign Broadcast Information Service Daily Report: ختیځ آسیا Supplement, Oct. 7, 1992.
"چین: the Locomotive," د ستراټس ټایمز، فبروري فبروري 23، 2004.
ZNetwork یوازې د خپلو لوستونکو د سخاوت له لارې تمویل کیږي.
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