Home Search Sitemap Contact Bookmark

Free Dissertations - International Relations Dissertations

How Can We Explain The Financial "meltdown" In East Asia In 1997 And What ...


How can we explain the financial "meltdown" in East Asia in 1997 and what wider regional implications are suggested by this crisis?
Abstract
This dissertation will explain and discuss the financial breakdown in East Asia in 1997, and debate whether that meltdown has wider regional if not global economic and political implications. As part of the explanations for the financial meltdown of East Asia during 1997, the economic development and performance of the main economies of East Asia such as South Korea and Indonesia will be examined. To a large extent, as will be explained the financial meltdown in East Asia during 1997 came as an unexpected surprise and may need to be explained from different perspectives to any previous economic crisis. The economies of East Asia had, prior to the meltdown, experienced strong economic growth and even if the economic policies of their governments were not always ideal they did not pursue policies considered to have been detrimental to high growth rates.
Explanations will be based around factors such as whether the governments of East Asian countries have pursued the wrong economic strategies or whether circumstances just conspired against them. Other factors will be explained, for instance whether the incompetence and corruption in parts of the East Asia region finally became too much to support economic growth. Or perhaps more ominously that the economic development strategies advocated by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank were flawed or have become outdated due to developments generally attributed to the process of economic and political globalisation (Radelet & Sachs, March 30 1998 p.1). There seemed to be few indicators to show that South Korea, Singapore, and Hong Kong amongst other economies in the region would be unable to continue annual growth rates in gross domestic product of 6 to 7% (Turner, 2001 p. 48).
Introduction
Aside from Japan none of the economies of Asia had been heavily industrialised and economically developed before the post-war period. The Second World War had devastated the Japanese economy, yet in the post-war era it was a role model for economic growth and development for the countries of East Asia. The countries of East Asia prior to the financial meltdown of 1997 had the most impressive economic growth rates in the world, better than the United States, the European Union and Japan. The economies that proved most vulnerable to the crisis were the ones that seemed to have made the most progress, namely South Korea, the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia (Cleaver, 2002, p.199). The economies of East Asia followed the development policies of the Asian Tigers, particularly of Japan and Thailand (Evans & Newnham, 1998, p.36). The focus of this dissertation will be on Hong Kong, South Korea, Indonesia and Singapore, as well as Japan.


Thanks