The Four Asian Tigers or Asian Dragons is a term used to describe the highly developed countries of Hong Kong (more of a city-country of China in essence), South Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan. These four countries serve as an economic superpower with a GDP of $2.2 trillion. In 1997, Thailand, the Philippines, Korea, Indonesia and Korea all experienced attacks on their economies. econ omies. These were due to (I take from Deblij) the instability of their lending practices and risky government investment d eals, which led to an evident downfall in all surrounding economies. In any case, especially when an area filled low-cost opportunities, when there is a detrimental issue in this region of th e world, it spills over globally. Their governments could not find ways to manage these attacks, hence the financial crisis. As a response to the collapse, the IMF, along with Japan, America and other countries sent financial packages as an attempt to stabilize the International financial market. From the viewpoint of U.S. financial and investor interests, the collapse of the Asian competitors is is not a bad outcome. A renowned site of economic speculation for globalized relations says, “Asian money is fleeing to the "safe haven" of the U.S.” This means that the cost of borrowing money in the United States and keeping inflation in check would be lower. To tie into our recent studies, we can link the fact that it also is an issue for the U.S., due to the fact that the region these Dragons were located in was a prominent break-of-bulk point, and any negative economic issue did a disservice to our transportation of imports and exports from/to our country to/from Southeast Asia. Also, the Asian countries depending on the IMF (international monetary fund) will have to follow its prescriptions of privatization, cuts in state budgets, and an end of basic subsidies. The IMF entry means the return of U.S. leadership and the decline of
Asian capitalism as an independent and competitive economic pole. This in an average American‟s eyes will always gleam like a million bucks, when in reality, hegemony doesn‟t always show true to this, and power wars could arise. In fact, this is one of the
sole reasons North Korea (which incidentally is near the area where the former Asian Dragons were located) have pondered declaring either war or launching a WMD. The financial crises and the stabilization policies will have a deflationary impact causing bankruptcies and lowering the competitive capacities of Asian producers in overseas markets. The collapse does have some danger for the U.S. James Petras stated, “The „domino effect theory‟ in which the collapse of South Korea provokes a crises in Japan which in turn negatively affects the U.S. is a possibility.” This is unlikely for two
reasons: first because Japanese bondholders are not likely to sell strong dollar dominated notes to reinvest them in a weak yen, and second, the U.S. will likely tighten its import quotas to limit Japanese exports which threaten to increase Washington's growing trade deficit. One of the larger issues of the collapse was the investments that other businesses had made prior to, and how it affected them as well. On the other hand, this could become a significant turning point in this area mainly since this gives the need for longterm restructuring for the impacts of the downfall to either be minimized or depleted. In some cases, like in recent U.S. actions, a spending stimulus to bring a country back can help many institutions, which spills over globally.
The collapse of the Asian Tigers shows the continued division and conflict between rational capitalism and states and the continuing power exercised by imperial countries over newly developed countries.
