The East Asian Export-Led Industrialization in the Global Economy

Today, one of the main areas of interest for the global economy is Asia, especially China. The impetus for China's development can be traced back to the development of Asian Newly Industrializing Economies (NIEs) such as South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore in the 1960s. The development of Asia, which began with the development of the NIEs, has spread to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries and China since the late 1980s, and has spread further to South Asia since the turn of the century. How do we explain the economic development in Asia that began with the NIEs? Since the 1970s, different approaches have challenged this question and competed for explanatory power. In this chapter, we will begin by organizing various theoretical approaches related to the economic development of the Asian NIEs and their expansion to East Asia, and confirm the characteristics of their development and their world-historical character in relation to the global economy. In addition, we will discuss the new changes that will occur in this century and their characteristics.