Four Asian Tigers

Four Asian Tigers
The Four Asian Tigers: Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan
Chinese name
Traditional Chinese	亞洲四小龍
Simplified Chinese	亚洲四小龙
Literal meaning	Asia's Four Little Dragons
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Yàzhōu sì xiǎo lóng Wade–Giles Yachou szu hsiao lung Tongyong Pinyin Yàjhōu sìh siǎo lóng Yale Romanization Yàzhōu sz̀ syǎu lúng Yue: Cantonese Yale Romanization aa jāu sei síu lòhng Jyutping aa3 zau1 sei3 siu2 lung4 Southern Min Hokkien POJ A-chiu Sì-sió-lêng
Korean name
Hangul	아시아의 네 마리 용
Hanja	아시아의 네 마리 龍
Literal meaning	Asia's four dragons
Transcriptions Revised Romanization asia ui ne mari yong McCune–Reischauer asia ŭi ne mari yong
Malay name
Malay	Empat Harimau Asia
Tamil name
Tamil	நான்கு ஆசியப் புலிகள்

The Four Asian Tigers, Four Asian Dragons or Four Little Dragons, are the economies of Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan, which underwent rapid industrialization and maintained exceptionally high growth rates (in excess of 7 percent a year) between the early 1960s (mid-1950s for Hong Kong) and 1990s. By the early 21st century, all four had developed into high-income economies, specializing in areas of competitive advantage. Hong Kong and Singapore have become world-leading international financial centres, whereas South Korea and Taiwan are world leaders in manufacturing electronic components and devices. Their economic success stories have served as role models for many developing countries, especially the Tiger Cub Economies of southeast Asia.^[1][2][3]

A controversial World Bank report (The East Asian Miracle 1993) credited neoliberal policies with the responsibility for the boom, including maintenance of export-oriented policies, low taxes, and minimal welfare states; institutional analysis also states some state intervention was involved.^[4] However, others argued that industrial policy and state intervention had a much greater influence than the World Bank report suggested.^[5][6]

Overview

Growth in per capita GDP in the tiger economies between 1960 and 2014^[7]

Prior to the 1997 Asian financial crisis, the growth of the Four Asian Tiger economies (commonly referred to as "the Asian Miracle") has been attributed to export oriented policies and strong development policies. Unique to these economies were the sustained rapid growth and high levels of equal income distribution. A World Bank report suggests two development policies among others as sources for the Asian miracle: factor accumulation and macroeconomic management.^[8]

The Hong Kong economy was the first out of the four to undergo industrialization with the development of a textile industry in the 1950s. By the 1960s, manufacturing in the British colony had expanded and diversified to include clothing, electronics, and plastics for export orientation.^[9] Following Singapore's independence from Malaysia, the Economic Development Board formulated and implemented national economic strategies to promote the country's manufacturing sector.^[10] Industrial estates were set up and foreign investment was attracted to the country with tax incentives. Meanwhile, Taiwan and South Korea began to industrialize in the mid-1960s with heavy government involvement including initiatives and policies. Both countries pursued export-oriented industrialization as in Hong Kong and Singapore.^[11] The four countries were inspired by Japan's evident success, and they collectively pursued the same goal by investing in the same categories: infrastructure and education. They also benefited from foreign trade advantages that sets them apart from other countries, most significantly economic support from the United States; part of this is manifested in the perforation of American electronic products in common households of the Four Tigers.

By the end of the 1960s, levels in physical and human capital in the four economies far exceeded other countries at similar levels of development. This subsequently led to a rapid growth in per capita income levels. While high investments were essential to their economic growth, the role of human capital was also important. Education in particular is cited as playing a major role in the Asian economic miracle. The levels of education enrollment in the Four Asian Tigers were higher than predicted given their level of income. By 1965, all four nations had achieved universal primary education.^[8] South Korea in particular had achieved a secondary education enrollment rate of 88% by 1987.^[8] There was also a notable decrease in the gap between male and female enrollments during the Asian miracle. Overall these advances in education allowed for high levels of literacy and cognitive skills.

The creation of stable macroeconomic environments was the foundation upon which the Asian miracle was built. Each of the Four Asian Tiger states managed, to various degrees of success, three variables in: budget deficits, external debt and exchange rates. Each Tiger nation's budget deficits were kept within the limits of their financial limits, as to not destabilize the macro-economy. South Korea in particular had deficits lower than the OECD average in the 1980s. External debt was non-existent for Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan, as they did not borrow from abroad.^[8] Although South Korea was the exception to this - its debt to GNP ratio was quite high during the period 1980-1985, it was sustained by the country’s high level of exports. Exchange rates in the Four Asian Tiger nations had been changed from long-term fixed rate regimes to fixed-but-adjustable rate regimes with the occasional steep devaluation of managed floating rate regimes.^[8] This active exchange rate management allowed the Four Tiger economies to avoid exchange rate appreciation and maintain a stable real exchange rate.

Export policies have been the de facto reason for the rise of these Four Asian Tiger economies. The approach taken has been different among the four nations. Hong Kong, and Singapore introduced trade regimes that were neoliberal in nature and encouraged free trade, while South Korea and Taiwan adopted mixed regimes that accommodated their own export industries. In Hong Kong and Singapore, due to small domestic markets, domestic prices were linked to international prices. South Korea and Taiwan introduced export incentives for the traded-goods sector. The governments of Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan also worked to promote specific exporting industries, which were termed as an export push strategy. All these policies helped these four nations to achieve a growth averaging 7.5% each year for three decades and as such they achieved developed country status.^[12]

Dani Rodrik, economist at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, has in a number of studies argued that state intervention was important in the East Asian growth miracle.^[13][5] He has argued "it is impossible to understand the East Asian growth miracle without appreciating the important role that government policy played in stimulating private investment".^[5]

Gross domestic product (GDP)

In 2013, the combined economy of the Four Asian Tigers constituted 3.81% of the world's economy with a total Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of 2,366 billion US dollars. The GDP in Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan was worth 274.01 billion, 297.94 billion, 1,304.55 billion and 489.21 billion US dollars respectively in 2013, which represented 0.44%, 0.48%, 2.10% and 0.79% of the world economy. Together, their combined economy is close to United Kingdom's GDP of 4.07% of the world's economy.

Education and technology

These four countries invested heavily in their infrastructure as well as in developing the intellectual abilities of their human talent, fostering and retaining their educated population to help further develop and improve their respective countries. This policy turned out to be so effective that by the late 20th century, all four countries had developed into advanced and high-income industrialized developed countries, developing many different areas of advanced technology that give them a tremendous competitive advantage in the world. For example, all four countries have become top level global education centers with Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea and Hong Kong high school students consistently outperforming all other countries in the world and achieving the highest top scores on international math and science exams such as the PISA exam and with Taiwan students winning multiple gold medals every year consistently at the International Biology Olympiad, International Linguistics Olympiad,^[16] International Physics Olympiad, International Earth Science Olympiad, International Mathematical Olympiad and International Chemistry Olympiad.^{[17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30]}

Additionally, these four countries are home to some of the most prestigious top ranking universities in the world such as National Taiwan University, Seoul National University, National University of Singapore, Nanyang Technological University and University of Hong Kong, Faculty of Dentistry, which as of 2017, was ranked as the number one top dental school in the world.^[31][32] While Taiwan and South Korea invested in technological innovation and development, Hong Kong and Singapore pursued a different path of finances and both became world-leading international financial centers. Inspired in part by Japan's technological and economic success, two of the earliest countries to pursue a similar path of cutting edge science and technology development were Taiwan, which has the best and most technologically advanced top ranked medical care system in the world,^{[33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41]} and South Korea, which have both become advanced innovative world leaders in state of the art technologies including medical science,^[42] computer technology,^{[43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51]} biotechnology,^[52][53] space technology (manned spacecraft & robots),^{[54][55][56][57][58]} military technology^[59][60][61] stealth technology^{[62][63][64][65]} robotics^[66][67][68] and information technology^[47] manufacturing.^[69] Both Taiwan and South Korea achieved this by promoting technological innovation, research and development, and export-oriented industrialization which turned an initially post-World War 2 poor agricultural economy into two thriving economic and technological superpowers on the same competitive level as Japan and the United States.^[70][71][69]

Cultural basis

The role of Confucianism has been used to explain the success of the Four Asian Tigers. This conclusion is similar to the Protestant work ethic theory in the West promoted by German sociologist Max Weber in his book The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. The culture of Confucianism is said to have been compatible with industrialization because it valued stability, hard work, discipline, and loyalty and respect towards authority figures.^[72] There is a significant influence of Confucianism on the corporate and political institutions of the Asian Tigers. Prime Minister of Singapore Lee Kuan Yew advocated Asian values as an alternative to the influence of Western culture in Asia.^[73] This theory was not without its critics. There was a lack of mainland Chinese economic success during the same time frame as the Four Tigers, and yet China was the birthplace of Confucianism. During the May Fourth Movement of 1919, Confucianism was blamed for China's inability to compete with Western powers.^[72]

Territory and region data

Organizations and groups

Country or territory	UN	WTO	OECD	DAC	APEC	ADB	SEACEN	G20	EAS	ASEAN
Hong Kong	N	Y	N	N	Y	Y	Y[80]	N	N	N
Singapore	Y	Y	N	N	Y	Y	Y	N	Y	Y
South Korea	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y (APT)
Taiwan	N	Y	N	N	Y	Y	Y	N	N	N

See also

References

Further reading

• Ezra F. Vogel, The Four Little Dragons: The Spread of Industrialization in East Asia (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1991).

External links

• BBC report on the Asian Tigers in the aftermath of the 1997 Financial Crisis (includes map of the Asian Tigers)
• ASEAN tigers
• The Elephant at the Gate in China Economic Review