The term Asian Tigers was penned and given to the Asian countries whose economy was rising

and developing in a fast pace. There are many views which try to point as to the countries that constitute the Asian tigers. Some views point to countries like China, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, and Hong Kong. However the general reflection is that Asian tigers consist of four countries which advanced economically at a faster rate than any other country in the Asian region. These countries include South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore and these countries maintained high growth rates and fast industrialization between 1960 and 19901. The factors which led to the rise of these countries are numerous and they are also complex in nature such that other factors intertwine when explained. These factors are political, economic and social and they include the role of government policies of said countries, aid from developed countries, the history of such countries, and the global politics at such time. These factors are general in nature and they are expanded below. To start with, the government intervention in the economic field can be depicted as how the government controls the industries directly. Government is expected to provide machinations which make business formation easy. Asian Tigers governments played an important role in the development and industrialization of their countries. This was done through implementation of favorable polices for industrial development. This can be seen in the case of South Korea where the government encouraged the formation of particular businesses and provided the incentives and loans for formation and growth of such industries2. Moreover governments in the East Asian countries played a more of interventionist and protectionist role in economic development. According to T Berger these countries among other things manipulated interest rates and credit channels, made major concessions to foreign investors and in the case of Singapore which intervened in the labor markets to keep workers wages below market rates3. This attracted foreign industries like the multinational industries to open
1 2

Bruce Cummings, The Asian crisis, Democracy and the end of late development. No pub. Details, 1999.

Werner Baer, William R. Miller and Allan B. Moran, The end of the Asian myth, World Development 27, no.10 (1999): 1735.
3

Mark T. Berger, The end of third world, Third world quarterly 15, no.2 (1994): 266.

industries in these countries because of the anticipation of more profits because of the low wage bill. Government policies can also be seen in the education field. In education technological aspect had been a central issue for development. The Asian governments saw that in order for development to take foot there was need to promote technological innovation and they started promoting research and development programmers. This was done through imitation and reverse engineering of existing foreign goods4. This led to knowledge of how certain things can be made and it led to from imitation to innovation5. It is important to note that these programs were supported by the governments and they had great results in terms of development promotion for instance in South Korea where exports increased from mere $140 million in 1960 to $125 billion in 19956 . Also some countries developed education as a means of widening the human resource base. This is important for development of any country in that the country will have a trained work base. According to Paul Morris, one tradition of development is associated with human resource development and emphasis on the role of high level manpower development and this resulted in the focus on tertiary , secondary and vocational education and the use of manpower plan7 As said, this lead to the enrolment in primary school of over 100% in Hong Kong, South Korea and Singapore and in Taiwan it was 97% by 1965 period and these children went on to do the secondary education but however some dropped due to the economic and social problems at such time8. Nevertheless, by 1986 the number of students who had enrolled for secondary education in South Korea 95%, Hong Kong 69%, Singapore 71% and Taiwan 92%. In 1965 the enrollment percentages were 35%, 25% and 45% respectively9. This is a clear illustration of development in education in the Asian Tigers countries and as said before this was a manpower development plan which also show the rate of development.

Linsu Kim and Richard R. Nelson, Technology learning and innovation ( Cambridge: Cambridge university press,2000), 3. 5 Ibid. 6 Ibid. 7 Paul Morrison, Four little Tigers, Comparative education Vol .32. (1996): 97 8 Ibid, 100. 9 Ibid, 101.
4

Moreover the government interventions also played some part in the promotion of manufacturing industry as said above and this was aimed at boosting exports. This had been termed export oriented policies by a number of scholars which include Anne Kruger who, according to Baer, Miller and Moran propounded that the East Asian economical boom was due to the free market policies which did not restrict producers from exporting10. To add on, the countries like South Korea went through what Kruger termed structural transformation, as all segments of the economy were opened to international economy11. However this notion of government intervention was not exercised in all countries of the Asian Tigers. In Hong Kong the government liberalized the markets and this attracted investment which in turn led to the development of industry and this was termed private capitalistic enterprise12. Also this was the case in Singapore. The opening up or what Steven Leibo termed lasses faire capitalism was due to the reason that there were less minerals and other natural resources particularly in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Industrialization was the only door open to them and in order to maximize they opened up their economies. Moreover the geographical location of these two countries contributed to their rise as well together with Singapore13. In Singapore the entreport was the source of income before the major industrial development took root. Since this industrialization was fueled by the export orientation policies, the ports meant that the commodities from Singapore were cheaper because they needed not to pay port fees. This was also the case in Hong Kong which acted as a major entreport of the western pacific between Shanghai and Singapore14. Therefore the location of some of the Asian Tigers countries aided in development and rise. Also the governments of the Asian Tigers provided the suitable environments for entrepreneurs to perform their functions.15

Baer, Miller and Moran, 1738. Ibid, 1739. 12 G.B. Endacott, A history of Hong Kong 2nd ed. ( Hong Kong: Oxford university press, 1973), 317. 13 H.J de Blij and Peter O. Miller, Geography: Realms,Regions and Concepts, 12th ed.( New York: Wiley, 2006.) 241-243. 14 Ibid, 243 15 Baer, Miller and Moran, 1739.
10 11

To move on, the history of these countries had some effect on their rise and development. Taiwan and South Korea were under the Japanese rule before 1945. After this there rose the cold war and these countries together with Japan and North Korea became major cold war arenas16. This was an ideological war between communism and capitalism. Therefore, the USA in justification and in trying to consolidate its power in the Asian continent supported the governments of these countries in the form of aid, grants and loans17. In Taiwan there was massive inflows of US loans and aid in the form of raw materials, technological training and skills development and also opening of US markets to their goods18. Hong Kong had been a British territory until 1997 and therefore Britain helped in the development of industry by opening its markets to Hong Kong and Singapore goods. Massive American aid was unveiled to the South Korean government after the war against North Korea of 1951-195219. This was a communism against capitalism war and the US saw that if the North defeated and thrive in the unification of Korea, USSR was set to gain in the cold war20. Therefore it set to help South Korea based on this notion21. Also a ready US market was available for the Korean goods. Therefore the history and world politics of the day was one of the reasons that led to the rise in the development and industrialization of the Asian Tigers. To add on, some scholars like Bruce Scott say that the strong growth of Asian Tigers can be attributed to their high savings rates rather than foreign capital22. Singapore had a policy that advocated for mandatory contribution of pension and Korea and Taiwan had what is called postal savings which affected private savings23. These savings were used in development as loans to the entrepreneurs and this was termed capital accumulation24. Capital accumulation has long been taken as a dominant determinant of economic growth and for the period 1955 to 1970 the
Berger, 267. Cummings, 23 18 Edward K.Y. Chen Hyper growth in Asian economies (London: McMillan press ltd, 1979),106. 19 De Blij and Muller, 238. 20 Cummings, 24. 21 Ibid. 22 Bruce R.Scott , Great divide in the global village, Foreign affairs 80, no. 1 (1996) :164 23 Baer, Miller and Moran, 1742. 24 Ibid.
16 17

contributions of capital to growth was in general greater than that of labor in the Asian Tigers countries25. This tries to show the role of capital in the development and industrialization of the Tigers. However these savings came after the workers were paid some wages by industries which were formed with the help foreign aid. It is known that before these countries had no base for development until they promoted some policies which invited foreign companies and aid to invest in their countries. Therefore what began was foreign help and these countries then built on that. Moreover, there other factors like low wages, human resource development, political stability, culture, protectionist notions and land redistribution also played a part in the development of Asian Tigers. In Hong Kong there was an influx of immigrants from China who were looking for work. This led to low wages due to plenty of job seekers and in South Korea there was cheap productive workforce26. This lead to cheaper goods which competed on the world market in a competitive manner. Also in South Korea and Taiwan land was distributed under US auspices which contributed to economic growth and industrialization27. In other words these countries were doing what the developed countries wanted in return for industrialization and loans28. The Asian tigers countries in a way sacrificed their complete independence for development. On the other had some of these countries had less choice other than to open their economies, countries like Hong Kong with little resources saw industrialization as a way to prosperity. South Korea was a strategic location in the cold war and US saw it fit to support it because Russia had support of the North Korea. Therefore its development was largely strategic to the US interests. This can be seen by the facts that US supported the governments of military juntas like major general Park Chung He who got power through a coup29. Also he promoted his policies of development for him to win the legitimacy of the governance from the
Chen, 71. Steven A. Leibo, East, south-east Asia and the western pacific 32nd ed. (Western Virginia: Stryker post publication, 1999),317. 27 Berger, 267. 28 Cummings, 34. 29 John Kie-Chiang Oh, Korean politics (London: Cornell university press, 1999), 55.
25 26

Korean people30. He wanted to justify his military government by economic development31. Moreover, after the end of the World War 2 the US president Harry Truman approved a policy called the policy for Asia which aimed at the establishment of conditions favorable to the export of technology and capital and to liberal trade policy throughout the world32. This policy drove the US into aiding the economic development of Asian Tigers in return for liberalized or capitalist economies. Also according to Cummings, South Korea and Taiwan were deeply penetrated with the American power and interests, yielding profound lateral weakness, strong in economics and weak in politics33. Therefore the developments of the Asian Tigers were in a way due to the world politics and to some extend due to coercive exploits of the American economics. In conclusion, the rise Asian Tigers can be accounted by examining a number of aspects which include the history of these countries, world politics of that time, government policies to development, foreign aid and capital, social, political and economic way of life of such countries at such time among other factors. These factors are intertwined in nature and some affect others, some contradict others and so on. However, the rise of Asian Tigers was noted and a lot of reasons have been propounded but one reason which can account for the rise of Asian Tigers is the world politics of the day, the war between communism and capitalism. This war opened the doors of development to countries especially South Korea and Taiwan.

30 31. 32 33

Ibid. Ibid, 51. Cummings, 20. Ibid.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.
Baer, Werner, William, R. Miller and Allen, B. Moran. The end of the Asian myth. World Development 27, no.10 (1999): 1735-1747. Berger. Mark, T. The end of third world. Third world quarterly 15, no.2 (1994): 257-275. Chen, K.Y. Edward. Hyper growth in Asian economies. London: Macmillan press ltd. 1979. Chieng-oh, John. Korean politics. London: Cornell university press. 1999. Cummings. Bruce. The Asian crisis, democracy and the end of late development. No pub details. 1999. De blij, H.J. and Peter, O. Muller. Geography: Realms, regions and concepts,12th ed. New York: Wiley, 2006. Endacott, G.B. A history of Hong Kong. Hong Kong: Oxford university press, 1973. Kim, Linsu and Richard, R. Nelson. Technology, learning and innovation: Experiences of NIC. Cambridge: Cambridge university press, 2000. Leibo, A. Steven. East, south-east Asia and the western pacific 32nd ed. West Virginia: Stryker post publication. 1999. Morris, Paul. Asias four little tigers: A comparison of the role of education in their development Comparative education, 32, no. 1(1996): 95-101. Scott, Bruce, R. Great divide in the global village, Foreign affairs 80, no. 1 (1996) :164.

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