Tiger Economies
Overview
Tiger Economies
Since the end of the Cold War in the 1990s and 2000s, certain Asian countries (the so-called “Tigers”) have emerged as competitors to Europe and the United States as great economic powers.
Learning Objectives
- Identify the reasons for the emergence of the “Tiger” economies.
- Examine the political, economic, and social issues facing these rising Asian nations.
- Analyze the differences between North Korea and these “Tiger” economies.
Key Terms / Key Concepts
bamboo network: a term used to conceptualize connections between certain businesses operated by overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia
Four Asian Tigers: a collective name used to refer to the economies of Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan, which underwent rapid industrialization and maintained exceptionally high growth rates between the early 1960s and 1990s
G7: a group consisting of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States (These countries are the seven major advanced economies as reported by the International Monetary Fund and represent more than 64% of the net global wealth—$263 trillion.)
socialist oriented market economy: the economic model employed by the People’s Republic of China, which is based on the dominance of the state-owned sector and an open-market economy and has its origins in the Chinese economic reforms introduced under Deng Xiaoping
Tiger Cub Economies: a collective term used to refer to the economies of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam, the five dominant countries in Southeast Asia; a group so named because they follow the same export-driven model of economic development pursued by the Four Asian Tigers
Yasukuni Shrine: a Shinto shrine that memorializes Japanese armed forces members killed in wartime constructed during the Meiji period to house the remains of those who died for Japan
The Rising Economies of East Asia
The economy of East Asia is one of the most successful regional economies of the world. The changes that turned the area into the economic power began with the Meiji Restoration in the late 19th century when Japan rapidly transformed into the only industrial power outside Europe and the United States. Japan’s early industrial economy reached its height during World War II and its eventual defeat in the war slowed down economic development for a relatively short period of time. Japan’s economy recovered already in the 1950s and by the 1980s, the country was the world’s second largest economy.
Other East Asian countries followed with their own reforms and resulting “economic miracles”; today, East Asia is home of some of the world’s largest and most prosperous economies, including Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea. Major growth factors have ranged from favorable political and legal environments for industry and commerce, through abundant natural resources, to plentiful supplies of relatively low-cost, skilled, and adaptable labor. Local populations have rapidly adjusted to the requirements of new technologies and scientific discoveries, while also demonstrating exceptional work ethics. The region’s economic success has led the World Bank to dub it an East Asian Renaissance.
Although technically not seen as part of the East Asian Renaissance, India, associated more closely with the South Asian region, has become an equally thriving and critical Asian member of the global economy in the last several decades.
Japan
In the three decades of economic development following 1960, Japan ignored defense spending in favor of economic growth, thus allowing for a rapid economic growth referred to as the Japanese post-war economic miracle. With average growth rates of 10% in the 1960s, 5% in the 1970s, and 4% in the 1980s, Japan was able to establish and maintain itself as the world’s second largest economy from 1978 until 2010, when it was surpassed by the People’s Republic of China.
The economy of Japan is the third largest in the world by nominal GDP, the fourth-largest by purchasing power parity (PPP), and the world’s second largest developed economy. Japan is thus a member of the G7. Due to a volatile currency exchange rate, Japan’s GDP as measured in dollars fluctuates widely. Accounting for these fluctuations, Japan is estimated to have a GDP per capita of around $38,490.
Japan is the world’s third largest automobile manufacturing country, has the largest electronics goods industry, and is often ranked among the world’s most innovative countries leading several measures of global patent filings. Facing increasing competition from China and South Korea, manufacturing in Japan today focuses primarily on high-tech and precision goods, such as optical instruments, hybrid vehicles, and robotics. Japan is the world’s largest creditor nation. It generally runs an annual trade surplus and has a considerable net international investment surplus. In 2015, 54 of the Fortune Global 500 companies were based in Japan.
The Japanese economy faces considerable challenges posed by a dramatically declining population. Statistics showed an official decline for the first time in 2015, while projections suggest that it will continue to fall from 127 million down to below 100 million by the middle of the 21st century. A mountainous, volcanic island country, Japan has inadequate natural resources to support its growing economy and large population. Therefore, Japan exports goods, which are highly valued across the world. Japan exports engineering-oriented, research, and development-led industrial products and imports raw materials and oil. Japan is among the top-three importers for agricultural products in the world next to the European Union and United States in total volume for covering of its own domestic agricultural consumption.
Japan in the World
Since the late 1990s, the U.S.-Japan relationship has improved and strengthened. The major cause of friction in the relationship, trade disputes, became less problematic as China displaced Japan as the greatest perceived economic threat to the United States. Meanwhile, although in the immediate post-Cold War period the security alliance suffered from a lack of a defined threat, the emergence of North Korea as a belligerent rogue state and China’s economic and military expansion provided a purpose to strengthen the relationship. While the foreign policy of the administration of President George W. Bush put a strain on some of the United States’ international relations, the alliance with Japan became stronger, as evidenced by the Deployment of Japanese troops to Iraq and the joint development of anti-missile defense systems.
The Okinawa Controversy
Okinawa is the site of major American military bases that have caused problems, as Japanese and Okinawans have protested their presence for decades. In secret negotiations that began in 1969, Washington sought unrestricted use of its bases for possible conventional combat operations in Korea, Taiwan, and South Vietnam, as well as the emergency re-entry and transit rights of nuclear weapons. However, anti-nuclear sentiment was strong in Japan and the government wanted the United States to remove all nuclear weapons from Okinawa. In the end, the United States and Japan agreed to maintain bases that would allow the continuation of American deterrent capabilities in East Asia. When the Ryukyu Islands, including Okinawa, reverted to Japanese control in 1972, the United States retained the right to station forces on these islands. A dispute that had boiled since 1996 regarding a base with 18,000 U.S. Marines was temporarily resolved in late 2013. Agreement was reached to move the Marine Corps Air Station Futenma to a less-densely populated area of Okinawa.
As of 2014, the United States still had 50,000 troops in Japan and the headquarters of the U.S. 7th Fleet, including more than 10,000 Marines. Also in 2014, it was revealed the United States was deploying two unarmed Global Hawk long-distance surveillance drones to Japan with the expectation they would engage in surveillance missions over China and North Korea.
Japan and Reckoning with History
In recent decades, Japan has faced increased pressure from its East Asian neighbors to be more accountable for its past actions. Despite numerous apologies for Japan’s war crimes from Japanese government representatives since World War II, repeated comments of Japanese politicians questioning the crimes, the problematic degree of formality of apologies, and retractions or contradictions by statements or actions of Japan have exposed the country’s refusal to reckon with its difficult past. Japanese war crimes occurred in many Asian and Pacific countries during the period of Japanese imperialism, primarily during the Second Sino-Japanese War, which eventually merged into World War II. Some were committed by military personnel from the Empire of Japan in the late 19th century, although most took place from the first part of the Shōwa Era, the name given to the reign of Emperor Hirohito, until the surrender of the Empire of Japan in 1945.
Some historians and governments hold Japanese military forces, the Imperial Japanese Army, the Imperial Japanese Navy, and the Imperial Japanese family, especially under Emperor Hirohito, responsible for the deaths of millions of civilians and prisoners of war through massacre, human experimentation, starvation, and forced labor either directly perpetrated or condoned by the Japanese military and government. Estimates range from 3 to 14 million victims. Airmen of the Imperial Japanese Army Air Service and Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service were not included as war criminals because there was no positive or specific customary international humanitarian law that prohibited the unlawful conduct of aerial warfare either before or during World War II. However, the Imperial Japanese Army Air Service took part in chemical and biological attacks on enemy nationals during the Second Sino-Japanese War and World War II, and the use of such weapons in warfare was generally prohibited by international agreements signed by Japan, including the Hague Conventions (1899 and 1907), which banned the use of “poison or poisoned weapons” in warfare.
Japan's Problematic Reckoning
Since the 1950s, senior Japanese Government officials have issued numerous apologies for the country’s war crimes. Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs states that the country acknowledges its role in causing “tremendous damage and suffering” during World War II, especially in regard to the Nanking Massacre in which Japanese soldiers killed a large number of non-combatants and engaged in looting and rape. But unlike Germany, for example, Japan has not fully recognized the scale of its war-time atrocities, and its approach to dealing with the difficult past has caused controversy around the world. Japanese nationalist politicians engaged in efforts to whitewash the actions of the Empire of Japan during World War II. While they were not entirely successful, some Japanese history textbooks offer only brief references to various war crimes.
Critics have questioned the degree and formality of apologies and noted the issue of retractions and contradictory actions by Japan. An illustrative example is the issue of the so-called comfort women, women and girls who were forced into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Army in occupied territories before and during World War II. In 1951, the South Korean government demanded $364 million in compensation for Koreans forced into labor and military service during Japanese occupation. In the final agreement reached in the 1965 treaty, Japan provided an $800 million aid and low-interest loan package over 10 years. However, the money was for the Korean government, not individuals.
Three Korean women filed suit in Japan in 1991, around the time of the 50th anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack, demanding compensation for forced prostitution. In 1992, documents were found in the library of Japan’s Self-Defense Agency that indicated that the Japanese military played a large role in operating what were euphemistically called “comfort stations”. The Japanese Government admitted that the Japanese Army forced tens of thousands of Korean women to have sex with Japanese soldiers during World War II. On January 14, 1992, Japanese Chief Government Spokesman Koichi Kato issued an official apology. Three days later, at a dinner given by South Korean President Roh Tae Woo, Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa apologized to his host and the following day in a speech before South Korea’s National Assembly.
In 1994, the Japanese government set up the public-private Asian Women’s Fund (AWF) to distribute additional compensation to South Korea, the Philippines, Taiwan, the Netherlands, and Indonesia. A number of former comfort women (61 Korean, 13 Taiwanese, 211 Filipino, and 79 Dutch) were given a signed apology from Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama. Many former Korean comfort women rejected the compensations on principle. Although the AWF was set up by the Japanese government, its funds came not from the government but from private donations, hence the compensation was not “official.” In 1998, the Japanese court ruled that the Japanese government must compensate the women and awarded them $2,300 (equivalent to $3,380 in 2016) each.
On March 1, 2007, Prime Minister Shinzō Abe stated that there was no evidence that the Japanese government had kept sex slaves, even though the Japanese government already admitted the use of coercion in 1993. On February 20, 2014, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said that the Japanese government may reconsider the study and the apology. However, Prime Minister Abe clarified on March 14, 2014, that he had no intention of renouncing or altering it. On December 28, 2015, Abe and South Korean President Park Geun-hye reached a formal agreement to settle the dispute. However, the Korean comfort women and the majority of the Korean population regarded the resolution as unsatisfying. The Korean comfort women stated that they were not protesting for money and that their goals for the formal and public apology from Abe and the Japanese government and the correction of Japanese history textbooks had not been met. In 2019 due to lack of public support, the South Korean government dissolved this agreement.
Japan and Its Neighbors
The People’s Republic of China joined other Asian countries—such as South Korea, North Korea, and Singapore—in criticizing Japanese history textbooks that whitewash Japanese war crimes in World War II. Although Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi openly declared “deep remorse” over Japan’s wartime crimes in 2005 (the latest in a series of apologies spanning several decades), many Chinese observers regard the apology as insufficient and not backed up by sincere action because of the lack of change to Japan’s representation of history.
The PRC and Japan also continue to debate over the actual number of people killed in the Nanking Massacre. The PRC claims that at least 300,000 civilians were murdered while Japan claims 40,000 – 200,000. While a majority of Japanese believe in the existence of the massacre, a Japanese-produced documentary film released just prior to the 60th anniversary of the massacre, titled The Truth about Nanjing, denies that any such atrocities took place. These disputes have stirred up enmity against Japan from the global Chinese community, including Taiwan.
Although the Japanese government has admitted to the killing of a large number of non-combatants, looting, and other violence committed by the Imperial Japanese Army after the fall of Nanking, and Japanese veterans who served there have confirmed that a massacre took place, a small but vocal minority within both the Japanese government and society have argued that the death toll was military in nature and that no such crimes ever occurred.
Since the 1950s, many prominent politicians and officials in Japan have made statements on Japanese colonial rule in Korea, which created outrage and led to diplomatic scandals in Korean-Japanese relations. The statements have led to anti-Japanese sentiments among Koreans and a widespread perception that Japanese apologies for colonial rule have been insincere. Although diplomatic relations were established by a treaty in 1965, South Korea continues to request an apology and compensation for Korea under Japanese rule. In 2012, the South Korean government announced that Emperor Akihito must apologize for Japan’s colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula. Most Japanese prime ministers have issued apologies, including Prime Minister Obuchi in the Japan–South Korea Joint Declaration of 1998. While South Koreans welcomed the apologies at the time, many now view the statements as insincere because of continuous misunderstandings between the two nations.
In the early 1990s, Japan conducted lengthy negotiations with North Korea aimed at establishing diplomatic relations while maintaining its relations with Seoul. In September 1990, a Japanese political delegation led by former deputy Prime Minister Shin Kanemaru of the Liberal Democratic Party visited North Korea. Following private meetings between Kanemaru and North Korean leader Kim Il Sung, a joint declaration released on September 28 called for Japan to apologize and compensate North Korea for its period of colonial rule. Japan and North Korea agreed to begin talks aimed at the establishment of diplomatic relations.
In January 1991, Japan began normalization talks with Pyongyang with a formal apology for its 1910 – 45 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula. The negotiations were aided by Tokyo’s support of a proposal for simultaneous entry into the United Nations by North Korea and South Korea. The issues of international inspection of North Korean nuclear facilities and the nature and amount of Japanese compensations, however, proved more difficult to negotiate. Prime Minister Junichirō Koizumi, in the Japan-DPRK Pyongyang Declaration of 2002, said: “I once again express my feelings of deep remorse and heartfelt apology, and also express the feelings of mourning for all victims, both at home and abroad, in the war.”
Yasukuni Shrine
Yasukuni Shrine is a Shinto shrine that memorializes Japanese armed forces members killed in wartime. It was constructed as a memorial during the Meiji period to house the remains of those who died for Japan. The shrine houses the remains of Hideki Tojo, Prime Minister and Army Minister of Japan between 1941 and 1944, and 13 other Class A war criminals. Yasukuni Shrine has been a subject of controversy, as it also a memorial for over a thousand Japanese and some Korean war criminals. The presence of these war criminals among the dead honored at Yasukuni Shrine means that visits to Yasukuni have been seen by Chinese and South Koreans as support for these war criminals of the wartime era.
Yasuhiro Nakasone and Ryutaro Hashimoto visited Yasukuni Shrine in 1986 and 1996 respectively, and both paid respects as Prime Minister of Japan, drawing intense opposition from Korea and China. Junichirō Koizumi visited the shrine and paid respects six times during his term as Prime Minister of Japan. These visits again drew strong condemnation and protests from Japan’s neighbors, mainly China and South Korea. As a result, the heads of the two countries refused to meet with Koizumi, and there were no mutual visits between Chinese and Japanese leaders after October 2001 and between South Korean and Japanese leaders after June 2005. The President of South Korea, Roh Moo-hyun, had suspended all summit talks between South Korea and Japan until 2008, when he resigned from office. Japanese prime minister, Shinzō Abe, has made several visits to the shrine, the most recent being in December 2013.
Four Asian Tigers
In addition to Japan, the other economic powers in East Asia include the “Four Asian Tigers.” the economies of Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan. These four countries 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 21st century, all four had developed into advanced and high-income economies, specializing in areas of competitive advantage. For example, Hong Kong and Singapore have become world-leading international financial centers, whereas South Korea and Taiwan are world leaders in information technology manufacturing. Their economic success stories have served as role models for many developing countries, especially the Tiger Cub Economies.
Export policies have been the de facto reason for the rise of the 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.
A controversial World Bank report (see The East Asian Miracle 1993) credited neoliberal policies with the responsibility for the boom, including maintenance of export-led regimes, low taxes, and minimal welfare states. Some state intervention has been also admitted to be a factor. However, many have argued that industrial policy had a much greater influence than the World Bank report suggested. The World Bank report itself acknowledged benefits from policies of the repression of the financial sector, such as state-imposed below-market interest rates for loans to specific exporting industries. Other important aspects include major government investments in education, non-democratic and relatively authoritarian political systems during the early years of development, high levels of U.S. bond holdings, and high public and private savings rates.
South Korea
In the first half of the 1990s, in already democratic South Korea, the economy continued a stable and strong growth. Things changed quickly in 1997 with the Asian Financial Crisis. By 1997, the IMF had approved a USD $21 billion loan, that would be part of a USD $58.4 billion bailout plan. By January 1998, the government had shut down a third of Korea’s merchant banks. Actions by the South Korean government and debt swaps by international lenders contained the country’s financial problems. Much of South Korea’s recovery from the Asian Financial Crisis can be attributed to labor adjustments (i.e. a dynamic and productive labor market with flexible wage rates) and alternative funding sources.
In the 2000s, Korea’s economy moved away from the centrally planned, government-directed investment model toward a more market-oriented one. These economic reforms helped it maintain one of Asia’s few expanding economies.
South Korea enjoys a high-income economy and massively invests in education, which has brought the country from mass illiteracy to becoming major international technological powerhouse. The country’s national economy benefits from a highly skilled workforce, and South Koreans are among the most educated societies in the world with one of the highest percentage of individuals holding a higher education degree. The South Korean economy continues to be heavily dependent on international trade and in 2014, the country was the 5th largest exporter and 7th largest importer in the world. The incredible economic development from the early 1960s to the late 1990s and becoming one of the fastest-growing developed countries in the 2000s has compelled South Koreans to refer to this growth as the Miracle on the Han River. South Korea was also one of the few developed countries that were able to avoid a recession during the global financial crisis of 2007 – 2008.
Tiger Cub Economies
The term Tiger Cub Economies collectively refers to the economies of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam, the five dominant countries in Southeast Asia. They are so named because they follow the same export-driven model of economic development pursued by the Four Asian Tigers. Four countries are included in HSBC’s (United Kingdom bank) list of top 50 economies in 2050, while Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines are included in Goldman Sachs’s (US investment bank) Next Eleven list of economies because of their rapid growth and large population. Out of these, Vietnam has been determined to become possibly the fastest growing of the world’s emerging economies by 2020. Similarly to China, the country’s socialist-oriented market economy is a developing planned economy and market economy. In the 21st century, Vietnam is in a period of being integrated into the global economy. It has become a leading agricultural exporter and served as an attractive destination for foreign investment in Southeast Asia.
Overseas Chinese entrepreneurs played a prominent role in the development of the region’s private sectors. These businesses are part of the larger “bamboo network,” a network of overseas Chinese businesses operating in the markets of Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, and the Philippines that share common family and cultural ties. China’s transformation into a major economic power in the 21st century has led to increasing investments in Southeast Asian countries where the bamboo network is present.
India and North Korea
India has emerged as an economic power since the the 1990s, whereas North Korea, unlike South Korea and other states in East Asia, has become increasingly isolated internationally under a brutal dictatorship.
Key Terms / Key Concepts
BRICS: the acronym for an association of five major emerging national economies (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa)
Global Hunger Index: an index that places a third of weight on proportion of the population that is estimated to be undernourished, a third on the estimated prevalence of low body weight to height ratio in children younger than five, and remaining third weight on the proportion of children dying before the age of five for any reason
G-20: an international forum for the governments and central bank governors from 20 major economies founded in 1999 with the aim of studying, reviewing, and promoting high-level discussion of policy issues pertaining to the promotion of international financial stability
License Raj: the elaborate system of licenses, regulations, and accompanying red tape required to set up and run businesses in India between 1947 and 1990
North Korean famine: a famine that killed somewhere between 240,000 and 3.5 million North Koreans between 1994 and 1998
Sunshine Policy: the foreign policy of South Korea towards North Korea from 1998 to 2008
India after the Cold War
In 1991, two events resulted in a major balance-of-payments crisis for India: the collapse of their major trading partner, Soviet Union, and the Gulf War, which caused a spike in oil prices. As a result, India found itself facing the prospect of defaulting on its loans. The country asked for a $1.8 billion bailout loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which in return demanded deregulation. In response, Prime Minister Narasimha Rao, along with his finance minister Manmohan Singh, initiated economic liberalization in 1991. The reforms did away with the License Raj (a system of licenses, regulations, and accompanying red tape required to set up and run businesses), reduced tariffs and interest rates, and ended many public monopolies, allowing automatic approval of foreign direct investment in many sectors. Since then, the overall thrust of liberalization has remained the same, although no government has tried to take on powerful lobbies. By the turn of the 21st century, India had progressed towards a free-market economy, with a substantial reduction in state control of the economy and increased financial liberalization.
Currently, the economy of India is the sixth largest in the world measured by nominal GDP and the third largest by purchasing power parity (PPP). The country is classified as a newly industrialized country, one of the G-20 major economies, and a member of BRICS. It is a developing economy with an average growth rate of approximately 7% over the last two decades.
Maharashtra is the wealthiest Indian state and has an annual nominal GDP of $330 billion US, nearly equal to that of Portugal and Pakistan combined. Additionally, it accounts for 12% of the Indian GDP followed by the states of Tamil Nadu ($150 billion US) and Uttar Pradesh ($130 billion US).
India’s economy was the world’s fastest growing major economy in the last quarter of 2014, replacing the People’s Republic of China. India has one of the fastest growing service sectors in the world with an annual growth rate of above 9% since 2001, which contributed to 57% of GDP in 2012 – 13. India has become a major exporter of IT (Information Yechnology) services, business process outsourcing services, and software services, with $167.0 billion worth of service exports in 2013 – 14. It also became the fastest-growing part of the economy. The IT (Information industry) thus became the largest private sector employer in the country. At that time, India emerged as the third largest start-up hub in the world with over 3,100 technology start-ups in 2014 – 15. The agricultural sector remained the largest employer in India’s economy but contributed to a declining share of its GDP (17% in 2013 – 14). India ranked second worldwide in farm output. The industry sector has held a constant share of its economic contribution (26% of GDP in 2013 – 14). The Indian automobile industry became one of the largest in the world with an annual production of 21.48 million vehicles (mostly two- and three-wheelers) in fiscal year 2013 – 14. India had $600 billion worth of the retail market in 2015, and one of world’s fastest growing e-commerce markets.
Outcomes of Economic Development
India’s agricultural sector today still faced issues of efficiency due to lack of mechanization and small farmers who live in poor conditions. In India, traditional agriculture remained dominant as many farmers depended on livestock in crop production, for both the produced manure and their use as manual ploughs. According to 2011 statistics, the average farm in India was about 1.5 acres, minuscule when compared to the average of 50 hectares in France, 178 hectares in United States, and 273 hectares in Canada.
Despite the impressive accomplishments of the Green Revolution, India has continued to face massive socioeconomic challenges. In 2006, India contained the largest number of people living below the World Bank’s international poverty line of $1.25 US per day, the proportion having decreased from 60% in 1981 to 42% in 2005 and 25% in 2011. According to a Food and Agriculture Organization report in 2015, 15% of the Indian population was undernourished. Since 1991, economic inequality between India’s states has consistently grown: the per capita net state domestic product of the richest states in 2007 was 3.2 times that of the poorest.
Global Hunger Index (GHI) measures hunger by placing a third of weight on proportion of the population that is estimated to be undernourished, a third on the estimated prevalence of low body weight to height ratio in children younger than five, and the remaining third on the proportion of children dying before the age of five for any reason. According to 2011 GHI report, India had improved its performance by 22% in 20 years, from 30.4 to 23.7 over the 1990 – 2011 period. However, its performance from 2001 to 2011 showed little progress, with just 3% improvement. A sharp reduction in the percentage of underweight children has helped India improve its hunger record on the Global Hunger Index (GHI) 2014. Between 2005 and 2014, the prevalence of underweight children under the age of five fell from 43.5% to 30.7%.
In 2012, the National Crime Records Bureau of India reported 13,754 farmer suicides. Farmer suicides accounted for 11.2% of all suicides in India. Activists and scholars have offered a number of conflicting reasons for this phenomenon, such as monsoon failure, high debt burdens, genetically modified crops, government policies, public mental health, personal issues, and family problems.
India has made huge progress in terms of increasing the primary education attendance rate and expanding literacy to approximately three-fourths of the population. The literacy rate grew from 52.2% in 1991 to 74.04% in 2011. The right to education at elementary level has been made fundamental, and legislation has been enacted to further the objective of providing free education to all children. However, the literacy rate of 74% was still lower than the worldwide average and the country suffered from a high drop-out rate (impacted by economic challenges faced by the poorest segments of the society). Further, the literacy rates and educational opportunities varied greatly by region, gender, urban and rural areas, and among different social groups.
There is a continuing debate on whether India’s economic expansion has been pro-poor or anti-poor. Studies suggest that the economic growth has reduced poverty in India, although it remains at a substantial level. In 2012, the Indian government stated 21.9% of its population is below its official poverty threshold. According to United Nation’s Millennium Development Goal (MDG) program, 270 million or 21.9% people out of 1.2 billion of Indians lived below poverty line of $1.25 in 2011 – 2012 as compared to 41.6% in 2004 – 05. It is important to note, however, that the World Bank and UN-accepted poverty line is very low and many of those whose purchasing power falls above it still face massive economic struggles.
A critical problem facing India’s economy is the sharp and growing regional variations among India’s different states and territories in terms of poverty, availability of infrastructure, and socioeconomic development. Severe disparities exist among states in terms of income, literacy rates, life expectancy, and living conditions.
After liberalization, the more advanced states have been better placed to benefit, with well-developed infrastructure and an educated and skilled workforce that attract the manufacturing and service sectors. The governments of less-advanced regions are trying to reduce disparities by offering tax holidays and cheap land. These state governments have focused more on sectors like tourism, which, although geographically and historically determined, can become a source of growth and develop faster than other sectors.
Corruption has been one of the pervasive problems affecting India. A 2005 study by Transparency International (TI) found that more than half of those surveyed had firsthand experience of paying bribes or peddling influence to get a job done in a public office over the previous year. In 1996, bureaucracy and the License Raj were suggested as a cause for the institutionalized corruption and inefficiency. More recent reports suggest the causes include excessive regulations and approval requirements, mandated spending programs, monopoly of certain goods and service providers by government-controlled institutions, bureaucracy with discretionary powers, and lack of transparent laws and processes. The Right to Information Act (2005) is a law that requires government officials to furnish information requested by citizens or face punitive action; it, along with computerization of services and various central and state government acts that established vigilance commissions, have reduced corruption and opened avenues to redress grievances.
In 2011, the Indian government concluded that most spending fails to reach its intended recipients. A large, cumbersome bureaucracy sponges up or siphons off spending budgets. India’s absentee rates are one of the worst in the world. One study found that 25% of public sector teachers and 40% of government-owned public sector medical workers could not be found at the workplace. Similarly, there are many issues facing Indian scientists, with demands for transparency, hiring based on merit, and an overhaul of the bureaucratic agencies that oversee science and technology.
Despite the impressive economic growth, India continues to experience many social issues, many associated with countries that lag economically. These include the lack of proper sanitation, debt bondage and other forms of bonded labor, child labor, child marriage, gender-based violence, and poor access to quality health care and education faced by a substantial segment of the caste-based society.
North Korea
North Korea has remained committed to its Marxist-Leninist ideology with its command economy, even following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. As the Cold War ended, North Korea lost the support of the Soviet Union and plunged into economic crisis. In 1998, South Korean President Kim Dae-jung initiated the Sunshine Policy, which aimed to foster better relations with the North. The main aim of the policy was to soften North Korea’s attitudes towards the South by encouraging interaction and economic assistance. The national security policy had three basic principles: no armed provocation by the North will be tolerated, the South will not attempt to absorb the North in any way, and the South actively seeks cooperation.
Despite a naval clash in 1999, and in 2000, the first Inter-Korean Summit between the leaders of the two countries—Kim Dae-jung and Kim Jong-il—took place. As a result, Kim Dae-jung was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The summit was followed by the reunion of families divided by the Korean War. The same year, the North and South Korean teams marched together at the Sydney Olympics. Trade increased to the point where South Korea became North Korea’s largest trading partner. In 2003, the Kaesong Industrial Region was established to allow South Korean businesses to invest in the North. However, in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, U.S. President George W. Bush did not support the policy and in 2002 branded North Korea as a member of “the Axis of Evil.” The Sunshine Policy was formally abandoned by South Korean President Lee Myung-bak after his election in 2007.
Meanwhile, in response to its increased isolation, North Korea redoubled its efforts to develop nuclear weapons and intercontinental ballistic missiles. In 2006, North Korea announced it had successfully conducted its first nuclear test. At the start of the 21st century, it was estimated that the concentration of firepower in the area between Pyongyang and Seoul was greater than that in Central Europe during the Cold War. The North’s Korean People’s Army was numerically twice the size of South Korea’s military and had the capacity to devastate Seoul with artillery and missile bombardment. South Korea’s military, however, was assessed as technically superior. US forces remained in South Korea and carried out annual military exercises with South Korean forces. These have been routinely denounced by North Korea as acts of aggression. Between 1997 and 2016, the North Korea government accused other governments of declaring war against it 200 times. In 2013, amid tensions about its missile program, North Korea temporarily forced the shutdown of the jointly operated Kaesong Industrial Region The zone was shut again in 2016. In 2016, amid controversy, South Korea decided to deploy the U.S. THAAD anti-missile system. After North Korea’s fifth nuclear test in September 2016, it was reported that South Korea had developed a plan to raze Pyongyang if there were signs of an impending nuclear attack from the North.
Over this period, North Korea remained under the control of a communist, military dictatorship. North Korea’s first military dictator, Kim Il-sung died from a sudden heart attack in 1994. His son, Kim Jong-il, who had already assumed key positions in the government, succeeded as General-Secretary of the Korean Workers’ Party. At that time, North Korea had no secretary-general in the party nor a president. Although a new constitution appeared to end the war-time political system, it did not completely terminate the transitional military rule. Rather, it legitimized and institutionalized military rule by making the National Defense Commission (NDC) the most important state organization and its chairman the highest authority. After three years of consolidating his power, Kim Jong-il became Chairman of the NDC in 1997 and thus North Korea’s de facto head of state.
Meanwhile, the economy was in steep decline. From 1990 to 1995, foreign trade was cut in half, with the loss of subsidized Soviet oil particularly keenly felt. The crisis came to a head in 1995 with widespread flooding that destroyed crops and infrastructure, leading to a famine that lasted until 1998.The North Korean government and its centrally planned system proved too inflexible to effectively curtail the disaster. Estimates of the death toll vary widely. Out of a total population of approximately 22 million, somewhere between 240,000 and 3.5 million North Koreans died from starvation or hunger-related illnesses, with deaths peaking in 1997. Recent research suggests that the likely number of excess deaths between 1993 and 2000 was about 330,000.
Kim Jong-un's Rule
In 2011, the supreme leader of North Korea Kim Jong-il died from a heart attack. His youngest son Kim Jong-un was announced as his successor. In December 2011, the leading North Korean newspaper Rodong Sinmun announced that Kim Jong-un had been acting as chairman of the Central Military Commission and supreme leader of the country. In 2012, a large rally was held by Korean People’s Army in front of Kumsusan Memorial Palace to honor Kim Jong-un and demonstrate loyalty. North Korea’s cult of personality around Kim Jong-un was stepped up following his father’s death. In February 2017, two women in Malaysia with VX nerve agent (a chemical weapon) attacked and killed Kim Jong-nam, during his return trip to Macau at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport. Kim Jong-nam was the eldest son of Kim Jong-il and half-brother of Kim Jong-un; from 1994 to 2001 Kim Jong-nam was considered the heir apparent to his father, prior to his exile to Macau. Kim Myung-yeon, a spokesperson for South Korea’s ruling party, described the killing as a “naked example of Kim Jong-un’s reign of terror.” The South Korean government accused the North Korean government of being responsible for Kim Jong-nam’s assassination and drew a parallel with the execution of Kim Jong-un’s own uncle and others. The government later held an emergency security council meeting where they condemned the murder of Kim Jong-nam. The acting President of South Korea, Hwang Kyo-ahn said that if the murder of Kim Jong-nam was confirmed to be masterminded by North Korea, it would clearly depict the brutality and inhumanity of the Kim Jong-un regime.
Under Kim Jong-un, North Korea has continued to develop nuclear weapons. In 2013, Kim Jong-un announced that North Korea will adopt “a new strategic line on carrying out economic construction and building nuclear armed forces simultaneously.” According to several analysts, North Korea sees the nuclear arsenal as vital to deter an attack, but it is unlikely that the country would launch a nuclear war. In 2016, Kim Jong-un stated that North Korea would “not use nuclear weapons first unless aggressive hostile forces use nuclear weapons to invade on our sovereignty.” However, on other occasions, North Korea has threatened “preemptive” nuclear attacks against a U.S.-led attack. As of 2016, the United Nations has enacted five cumulative rounds of sanctions against North Korea for its nuclear program and missile tests.
Human rights violations under the leadership of Kim Jong-il were condemned by the UN General Assembly. Press reports indicate that they are continuing under Kim Jong-un. The 2013 report on the situation of human rights in North Korea by United Nations Special Rapporteur Marzuki Darusman proposed a United Nations commission of inquiry to document the accountability of Kim Jong-un and other individuals in the North Korean government for alleged crimes against humanity. The report of the commission of inquiry was published in 2014 and recommends making him accountable for crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court.
A 2013 study reported that communicable diseases and malnutrition are responsible for 29% of the total deaths in North Korea. This figure is higher than that of high-income countries and South Korea, but half of the average 57% of all deaths in other low-income countries. Infectious diseases like tuberculosis, malaria, and hepatitis B are considered endemic as a result of the North Korean famine (1994 – 1998). The famine had a significant impact on the population growth rate, which declined to 0.9% annually in 2002 and 0.53% in 2014. In 2006, the World Food Program (WFP) and the Food and Agriculture Organization estimated a requirement of 5.3 to 6.5 million tons of grain in aid when domestic production fulfilled only 3.8 million tons. The country also faces land degradation after forests stripped for agriculture resulted in soil erosion. In 2008, a decade after the worst years of the famine, total production was 3.3 million tons (grain equivalent) compared with a need of 6 million tons. 37 percent of the population was deemed to be insecure in food access. Weather continued to pose challenges every year, but overall food production has grown gradually. In 2014, North Korea had an exceptionally good harvest, 5.08 million tons of cereal equivalent, almost sufficient to feed the entire population. While food production has recovered significantly since the hardest years of 1996 and 1997, the recovery is fragile, subject to adverse weather and year-to-year economic shortages. North Korea’s GDP per capita has been less than $2,000 in the late 1990s and early 21st century.
According to a 2012 NASA photograph from outerspace, North Korea is lacking in infrastructure, most certainly available electricity. The night-time photograph revealed that while South Korea was lit up from electricity, North Korea was almost entirely dark.
According to a 2014 BBC World Service Poll, 3% of South Koreans view North Korea’s influence positively, with 91% expressing a negative view, making South Korea, after Japan, the country with the most negative feelings about North Korea in the world. However, a 2014 South Korean government funded survey found only 13% of South Koreans viewed North Korea as hostile and 58% of South Koreans believed North Korea was a country they should cooperate with.
Attributions
Title Image
Skylines of Singapore's Central Business District at night - Basile Morin, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Adapted From:
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-worldhistory/chapter/japanese-recovery/
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-worldhistory/chapter/the-koreas/
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-worldhistory/chapter/the-indian-subcontinent/
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-worldhistory/chapter/east-asia-in-the-21st-century/