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by fritzo
489 days ago
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Agreed. I learned much from Joe Studwell's book "How Asia Works" (2013), where he argues that among countries in the Asian region, those whose economies flourished were those with protectionist trade policies and export discipline, leading to the creation and honing of domestic industry. |
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A lot of the "ministerial advice" story (the uber powerful ITRI, METI, etc) is to a certain extent a rewriting of history. A major reason why these bureaucratic orgs were so successful in Asian countries was explicitly because of the revolving door - after your 20 year stint at ITRI or METI, you'd join as an advisor for one of the affected companies or start your own consultancy.
This isn't to say that they made bad choices (they didn't), but it absolutely was done due to collusion between regulators and businesses.
The Trump-era "politician aligned businessman" model is the norm across Asia - it's a major reason why Morris Chang lobbied against the CHIPS act, Hyundai lobbied against easing automotive tariffs, Tata lobbied for 5% sales tax on EVs but 25% sales tax on Hybrids and 50% on ICE, etc.
The Asian Model of Development is predicated on "Access Money" to use Yuen Yuen Ang's typography of corruption.