June 2004
Southeast Asia: Friend, Rival Or Victim?
The relationship between southeast Asia and China has been the subject of much hyperbole and uninformed comment over the years. In the 1990s, an absurd mystique shrouded the activities of the “bamboo network” of southeast Asia’s ethnic Chinese tycoons, who were falsely believed to have the inside track on doing business in China. In the years after the Asian crisis, conventional wisdom held that multinational direct investment was fleeing southeast Asia for the safer and cheaper climes of China – another falsehood. More recent comment has cast China either as a villain which will soon obliterate southeast Asia’s export industries, or as a savior providing a bottomless pit of commodities demand.
In this issue, Joe Studwell disassembles the myths surrounding the southeast Asia-China relationship, and shows instead that the two regions enjoy a largely positive symbiosis based not on some mythical ethnic affinity but on the normal calculus of comparative advantage.
Also in this issue:
Stephen Green assesses the importance of China’s massive sell-off of small and medium-sized state-owned enterprises
Why power shortages will worsen in the summer
Paul French finds foreign makers of fast-moving consumer goods feeling gloomy
Andrew Yeh enjoys exploring China’s online world of fantasy games