Asian Capitalisms: Diverging Beneficiaries of Globalization?

Although the Asia-Pacific region has been a major beneficiary of globalization, the increasing degree of globality has not decreased the regional varieties of capitalism with their high variations of performance. Indonesia remains captive of an economically unpromising personalist type of capitalism that is dominated by governance problems and crony capitalism. South Korea has managed a transition to a liberal market model but may be moving towards a less successful regime (a German type of collectivism with its extended welfare state). China’s transition is too unsettled for an assessment. Whether the People’s Republic will manage to contain corruption and enforce property rights to arrive at an economic system with sufficient liberal capitalist characteristics that is both stable and growth-oriented, remains unclear. In all three countries, domestic forces, despite the increasing interconnectedness of economic globalization, are driving the evolution of the regime type in substantially different directions.