ABSTRACT
The same historical forces that propelled Southeast Asia’s development ‘miracle’ now cast a shadow across the region. The globalization of manufacturing by multinational corporations (MNCs) transformed the region’s resource-based economies into export dynamos in a mere two decades. Since the crisis, political instability and partial economic reforms, recurrent slumps in global electronics markets and China’s emergence as the premier offshore manufacturing platform have curtailed the flow of new foreign direct investment (FDI) into Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines and Indonesia. Has Southeast Asian industrialization run out of steam? Has the region’s FDI-reliant strategy led to a high-level dependency trap, leaving its economies without the capabilities required to chart a new development course as MNCs shift their attention to new and greener pastures?
