ABSTRACT
For many decades, Japan was the lead economy in East Asian development. Today, as the East Asian countries have developed modern manufacturing industries of their own, the relationship between Japan and East Asia is very different. Japan is a mature economy, with developed country living standards, advanced technology, and high costs. The East Asian countries are at a very different stage of development and have very different resources, technologies, and exchange rate parities than Japan. Except for Singapore, Taiwan, and South Korea, they are at an earlier level of development. Some, like China, have a large, almost unlimited, supply of cheap low skill labor that can be drawn from agriculture and, as a result, they have low wages and a large competitive advantage in conventional manufacture of consumer goods for world markets.
