ABSTRACT
Asian business networks have been much in the news. For the past decade or so, many observers of Asia’s rise to prominence have written about the importance of these networks to Asian economic success. The Japanese keiretsu, the Korean chaebol, and the Chinese familyowned conglomerate – these business groups, many writers believe, lie at the core of Asia’s capitalist transformation. To explain these groups, the same writers touted the significance of the government in creating and making them flourish. In the Asian business crisis of 1997-8, reportage about these networks abruptly switched from praise to damnation. All types of Asian business groups and the government/business relationships supporting them suddenly became examples of cronyism and crony capitalism and were seen to be the harbingers of Asia’s unanticipated economic collapse.
