ABSTRACT
While there has been considerable work critical of the East Asian record and potential, none actually anticipated the East Asian debacle of 1997-98 (e.g. see Krugman 1994). Although some of the weaknesses identified in this critical writing did make the region economically vulnerable, none of this literature seriously addressed one crucial implication of the greater role of foreign capital in Southeast Asia, especially with international financial liberalisation, which became more pronounced in the 1990s. Dominance of manufacturing – especially the more technologically sophisticated and dynamic activities – by foreign transnationals subordinated domestic industrial capital in the region, allowing finance capital, both domestic and foreign, to become more influential in the region (Jomo 1998).
