ABSTRACT
The capacity, even of small firms, to operate transnationally, through family and network members in different countries, is of the defining features of any diasporic capital. When the ‘Asian Crisis’ first struck Thailand in July 1997, then spread rapidly to the neighbouring countries of Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, then to South Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan, the prevailing view was unanimously pessimistic and cynical. A retailer who closed her high fashion boutique in Brisbane similarly blamed her own misjudgment rather than the Asian crisis. At the beginning of the Asian crisis, it was popular among doomsayers to conclude that the Asian economic ‘miracles’ had vaporised into ‘mirages’. In fact, informants were quite critical not only of the banks’ impersonal approach and sudden decision to tighten credit to manufacturers after the Asian crisis struck, but also of the lack of interest among the banking industry in supporting the manufacturing sector.
