ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the causes of the crisis that derived not from ‘moral hazard’, but from failures of economic governance that were indeed internal to the countries concerned. It turns to the incidence of crisis in Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia. Though the crisis there was deeper than in Hong Kong, the chapter argues that there were correspondences between all political economies. Drawing predominantly on Chang’s work, it also argues that part of the problem there was the evaporation of the state’s ability to control the relation between international sources of capital and the vast concentrations of private economic power the chaebol. The chapter switches the analytic focus to Taiwan and Singapore. It shows why they largely escaped the ravages of crisis, and what their escape tells us about the crises that enveloped other countries in the region. The chapter reflects on the implications of the East Asian crises of the late 1990s for national economic governance more generally.
