ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the nature of welfare systems and the governance of welfare policy in East Asia, covering one mature industrialized country (Japan); four capitalist ‘newly industrialized countries’ (NICs) (South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore); and one socialist NIC (China). We are focusing on these countries because they share certain key characteristics—geographical, historical, political, economic, cultural and social—which distinguish them from other areas of the Asia-Pacific region. These are also the countries in East Asia which have generated growing interest in Western countries over the past decade in consequence of their extraordinary economic performance. This interest started with attempts to explain the success of the post-war Japanese economy, then spread to the ‘four little tigers’ and still more recently to the ‘big tiger’ of post-Maoist China. The region’s impressive economic performance has promoted business competitors in the West to search for the ‘secrets’ of East Asian success and Western politicians have also shown increasing interest in East Asia as a source of ideas for resolving their policy dilemmas at home. In the international arena agencies such as the World Bank have acclaimed the East Asian miracle as clear evidence of the virtues of competitive markets and a vindication of the orthodoxy of neo-liberal economics. By contrast, their critics have emphasized the crucial role played by the state in guiding economic development in East Asian societies and cited their success to defend the role of government intervention to promote economic growth.
