ABSTRACT
The turmoil of South-east Asian economies since 1997 has increased the existing turbulence of the global economy. 2 Compared with the ‘South-East Asian Miracle’ from the 1970s up to the mid-1990s, the present crisis of capitalism in South-east Asia seems to reduce the ‘miracle’ to a ‘mirage’ along with a crisis of national defaults. These countries’ crises – particularly that in Korea, which had formerly been regarded as one of the more successful economic models for other South-east Asian countries – have led to confusion over the identity of South-east Asian economic growth. Moreover, the massive outflow of foreign direct investment (FDI) from Korea has been significantly reduced, with current projects often delayed. Indeed, in some cases there has been temporary or complete disinvestment due to the current crisis. Consequently, this turbulent globalisation of Korean industry has caused the regional economies of host countries to become unstable and provides clear evidence of the global -local interplay, although the nature and direction of the interplay differs from country to country.
