ABSTRACT
East Asia as defined here is all of the countries from South Korea and Japan in the north and China in the west, to Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines in the south-east. East Asia occupies a prominent position in the world-system. Following on the heels of Japan's spectacular economic expansion both before and after the Second World War (as discussed below), the so-called ‘four tigers’ or NICs have since led all world regions in economic growth (Table 6.1). Their growth has recently slowed but is still strong by world standards. At the same time, other East Asian countries have surged forward (Table 6.1). East Asia's growth by more than 7 per cent annually since 1980 is particularly impressive when compared to that of core countries, which averaged only 2.2 per cent. Non-core countries as a whole grew by just 1.5 per cent (Chang, 2002). Many East Asian countries have now reached the semi-periphery (Figure 1.3), albeit accompanied by considerable economic volatility since the capital exodus of 1997.
