ABSTRACT
The spectacular economic performance of the four East Asian economies – Hong Kong, Korea, Singapore and Taiwan – since the 1960s is by now well known. Success always attracts attention. As Krause (1985: 3) notes, ‘[t]here would clearly be much less interest in the four Asian Newly Industrializing Countries (NICs) if they had not been so remarkably successful. They led the world and in recent years they have grown twice as fast as Japan, the most successful industrial country in the post-war era.’ Several epithets have been used to dramatise this success. Woronoff (1986), for example, uses the term ‘miracle economies’. Other popular labels include ‘gang of four’ or ‘four little tigers’. A more neutral or generic term is ‘newly industrialising economies’ (NIEs) or ‘newly industrialising countries (NICs).
