ABSTRACT
The history of the Southeast Asian rim demanded that “the debate on adjustment and development should be reopened.” Meanwhile, the richer Asian nations, seeking to satisfy their own domestic needs at the lowest possible price, shed certain industries and built a new economic base in Southeast Asia and surrounding territories. Elsewhere in Southeast Asiaw—neither a feudal regime nor a socialist ideology prevailed—other governments emulated the East Asian model more or less with success. Japan foresaw great potential in Indonesia and by 1989 had pumped more capital into the nation than any other Southeast Asian region. Implementing the East Asian policy means that the government must institute land reforms to encourage peasant initiatives, capital investment, and labor-intensive industrialization. In spite of immense resources, Southeast Asian countries sometimes stumbled in economic disarray in the latter part of the twentieth century.
