Compressed Development in Emerging China
Date: 7 December 2011
Location: Auckland
Cohosted: NZ Contemporary China Research Centre and NZ Asia Institute
The Asian Financial Crisis of 1997-98 had serious repercussions for the ‘miracle’ economies of East Asia, and in the view of many undermined the credibility of the ‘East Asian model’ of economic development. A decade later the Global Financial Crisis had serious repercussions for many ‘western’ economies and, in the view of many, undermined the orthodoxy of the policies associated with ‘Washington Consensus’ institutions. Asian economies have once again become a focus of attention and debate, but what of their development models? Are recent developers, notably the emerging giants China and India, pursuing essentially the same models as ‘late developer’ exemplars Japan and Korea, or those prescribed by the ‘Washington Consensus’, or something different? If different, how different? With what consequences?
This conference builds on the largely Japan-China comparison of the Wellington conference, with a somewhat wider geographical scope. There will be a particular focus on the time and timing dimensions of development in Asia, the importance of which have been recognised in concepts such as ‘compressed development’ (Whittaker et.al., 2010), ‘compressed capitalism’ (D’Silva, in preparation), and so on. Building on Gerschenkron (1962), these authors argue more or less explicitly that the path of development in Asia is far from uniform or unchanging, and that the ‘late development’ path followed by Japan and South Korea has become increasingly difficult if not impossible for current developers to follow, and that a new path which engages in global value chain (GVC) production dynamics rather than nationally bounded manufacturing systems has emerged. Developing GVC engagement can accelerate development, but also create limits and deficiencies. A key question is if these deficiencies in compressed developers will be short-lived or effectively permanent.
The most successful recent developers face compression in terms of development time or stages, such that sequential developments in early and even late developers now occur simultaneously. This produces new policy dilemmas in the realms of education, public health and social cohesion, and threatens new forms of unbalanced growth. At the same time, some of these challenges also confront the now-developed economies of East Asia, as well as industrialized economies in the West, adding an additional impetus for understanding the dynamics of compressed development.
While recognising the diversity and complexity of Asia in terms of history, endowments, political systems, and socio-cultural factors, the Auckland Sessions will bring scholars of development economics, political economy and related disciplines from New Zealand, East Asia, Europe and North America to re-examine Asia through the lens of compressed development, its challenges and dilemmas.
Funding from the following organizations is gratefully acknowledged: