Economic Warfare and the Roots of Developmentalism in China and Taiwan

Macabe Keliher, Southern Methodist University

The developmental state thesis has been criticized for being nationally focused and export oriented. These shortcomings have left room for free market analysis to re-emerge and undermine the developmental state as an explanation for growth and development in East Asia. This study addresses these problems by positing transnational developmental states that intervene in the region economically for political motivations. It argues that development was a by-product of the regional political economy. Focusing on the case of Hong Kong industrialization in the postwar period, this study mobilizes archival evidence to argue that economic interventions from China and Taiwan facilitated domestic manufacturing capacity, which boosted export sectors. Hong Kong development is thus explained neither through the free market nor as a national developmental state, but rather by means of inputs from transnational developmental states.

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session 184. Rethinking the Developmental State 3: Latin America and East Asia