Asian Development Seminar Comes of Age
Unique in its effort to bring together the expertise on Asia in the Netherlands, the Asian Development Seminar Series (ADSS) was set up at the end of 1997 with the help of the Research School for Asian, African and Amerindian Studies (CNWS) of Leiden University and the International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS). Interdisciplinary in scope, this seminar series seeks to provide researchers on modern Asia with an academic discussion forum on research in progress. In an effort to stimulate the discussion, full papers, or at least a detailed handout, are distributed prior to the seminar. This has paid off in terms of active, and sometimes heated, discussions during the sessions.
By ANIL KHOSLA
In its almost two-and-a-half years of existence, both junior and senior researchers have presented, in 14 different sessions, a total of 23 papers on a wide range of issues pertaining to Asia. Although essentially covering East, Southeast and South Asia, the ADSS has not shunned wider comparisons. In this short article, I would like to familiarize in an admittedly cursory manner readers with the issues raised during these sessions. The brief account of the activities below is my own understanding of the presentations as a convener and may differ from the intentions of the presenters. No attempt has been made to integrate or comment on the topics covered.At the start of the Seminar Series, East and Southeast Asia were in the throes of financial turmoil, raising doubts about the existence and validity of what is commonly known as the 'Asian Development Model'. It seemed only obvious for us to start off by trying to discern any features in the region which might constitute a 'development model'. Hence, during the first two sessions, a total of six papers were presented in an attempt to answer the question: 'Is there an Asian Development Model?' Covering the experiences of Thailand (R. Busser, Leiden), Indonesia (J.Th. Lindblad, Leiden), South Korea (K. De Ceuster, Leiden), Taiwan (T.W. Ngo, Leiden), India (S. Storm, EUR) and Japan (A. Khosla, Leiden), the conclusion was that despite the seemingly similar experiences, the various countries in the region hid important differences (Lindblad, Storm). Stress was also laid on the need to bring history to bear on interpreting the Asian experience (De Ceuster, Khosla), while it became clear that domestic political alignments (Busser, Ngo) also played an important role in policy determination. This called for a closer look i nto interest group interactions and the questions of institution building and institutional change (Khosla, Teranishi's inaugural Seminar). When Cambridge economist Ajit Singh addressed 'Asian Capitalism and the Financial Crisis', he pinpointed the cause of the financial crisis to lie not in the dirigisme of the Asian countries, but in the errors in 'controlling the financial liberalization process.' He held that the crisis had been further exacerbated by the 'inappropriate' policy response by the IMF. In contrast, discussing Japan's response to the challenges posed by the bursting of the bubble, Ippei Yamazawa (Institute of Developing Economies, Japan) stressed the need for further deregulation of the Japanese financial sector and the greater role that inward Foreign Direct Investment could play in Japan.
Having dispensed with the generalities of the development experience, the discussions moved on to more concrete issues. Comparing the working of European with Japanese multinationals in India, N.S. Siddharathan (Institute of Economic Growth, India) concluded that Japanese multinationals tended to concentrate more on importing machinery and materials as a consequence of the practice of vendor development. European multinationals, on the other hand, imported more components. An implication of the Japanese strategy was a quicker diffusion of technology. Looking into the local procurement practices of Japanese electronic firms in Asia, R. Belderbos (Maastricht) found that industry characteristics and 'local' operating experiences were important in determining the extent of local procurement. Standardized and 'mature' components were more likely to be locally procured, while export exigencies called for high-tech components hard to find locally.
Accumulation
P. Köllner (Institute of Asian Affairs, Hamburg) described how the high import dependency of South Korea was a result of the neglect of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in the 1970s. He elaborated on specific government efforts to correct this bias against SMEs. H.M. Sandee (VuA) supplemented this discussion with a paper on the promotion of small-scale and cottage industry clusters in Indonesia, concluding that clustering, along with the market, helped smaller producers to make full use of their technological and innovative potential.
E.B. Vermeer (Leiden) addressed the share-holding cooperative system and property rights in China tracing the political and economic factors behind the introduction of the system. Although the system was not an unambiguous success, he concluded that it was a positive change within the politico-economic imperatives of the Chinese system providing some managerial flexibility. Ya Xu (EUR) introduced the results of her survey into the 'family work strategy' in the Chinese economy. She argued that liberalizing the labour market did not serve the purpose of reducing the oversupply of labour in the state sector due to 'rational' income/security strategies adopted by families and, in particular, the female work force.
In March, 1999, in conjunction with B. van Ark (Groningen), we organized a session on the debate over accumulation versus assimilation in Asia, started by Paul Krugman of MIT in 1994. R. Nahuis (Tilburg and CPB) set the tone for the debate by providing a succinct presentation of the main arguments. N. Crafts (London School of Economics) then discussed the implications of the financial crisis for East Asian growth. While pointing out the 'downside' of the 'developmental state' model and the resulting wasteful investment, he expressed his hope that problems of coordination might become less important, and that diminishing returns might force countries to use capital stock more efficiently. Comparing productivity growth between China, India, Indonesia, South Korea and Taiwan, M. Timmer (Eindhoven) concluded, along similar lines, that the initial catch-up phase was normally characterized by accumulation and closing of the capital-intensity gap whereafter the productivity gap could be addressed.
R. Whitley (Manchester Business School), in talking about the changes, if any, in the so-called 'East-Asian Business Systems', expressed his feeling that internationalization and changing institutional structures till now were not sufficient to warrant any substantial changes in organizational patterns in the East Asian countries. In a discussion of 'structural bias' against labour in the process of Korean economic growth, Hagen Koo (University of Hawaii) explained how the working class was politically, though not economically, excluded and how the authority of the state and culture were utilized to mobilize labour for development. T.K. Wie (Academy of Sciences, Indonesia), for his part, dealt with the political changes and economic challenges facing Indonesia after the fall of Soeharto.
By looking into the patterns of migration of South Indian workers to Southeast Asia (Malaysia and Burma) from late nineteenth century onwards, A. Satyanarayan (Osmania University, India) gave useful insights into the impact of migration on both the host and home communities. T. Yanagihara (Asian Development Bank Institute and Takushoku University, Japan) looked at the rights and wrongs of East Asian Miracle and concluded that, while restructuring had been the major focus, legal and administrative structural reform and adaptation needed to be implemented in conjunction with each other so as to effectively meet the challenges for the future.
Y. Hayami (Graduate Institute for Policy Studies, Japan) was the latest presenter in the series. Based on his three decades of field work in the Philippines, he provided us with an in depth analysis of the changing structure of a village economy in the Philippines. He amply stressed the need to look at the mechanisms impinging on a society in a holistic way and the complementary nature of various factors in bringing about fundamental changes in a society. His ideas rang a bell in terms of the interpretation of the Asian Development Experience where people have tended to focus, more often than not, on individual factors.
Hayami's cautionary note succinctly sums up the purpose of ADSS by clearly showing that while working on our individual niches, it is imperative for us to venture out of our well defined compartments of disciplines and regional specialties. Recognizing that we have a lot to learn from what other disciplines and regions have to offer, ADSS strongly supports an interdisciplinary and inter-regional approach. We solemnly call on researchers engaged in research on Asia or comparative studies to join us as participants and presenters in an attempt to further enrich the series and our understanding of the processes at work.
Anil Khosla, Convener, Centre for Japanese Studies, Leiden University, The Netherlands
Some of the papers presented are available on the website of the seminar:
(http://tcjk03.leidenuniv.nl/users/ADS) that I have set up to disseminate information about the series. Shortly, we are also going to start a working paper series (Asian Development Seminar Working Papers). We always welcome new ideas and please feel free to contact me at khosla@let.leidenuniv.nl