Geopolitics, global production, and the three paths of development in East Asia

Why did the East Asian region experience, not one, but three different paths of development (Japan's rise from a core to a global economic power, China's shift from revolutionary Maoism to market socialism, and the upgrading of Hong Kong, South Korea, and Taiwan to the status of the NIEs)? And why did the entire East Asian region become an epicenter of capitalist accumulation for the global economy in the 1990s? Adopting a regional framework, this paper argues that an examination into the geopolitics of American polarization project in the 1950s and the 1960s, the Japanese economic integration project in the 1970s and the 1980s, and mainland China's national reunification project in the 1980s and the 1990s will help in understanding some of the puzzles of the profound transformation of East Asia during the second half of the twentieth century. Copyright © 1998 Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden.