Review | Asia’s growth miracle? There wasn’t one – just a lot of hard work, say authors of a new history of region’s development

The transformation of Asia from a mainly poor region to an economic powerhouse since the 1960s is the subject of Asia’s Journey to Prosperity

Published by the Asian Development Bank, it questions many of the assumptions about past growth, and underscores the many challenges Asia still faces

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What’s the secret to Asia’s economic growth in the past 50 years? Asia’s Journey to Prosperity argues there is no secret – and critically looks at its future. Photo: Shutterstock

Published: 11:45pm, 9 Dec 2019Updated: 8:32pm, 10 Dec 2019

Asia’s Journey to Prosperity, edited by Takehiko Nakao, Asian Development Bank, 4/5 stars

The secret behind Asia’s transformation in the past half-century from a mainly poor and underdeveloped region into a global economic powerhouse is that there is no secret, economists argue in a new book.

The term “East Asian miracle” – used to describe the huge economic growth of Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia – is probably overblown, there is no such thing as an “Asian consensus”, and the belief that the 21st century will be “Asia’s century” is also questionable, the authors say.

This analysis forms the basis of Asia’s Journey to Prosperity, to be published by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in January. It also suggests that it will take time for Asia “to become as influential as the West has been for the past five centuries”.

Vehicles at a port in Japan. Photo: Bloomberg

The work is the product of economists at the ADB, led by its outgoing president, Takehiko Nakao, who says the book represents his “passion to write Asian development history in a balanced and comprehensive manner, in English, by economists from Asia”.

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