Development Approaches from East Asia

Over the last six decades, the economic development experiences of the East Asian countries: Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea and China have proven to be overwhelmingly exemplary. Ocran investigates the varied development experiences of these countries to offer lessons for Africa. The economic development strategies of the East Asian economies range from the laissez-faire approach of Hong Kong to state capitalism in China. Between the two extreme experiences from Hong Kong and China are various configurations of market-led and statist approaches. The differences between the experiences notwithstanding, Ocran identifies a number of common denominators across the experiences such as high capital accumulation: physical and human as well as relatively high initial conditions as compared to many African countries. He points out the use of medium-term development planning frameworks, except in the case of Hong Kong, to guide development as an instrument worthy of note. Ocran also argues that apart from China, the successful East Asian countries strategically aligned themselves with the West in the post-war ideological contest and by so doing were able to extract favourable market access in their early stages of industrialisation.