Whether you label your form of government democracy, communism, or monarchy, the actual implementation of it is what makes it work, since all of those are just theories that need to be put into practice.
No matter which of these labels is attached to the government of the state you live in, how can you be sure that the media you recieve information from and participate in is really a ‘free and unhindered press’? Today we may think that “part of a good democracy is a well-educated populace”, but that’s certainly not what the greeks, especially Plato, would have said. Plato wanted to use music to regulate the emotions of the people in the same way the mass media are used today.
If you read anything about modern Russia, you’d read that although Putin rules with an iron fist… it is hardly a closed society. Russian citizens know exactly what they’re “missing out on”, and yet, they seem to give Putin high marks regardless.
For that matter, thousands of non-ROC citizens of Western democracies seem to be working in Taiwan… despite the fact that their voices are not democratically represented in their local government.
It’s interesting to me how readily some claim -ism or -logy trumps economics or convenience… when their own lives are ruled precisely by economics and convenience.
a small piece of land is better managed than a big one…
look at all the small countries in the world who happen to be in strategical places, and you’ll see that Singapore is by far one of the worst… let us say Luxembourg, Lichtenstein and even Switzerland (which is not that small, but not big).
That’s an ironic thing to say since Singapore’s rule of law and governmental/social institutions, very important factors in ensuring a stable and growing economy, were handed to it by the British. Hong Kong and Singapore are superior to other Chinese cities because they benefited from the good luck of being colonized by the British. You don’t need to look far for counterexamples - if Hong Kong had been colonized by the Portuguese it would look like Macau, with half the economy and half the standard of living.
That has little relevance on how Taiwan and Korea achieved Four Tiger status.
South Korea in 1960 was poorer than North Korea. The military regime under Park Chung Hee that took power in 1961, albeit autocratic, implemented a massive economic development program and anti-corruption campaign. One of Park’s first tasks upon taking office was prosecuting business leaders who profited from the corrupt government of Syngman Rhee. Park developed Korea’s national infrastructure, and gave state financial assistance to export-driven industries like chemicals, shipbuilding, electronics, and steel.
Korea’s per capita income grew tenfold by the end of Park’s authoritarian rule in 1979. Korea’s economy today is so lackluster because of a dimwit elected president who is high on nationalist rhetoric and double eyelid surgery, and knows nothing about economic policy.
If Hong Kong’s system is superior to Taiwan’s as a result of British administration, then why was Hong Kong hit hard by the 1997 Asian financial crisis, while Taiwan remained largely unscathed?
The reason why Taiwan largely escaped the crisis was due to the monetary policies the KMT implemented during the martial law era. The KMT administration implemented a conservative monetary system that limited the amount of credit enterprises could have. Instead credit lending was mainly directed to the enterprises that generated the bulk of export-driven growth. So you don’t get these bad loans and overdependency on foreign capital that afflicted other countries hit hard by the crisis.
Taiwan and Singapore withstood the crisis largely intact as a result of sound monetary policies, the former being a legacy of the monetary approach under the KMT.
A “draconian” feature of Singapore’s judicial system today, cane whipping for minor offenses (let alone spray painting cars), was a legacy of the penal code outlined by the British that specifically laid out the punishment of cane whipping.
let us not forget that SK and Taiwan where major “investment” points for the US in the past 50 years…
ac, I never knew Liechtenstein, Switzerland and Luxembourg had colonies… considering they are the fewer ones without access to sea…
If you see Singapore, much of it’s sound structure was made by copying the CH and Lux model of banking, giving 0% tax to major companies (who, consequently moved most of their profits over there) and other “good” business plans. Also, let us not forget that not having a huge mass of land makes control of it easier, and the lack of natural disasters also helped. But the single point where Singapore is strong is their geographical position.
And I always thought the key to Singapore’s develop was colonization by ethnic Chinese.
I don’t think UK or Europe is a determining factor, because eventually the economic model of colonization was unsustainable.
To isolate the “Chinese” factor just look at Gibraltar and the Canary Islands, another UK colony about the same size as HK or Singapore, and those places barely have birds going there to lay eggs.
Now if the “Chinese” colonized Gilbraltar or the Canary Islands, it would be the hub of something concerning money and gaming by now.
Ethnic Chinese sprout riches wherever they go. That’s obviously why Guizhou
and Hainan are such economic success stories. There must be a reason why Chinese prosper in Western societies under Western legacies of rule of law, but China itself remains a third-world country. Probably since it has more to do with the system than the people. Given a system that works, almost any ethnic group will flourish. Being Chinese has nothing to do with it, or else over 1 billion Chinese within China wouldn’t be mired in poverty, as have the majority of Chinese peasantry for their 3,000 years of recorded history.
Anyway, you are making a classic logical fallacy, confusing cause with effect. Claiming that authoritianism leads to economic success - there is no correlation between the two. It’s as silly as saying that democracy leads to economic success. Political and economic systems are not necessarily related; one does not cause the other. If authoritarianism led third world nations to prosperity, then Latin America, Africa, and the Muslim world would be economic powerhouses. On the other hand, democracy doesn’t seem to have helped India’s economy very much, either.
In other words, this entire line of discussion of the last couple of pages is a dead end. Correlations between authoritarian vs. democratic forms of government and the effect on economies are difficult to prove. There are dozens of other factors that are much more important to consider.
Obviously the key is because the “Chinese” are better at following Western rules than “Westerners” in general.
If “Westerners” would just follow “Chinese” rules half as well, then LTH would have gained independence status for Taiwan decades ago.
Now LTH is caught in a situation of re-creating “Taiwanese” rules for Westerners and Chinese people to follow.
IMO, I actually think China remains better defined as a third-world, developing nation.
I’d also point out that ethnic Chinese didn’t do any worse in Hainan and Gansu than anyone else did. You can turn lemons into lemonade, but you can’t turn a pile of rocks into gold.
And finally, I’m pretty sure Quentin meant to say that causality between political/economic systems is difficult to prove, not correlation. Correlation doesn’t need to be proven, just calculated… and the two certainly seem significant correlated from a quick look in recent human history.
Much like how Chinese immigrants transformed dying neighborhoods like Flushing in NYC or the San Gabriel Valley in LA. Flushing was a dead neighborhood during the 70’s. Then the Chinese and other Asian immigrants moved in and the whole place made a 180-degree turn.
That’s only because “3rd world” countries qualify for aids and grants “2nd world” countries do not.
In addition, “3rd world” countries are perceived as less threaten than “2nd world” countries to the “1st world”
Once again illustrating of how the Chinese are adept at playing with “Western” rules.
This only auguments my belief that if “Taiwan Independence” was a “Chinese” movement and not a “Taiwanese” movement, it would have already come to fruitition already.
Only if you focus your eyes solely upon several East Asian tigers and ignore the entire rest of the world. Authoritarian governments have been very common all over the developing world, and there’s little correlation between authoritarianism and economic growth. Myanmar, the Philippines, Vietnam, and Indonesia are four counterexamples within eastern Asia that do not seem to have benefited much from decades of authoritarianism, thus disproving your thesis that there’s a positive relationship between authoritarian government and growth in the developing world. Japan has the highest level of development in all of Asia and hasn’t suffered a military dictatorship since McArthur left over 50 years ago; it has been a stable democracy for half a century.
Um, who else lived there besides Chinese people? Aborigines? There haven’t been any “anyone else” in those places for thousands of years. If you’re trying to say that people can’t succeed in those places because of the land or natural resources, need I remind you that Hong Kong and Singapore are little more than tiny piles of rocks. Hainan is a semitropical island geographically similar to Taiwan.
Taiwan would probably be a pile of rocks if it wasn’t for the high level agricultural implementation Japanese made over here. It does take the brains, you know… and Japanese weren’t that much colonialist, when they told the Taiwanese how to make high class vegetables from whatever. Now we are watching the CCP “offering” the highly skilled Taiwanese farmers land in exchange of knowledge…
Even if you take out the whole IT industry, people can still live fairly well in this island, due to the fact that it can be auto-sufficient in food (maybe not on beef, but hey, we can do the sacrifice).
Acutally, the real answer is a combination of hard work/good education principals (Huaren/ethnic Chinese in this case) and a political/legal/economic system that rewards people who work hard and have good education (US in this case).
Just imagine, if Mainland China has a true capitalist system with the rule of law that protects everybody, then watch out world.