Trade and Asian Pacific Nations

Abstract

It would be difficult to be dull about this topic. On the one hand, Japan and ‘the Gang of Four’ (South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong) have been vastly successful in manufactured trade. On the other hand, the success of the East Asians rests on a very fragile basis, in that these countries are very import-dependent for their energy. Finally, in the background, there is China, which could be emerging as a major source of manufactured exports in its own right.