Asia's rich mirror Western counterparts

Asia's rich mirror Western counterparts

The New Rich in Asia: Mobile phones, McDonald's and middle-class revolution Richard Robison and David S.G. Goodman (editors) xii and 253 pages Routledge, London, 1996

JAKARTA (JP): In recent years, "the images formerly associated with affluence, power and privilege in Asia -- the generals, the princes and the party apparatchiks -- are being increasingly replaced by more recognizable symbols of modernity: ...frustrated commuters in Bangkok and Hong Kong traffic jams; Chinese and Indonesian capitalist entrepreneurs signing deals with Western companies; white-coated Malaysian or Taiwanese computer programmers and other technical experts at work in electronics plants; and, above all, crowds of Asian consumers at McDonalds or with the ubiquitous mobile phone in hand."

So begins the first book of a six-volume series on Asia's social transformation, whose publication is being planned by the Asia Research Center. Located in Murdoch University, Western Australia, the Center has been one of Australia's most important "spies" monitoring the economic, social and political changes taking place in its northern neighbors.

The book samples nine Asian countries: Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and China. It provides historical settings on the emergence of their respective middle classes, and discusses the broad socioeconomic consequences they have brought about on their respective societies.

In the eyes of some Western observers, the thriving economies of Asia are a blessing and a potential cure for the prolonged recessions of their own economies. Booming Asian markets have created a strong demand for Western technology, services and products. Rigorous investment activities in Asia have generated opportunities for many Western consultants, companies, and suppliers. They have given rise to a booming Asia of middle classes with huge appetites for western-made perfumes, processed food, computer software and hardware, as well as a growing trade in educational services and tourism.

Nonetheless, there are more subtle reasons why the West looks at economic growth in Asia with such hope and expectation. While the new rich in Asia are predicted to become the economic dynamizers of the 21st century, they also serve as models of hard work and sacrifice poised to recapture "the capitalist frontier and its lost values" in the West.

Furthermore, the burgeoning middle classes and entrepreneurs of Asia are seen as embodying universal interests. Increased wealth is expected to make Asians more rational, secular, individualistic and spontaneous. They are to become more concerned with human rights and the institutionalization and enforcement of the rule of law. Asian societies, in effect, may become future replicas of the West's liberal democratic systems.

Indeed, there has been a range of indicative events. The middle classes and certain business sectors have played instrumental roles in recent political transformations (against totalitarian control) in South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand. Similar elements brought about the Tiananmen Square incident in China in 1989 and the toppling of the Marcos regime in the Philippines in 1986. Sections of the press in Asia have also demonstrated a vitality and incisiveness in contrast to their commonly stereotyped traits of submission and conflict avoidance.

However, the book tries to discourage readers from rushing to a simple conclusion. There remain contradictions of modernization in Asia. Despite economic progress and a smattering of democratic struggles, the middle classes of Asia have not been successful in installing a truly democratic government.

Civil society continues to be weak before the state. Asia is not destined to create a new democracy based on unique Asian values as there are fundamental differences in the roads to industrial capitalism.

Early instances of industrial expansion in Europe were predicated upon "a rolling back of feudal absolutism, to secure the rights of property, citizenship and the individual against the state." In Asia, the state has acted as the midwife of capitalism (comparable to France's Bonapartist and Germany's Bismarckian episodes). Furthermore, the economies of Asia have developed amid crumbling national economic frontiers -- in an era marked by large-scale investments, sophisticated technologies, multinational cooperation and access to international networks of capital. In the face of global competition, considerations of discipline, hierarchy, efficiency and order transcend "democratic squabbling over policies and modes of government".

The new rich in Asia do not seem to mind. "Order" has supported their businesses and careers, while "premature releases" of democratic forces are feared to be a recipe for destructive anarchy.

However, there is an added dimension to this situation. The mandate for keeping order is sometimes misappropriated, with oligarchic elements collaborating with, or even subordinating, government officials in the consummation of their ambition. These elitist groups always identify themselves and their activities with order and progress, which are also articulated to be in the interest of the general public.

Despite some commonalities shared by the nine Asian countries sampled in this book, there remain inter-country differences. U.S. colonial rule in the Philippines served as an incubator for the emergence of an elitist group, which, after independence, held power through control of the state and effective alliances with U.S. capital. The situations in South Korea and Taiwan differ markedly in that each state has established a cohesive political alliance with which to nurture corporate capital.

A strong state was especially critical to Indonesia, where colonialism left a weak and fragmented society. A stratum of officials have, according to this book, subsequently wielded effective control over the state and successfully exercised a strong ideological framework for their identity and role. Thailand differs from Indonesia in that the balance of power between the state and its officials, on the one hand, and the middle class and the corporate world, on the other, has been tilted toward the latter.

The impotence of Indonesia's middle class can partly be explained by the fact that it contains a large non-pribumi (non- indigenous) portion, whose public role has been constrained. Meanwhile, the state in Singapore has represented an alliance of state power and the middle class.

The book contains 10 chapters: one introductory and nine country chapters, written by Australian and Asian academics. They are Garry Rodan, senior research fellow at the Asia Research Center, Murdoch University, Perth (writing the chapter on Singapore); Joel Kahn of La Trobe University, Melbourne (on Malaysia); Richard Robison, director of the Asia Research Center (on Indonesia); Michael Pinches of the University of Western Australia, Perth (on the Philippines); Kevin Hewison of the University of New England, Armidale (on Thailand); Lo Shiu-hing of the Hong Kong University (on Hong Kong); James Cotton of the University of Tasmania, Hobart, and Kim Hyung-a van Leest of the Australian National University, Canberra (on South Korea), J.J. Chu of the Chinese Culture University, Taipei (on Taiwan), and David Goodman, director of the Institute of International Studies, University of Technology, Sydney (on China).

-- P. Usmanto Njo