Japan, the overseas Chinese, and industrialization in Thailand.

摘要

Even in a region of rapidly growing export-led economies, Thailand's rapid industrial expansion is impressive. After twenty-five years of steady economic growth up to the late 1970s, Thailand experienced considerable economic contraction in the early 1950s. Thailand fared better than other developing economies during this period, but failed to exploit World Bank Structural Adjustment loans to implement fundamental fiscal reforms. Even without major policy shifts, however, Thailand's manufacturing sector began to take off in the latter part of 1986 and in the late 1950s its GDP is expanding at an annual rate of about ten per cent.; This study argues that: (1) Thailand's strong economic performance is not the result of state-led, strategy-directed developmental policies, and (2) Thailand's recent rapid growth in manufacturing, and to a lesser degree its manufacturing expansion over the last thirty years, result from structural characteristics of the regional economy and specific features of business strategies of Japanese multinational corporations investing in Thailand. The first assertion is supported by my research on Thai state policymaking in the areas of regulation of direct foreign investment (chapter three), promotion of the textile industry (chapter four), regional industrialization planning (chapter five), and monetary policy (chapter six). My research on direct foreign investment and the textile industry in Thailand (chapters three and four) support the second assertion.; The spillover of the economic dynamism of East Asia's capitalist developmental states is driving Thailand's industrial expansion. Catalyzed by the realignment of the region's currencies beginning in 1985, manufacturing production is shifting around East Asia. This process, led by Japan but complemented by firms in South Korea and Taiwan, is creating tighter regional economic integration characterized by rising intra-industry (and intra-firm) trade. Japanese overseas development assistance is supporting the underlying economic and organizational forces producing these changes. Japan is attempting to coordinate the needs of its declining industries with those of aspiring manufacturing exporters in East Asia. To date, Thailand, despite limited public sector adjustments to changing macroeconomic conditions, has been the greatest beneficiary of these regional political and economic forces.