Introduction

In Asia in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, the combined effects of the Cold War, nationalism, new technology, and grinding poverty led the nations of the region into fluctuations of growth and turmoil, resulting in dramatic change. In the Far East, the confrontation to decide the future of China resulted in the establishment of a communist government, which was among the most active communist systems to confront the Asian-style capitalism just taking root in occupation-managed Japan. This form of capitalism, which put business and government in partnership, was to become the paradigm for the new fast-growth economies that spread from Japan to South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore-the "Four Tigers" of the Pacific Rim.

It is breathtaking to think that, following World War II, the kinds of revolutions that were being fought in China to transform the largest nation in the world into a communist state were contemplated enthusiastically by dozens of nations throughout Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and Latin America. Their optimism, however, soon proved unrealistic. A disappointing pattern of internal ethnic or tribal division, failed economic plans and military coups became widespread. Gradually, the shortcomings of ideological panaceas became apparent. Observers have come to appreciate the magnitude of the problems facing most of the so-called Third World.