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Notes -
Ah I stand corrected, they look the same on the fifty year time scale, presumably because both are so close to zero. I think the point stands that both were incredibly poor during China’s communist era but only the country that the SAT* would predict to fail has become wildly successful, while the likely winner remained middling despite liberalizing first (but I’ll eat that mistake either way).
If instead of 1970 you compare their GDP per Capita in 1960, it’s $428 vs $89.5, which is to say the ratio is lower than today, about 5x instead of our modern 6x, after both countries have been liberalized for decades.
The ratios, also, i don’t think tell the whole story even if they have grown in distance. Two countries producing <$500 a year per person are both going to be largely agrarian, pre-industrial economies; the difference between a country producing $72k a year vs one producing $12k is the difference between being near the richest country in the world and a nation that’s still in large part off the grid.
Yes, the East Asian Tigers were all dirt poor in 1960. In fact, at that time, even "Made in Japan" was still identified with cheap, simple, and supposedly shoddy goods, much as China was 30 years ago, though things were changing rapidly: by You Only Live Twice in 1967, Japan had an image in the West of advanced technology and sophisticated industrial development.
Singapore is an odd one. There have been few states in history to single-mindedly pursue growth for so long. Like Hong Kong, it has the feeling of a country run by a profit-maximising corporation rather than a democracy, even though both countries have democratic elements. Both countries accept massive inequality but seek ways to mitigate it, so that e.g. in Hong Kong you can still live an ok life even if you are very poor: lovely free public parks, cheap public transport, cheap food (for essential items, not anything exciting) and lots of low-income jobs. "Domestic helpers" (servants) who come from South East Asia can end up very comfortable when they come back home, and they are "exempted" from the minimum wage (but still are able to save and send remittances).
Mainland China feels very, VERY different by comparison, even in the hyper-developing coastal cities. Far more of a sense of ideology and restriction. I wouldn't spend 5 minutes there unless I had to, whereas Hong Kong and Singapore are liveable and a lot of people like it (especially if they have a 6 figure USD salary).
The transformation of the poor East Asian countries into the modern tigers is endlessly interesting to me. I wrote an effort post a while back at the old place, I think partially inspired by a convo we had at some point, about what I see as America’s role in their development, though it’s far from the whole story. Whatever lessons there are to be gleaned in their takeoff eras seems crucial for other developing countries.
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