In the post World-War-2 era, East Asian states underwent some of the fastest economic growth in world history. Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong rapidly industrialized, transforming from agricultural to industrial economies overnight, and posted double digit growth for over two decades. The causes and practices of such phenomenal growth has long been of interest to scholars. Whereas early explanations drew on neoclassical understandings of free markets and laissez faire government, research over the past few decades has emphasized state interventions in guiding economic development, or what has become known as the developmental state. Much of the research from both explanations, however, focuses on exports and trade policies while often assuming the production processes. With the opening of new archives, historians are now able to add to the conversation with new insights into the decisions, transactions, and micro-processes of the developmental states. Moving beyond the numbers and macro-developments of previous studies, a more fine-grained picture of economic development and manufacturing has begun to emerge that enables a rethinking of the developmental state.

The papers of this panel contribute to the reshaping of the debate. Andrew Levidis re-examines the background of the Japanese developmental state. Drawing on corporate archives he looks at how precision machinery manufacturing developed as part of a broader technonationalism that intertwined ideas of modernization, self-sufficiency, and defense. Peter Kwon turns to South Korea, showing the emergence of the country’s advanced machinery sector out of a military-led initiative that fed civilian uses and industry. Macabe Keliher takes up the case of Hong Kong, arguing that while the Hong Kong government did not intervene much in the economy, China did. He shows that China provided Hong Kong firms with machine tools, which served as the foundation for Hong Kong’s industrialization. The panel will be actively chaired by Megan Greene, whose scholarship on the Taiwan developmental state has shaped the field. In order to maximize discussion among the panelists and audience, comments and discussion time will be quickly opened to the audience.

With tariffs re-emerging today as an key tool of industrial policy, this timely panel argues that a country’s manufacturing capabilities require more than just tariffs or good macro-policy: a program for production and the building of manufacturing industry is also necessary. The papers of the panel show how that was done in three of world’s most successful economies.