Has State Played a Leading Role in Upgrading Technologies in the Asia Pacific?

Over the past two decades, Asia-Pacific regions have seen huge improvements in technology. Despite the 1997 Asian financial crisis that spared no member countries, their rapid economic growth grabbed the entire world attention (Hobday, 1995). The question is: has governments contributed in the way Asian Pacific technologies emerged? Using the Republic of Korea, Japan, Taiwan province of China, Singapore and Malaysia as comparative countries, this essay will focus on the role governments had in developing their technologies. We cannot deny that East Asian governments played a major role in upgrading technology in the region. Even though most NIEs (Newly Industrialized Economies) are not in the same zone, they predominantly keep a similar trade framework and polity. In spite of that, one regime implemented a different strategy from the others: the Hong Kong government (Hernandez, 2004). In reality, the government of Hong Kong had trust and conviction in the free market, it then applied the laissez-faire strategy. Hong Kong's government has been far more passive compared to the other regimes in its procedure.To start with, this essay will take a closer look at South Korea where the government highly contributed to the technological expansion. In fact, to improve the Korean technology, the government enforced a methodical technology policy.The Korean government's strategy combined both scientific and technological progress that reinforced education in these two ways. It also planned and build scientific and technological infrastructures and evolved in gaining support for the procurement of imported technology.However, Korea would not be the industrialized economy it is today without the dictatorial regime and the leadership of the state that the country implemented years ago. In the beginning of the 1970s, the state undertook an outstanding rapid development....