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Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan: Oikonomic Welfare States1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

Catherine Jones
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Extract

The ‘LITTLE TIGERS'’ REPUTATION AMONGST WESTERNERS (and for that matter with the Japanese) is rich in negatives. Exploitative, unprincipled, uncontrolled; minimalist on welfare, maximalist on profit: the unacceptable face of capitalism indeed, to those feeling themselves on the receiving end of the Tigers' determination to compete and get rich quick. Nevertheless the image is misleading. These are no chance miracles of laissez-faire capitalism unbound. On the contrary, the rise ‘from nowhere’ to world trading notoriety has to an extent been contrived in every case.

Type
Articles
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 25 , Issue 4 , 01 October 1990 , pp. 446 - 462
Copyright
Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 1990

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Footnotes

1

Ideas presented in this paper stem from researches originally conducted into social policy development in Hong Kong (ESRC personal research grant 1984–85). C. Jones, Promoting Prosperity: The Hong Kong Way of Social Policy, Hong Kong, Chinese University Press, 1990.

References

2 Literally, Aristotle’s ‘household management’ style of government, e.g., Barker, E. (trans. and ed.), The Politics of Aristotle, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1946, p. 12 Google Scholar: ‘Rule over wife and children, and over the household generally, is a … kind of rule, which we have called by the name of household management. Here the rule is either exercised in the interest of the ruled or for the attainment of some advantage common to both ruler and ruled.’

3 No mere ‘wartime occupation’ in the cases of Taiwan (from 1895) and Korea (from 1910).

4 NB. Inhospitable terrain in the case of Taiwan and South Korea; sheer lack of space in the case of Singapore; lack of space and inhospitable terrain in the case of Hong Kong.

5 The migrant Chinese of Hong Kong and Singapore; refugees in South Korea.

6 The indigenous inhabitants of Taiwan and of New Territories’ Hong Kong.

7 The commercial rationale per se was antithetical to ‘high’ Chinese tradition.

8 Confucius (K’ung-Fu-Tzu or K’ung Tzu) 551–479 BC.

9 Literally, in family graves.

10 Witness King, A. Y. C., ‘Administrative Absorption of Politics in Hong Kong: Emphasis on the Grass-Roots Level’, Asian Suruey, Vol. 15, No. 5, 05 1975, pp. 422–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11 In the words of the old cliché: ‘Power in Hong Kong resides in the Jockey Club, Jardine Matheson, the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank and the Governor—in that order.’

12 Republic of China: A Reference Book, Taipei, Government Information Office, 1983.

13 Korea Annual 1987, pp. 114–115.

14 Cf. the ‘war then welfare’ line of accounting for the British welfare state.

15 Understandably, the colonial authorities of ‘anachronistic’ Hong Kong, were the latest to get around to explicit community building. It took the ‘Cultural Revolution’ riots of 1967–68 to convince Government-and-Establishment that (even) Hong Kong required to be rendered a proper Chinese society. The first prescribed tasks of Mutual Aid Committees (from 1973) were to help ‘Fight Violent Crime’ and keep down litter in each their own housing block. By definition they were not intended to serve as vehicles for ‘spontaneous’ let alone confrontational community action. See C. Jones, op. cit.

16 e.g. S. Vasoo, ‘Residents’ Organisations in the New Towns of Hong Kong and Singapore: A Study of Social Factors Influencing Neighbourhood Leaders’ Participation in Community Development’, PhD thesis, University of Hong Kong, 1986.

17 Hee Park, Chung, Korea Reborn; A Model for Development, Englewood Cliffs, N.J., Prentice Hall, 1979 Google Scholar.

18 e.g. Chao, W., ‘Planned Change in Community Development: Its Application in Taiwan’ in Lee, P. C. (ed.), Dimensions of Social Welfare Transition: Sino-British Perspectives, Taipei, Chu Liu Book Company, 1988 Google Scholar.

19 Address at the Opening Session of the Legislative Council, 6 October 1976.

20 Devan Nair, C. V. (ed.), Socialism That Works … The Singapore Way, Singapore, Federal Publications, 1976 Google Scholar.

21 Chow, N. W. S., ‘Social Security Provision in Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea: A Comparative Analysis’, Journal of International and Comparative Social Welfare, Vol. II, Nos 1–2, 1986, pp. 1–10 Google Scholar.

22 Both of these are regimes more anxious than average to win friends in the West.

23 NB. The Chinese tradition of entry to the Mandarinate by competitive examination-well worth an ambitious family’s investment.

24 cf. Hirsch, F., Social Limits to Growth, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1976 CrossRefGoogle Scholar

25 Not least at the expense of Chinese-style secondary education.

26 ‘Possibly the best memorizers in the world.’

27 Singapore 1988.

28 Between candidates already possessed of basic entry qualifications, Korea Annual 1987.

29 i.e., there are demands for government subsidies to be made equally available for Chinese as for Western medicine.

30 Singapore 1988, p. 198.

31 Most of those responding to the Hong Kong Housing Authority’s home purchase schemes have been families disqualified from applying for public rental accommodation (by reason of income at time of application) or else simply tired of waiting for it.

32 Though it did manage 81.5% of target, 1,166,000 instead of an intended 1,431,000 for 1982–86. (Korea Annual 1987.)

33 Note the prime object in each case was to produce homes for purchase. But building standards (in the Taiwan case) had evidently been appalling. Sites were inconvenient if not downright disreputable (what fung-shui-respecting Chinese would wish to live next to cemetery, for instance?) and the price (plus level of downpayment) was too high. See for instance Nancy Chan, Hsiao-Hung ‘Public Housing Development Plan Experience in the Republic of China’ in Ching-Yung Lee, P. (ed.), Dimensions of Social Welfare Transition: Sino-British Perspectives, Taipei, Chung-Lin Book Company, 1988 Google Scholar.

34 e.g. N. W. S. Chow, op. cit., and cf. Bismarck’s exercise in social insurance.

35 By definition not social insurance, since the sum thus saved represents the amount—no more no less—deposited by the individual worker and his employer on his behalf. Though nowadays, ‘beneficiaries’ can be compelled to keep enough in the Fund at least to purchase an annuity on their retirement (Singapore 1988, p. 126).

36 Int. Soc. Sec. Review 1988, Vol. 2, pp. 202–3; 1989 Vol. 3, p. 265.

37 Non-means-tested, indexed-linked payments for the severely disabled and the elderly aged 70+.

38 e.g. Ching, L., One of the Lucky Ones being the ‘true story of a blind Chinese girl’s triumph over prejudice’, Hong Kong, Gulliver Books, 1980 Google Scholar.

39 NB The principal attraction of Hong Kong et al. for nineteenth-century missionaries seems to have been as a launching pad for forays into China.

40 Note that the Chinese were reckoned ‘impervious to religion’ in any case.

41 C. Jones, op. cit.

42 e.g. in the wake of China’s Cultural Revolution: long before the advent of boat people from Vietnam.

43 NB. in the wake of this scheme in 1984–85 the people of Hong Kong raised as much for Oxfam’s Ethiopian Famine Appeal as did the entire population of the United States. They had emerged as givers indeed.

44 Given the distinctly modest status and ‘powers’ of the District Boards.