동아시아 발전과정에서의 중국의 경제성장

Economic Growth of China in the Context of East Asian Development Process

East Asian economies had grown remarkably before the so-called Asian currency or economic crisis broke out in the second half of 1997. There exists a variety of models as well as a substantial body of literature, which try to explain this growth in East Asia. China, which has pursued and succeeded with a similar growth mechanism as other East Asian economies, has nevertheless emerged as relatively unscathed from the crisis unlike from some of its neighbors. The main purposes of this paper are, first, to interpret the economic growth of China in terms with an East Asian growth mechanism, and second, to analyse the Asian economic crisis and its effect to Chinese economy within a framework of and East Asian growth mechanism. East Asian growth mechanism was especially derived from theories of Kojima's "flying-geese" and Watanabe's "self-circulation." Economic growth of China was then analysed in terms with expansion of exports, inflow of foreign direct investments, and interdependence of trade and investment with other economies in the region. There have been differing views on the cause of the Asian economic crisis; whether it was caused by an inherent weakness of the East Asian growth model, or whether it was caused by some exogenous factors. But is was emphasized that the weakness and backwardness of the financial sector contributed for the crisis and that the growing interdependence of trade and investment within the region was certainly responsible for the spread of the crisis. The reason for China getting away from perils of the crisis, unlike from its ASEAN neighbors and Korea, was that China had an abundant reserve of foreign exchanges and a relatively low foreign debt ratio. This was in turn possible by current account surpluses and be strict control on foreign exchanges and capital accounts by government. But China also shows similar symptoms of weakness with other Asian economies, such as unsound state enterprises and bad debts of financial institutions. Unless China deals with these problems wisely by structural reforms in both real and financial sectors, not only China would suffer but the vitality of East Asian growth and the expansion of growth frontier would also be in jeopardy.