Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

Asia is the world's largest continent with great complexity, diversity, and different levels of economic development. Such characteristics make it difficult to describe the continent – and by extension its new middle class – in any general way. Necessary as they may be, we should thus be careful when making generalizations about the Asian middle class lest we unwittingly gloss over its heterogeneity across regions. It may be recalled that while the past two centuries have respectively been hailed as “the European century” and “the American century,” the twenty-first century has been hailed as “the Asian century.” This generalization – undoubtedly problematic – does, however, draw attention to one striking fact that the economies of a sizable part of Asia, namely, East and Southeast Asia, have recorded impressive growth rates and undergone deep-rooted transformation since the 1970s. Thanks to such growth and newfound prosperity, Asia today has produced the world's largest middle class, estimated to be between 800 million to 1 billion, thus making Asia “the biggest market for almost everything.” In the several decades before the 1997–8 Asian crisis, the East and Southeast Asian rapid economic growth was regarded as a “miracle.” Being late industrializers, the respective states in the region played a strong developmental role, attracting foreign investment and stimulating export-oriented ... log in or subscribe to read full text