Back to News Menu About the Rat Asia Pacific Management Forum

What's New? Site Map

Search the Asia Pacific Management Forum database of almost 1,000 pages. Updated weekly. Use today's topical search terms or clear the box and enter your own. Click options for complex or phrase search. Or click on the icon for our full search facilities.

"...But Mommy..", said the dirty uneducated innocent from the provinces who knew no better, "...the Emporer has no clothes!...

With apologies to Hans Christian Anderson and from memory of one of Grandma Rat's favourite bedtime stories..

The initiator and main proponent was none other than the supreme pragmatist Lee Kuan Yew, founding father of Singapore, and it quickly gained currency in Malaysia through Prime Minister Mahathir, Indonesia, and to a lesser extent again other ASEAN and East Asian countries. It also gained much credence in Western economic circles too, among casual observers as an easy and popular way for the right wing in particular to advance their agendas.

Asian values became a favourite weapon in ASEAN government circles and not so popular in management and business circles, mainly because its major value was in reinforcing the credibility of the ruling political elite... ..and little else. It credited the Asian miracle almost solely to existing political elites, and that changing the political power structure would spell the end of the miracle. No wonder that the Asian values concept gained greatest currency in those countries with long standing and either paternalistic or authoritarian governments.

It was also used to counteract Western attempts to convince Asia of the value of global values such as democracy, human rights, and environment, allowing the Asian power elite to convince many that these were “Western” not “Global” values”. Late last year, Lee tempered some of his rhetoric and started talking about “Confucian” values rather than “Asian” values, reinforcing that it was these that would turn around ASEAN economies again.

The term itself has initial appeal because of its suggestions of independence.. but in reality apart from political ends, after 10 years of Asian values, West is still seen as the best. A love of Western non-indigeneous consumer goods, entertainment and culture has been the sad but inevitable result of Asian governments lust for growth and power.

But what really is (or were?) this amorphous set of Asian values...? We've tried to summarise its basic tenets below, and the reasons why the Asian values concept never were or will be a valid and unifying explanation or facilitator of Asian growth.

Communalism and Family vs Individualism:

The Singapore Straits Times several years ago continually ran stories on the moral turpitude of the West, highlighting divorce rates, crime and poverty. Individualism was the cause, ran the analysis. More recently, the North Korean Central Broadcasting Station used the same methods, though for different reasons, claiming that the US is "...in the midst of poverty, starvation, and unemployment...". ..."..Four million Californians suffer from malnutrition, and starving people are lining the road from Boston to Washington.." it went on... Now it may be embarrassing for Singapore to be compared to North Korea, but the means are certainly similar, not so much the intended ends.

The reason for the growth of Asia, it was said, was the emphasis on communalism and family. Certainly a major characteristic of modern Asia, family bonds are very strong. Then again they have to be. Government funded social security is rare, with unemployed and ill family members relying on family for financial support. Much business is run along family lines, and families cut off errant family members who marry inadvisably.

Now the good things about a family is you know them better, you can exert familial moral power rather than other forms, and they are more stable. However taken too far the concept of family breeds paternalism, cronyism, and narrows business partner options when Asian business should be opening up to new ideas rather than resisting them. It leads slowly but inevitably to insularity and familial privelage.

In business too, it is said that Asians work naturally as a team, borrowing from successful Japanese and Korean concepts of teamwork and the organization as family. Individualism is not as highly valued as loyalty to the company line. Yet, the modern history of Japanese and now Korean business suggests that this approach is well due for revision. Previously unknown unemployment levels in Japan have caused Japanese salarymen and their families to bear the brunt of the all-caring organization who when the Yens are all counted, cannot deliver the promise of life time employment. In both Japan and Korea, many major conglomerates have been proven too insular for a global world. Collapses and financial scandals are daily news and will continue. Maybe we should have listened to the innocent boy at the Emporer's procession earlier.

Authority vs Democracy

Look how far we've come by strong government rather than liberalism and democracy!. Perhaps the most controversial tenet of Asian values this argument has been hard to argue against for ten years, despite examples to the contrary like China and the Philippines. The latest market crash has given Carte Blanche to Western critics to say we have told you so. In reality of course, as we have argued before, the Asian crisis hit many economies... regardless of the color of their political systems.

Authoritarianism and strong government is not an Asian value... it is a developing country value. It works while economies are developing and quality of life is improving fast, and fails when governments no longer can deliver the goodies that kept serious questions being asked or followed up.

Hard Work

Hard work is not an intrinsic Asian value, it comes from the motivation of catching up, and the actions of governments in holding out Western consumer goods as the carrot. Motivation theory teaches us that motivation is highest when a goal is a bit higher than you would normally expect to achieve but still foreseeable. ..And if the goal is tangible. A model which people can touch and see is part of creating a tangible goal. and the easiest one was Western lifestyles. but wait! Asian governments then began to realise that there was a downside to Western lifestyles too, and by clever use of the media tried to reduce the bad side while still taking the good. Again it works... but not for long.

The miracle and reality of Asian business and growth

Lee got it right of course. He was always talking about Confucian values, not Asian values. And lets take it further. in reality he is talking about Singapore values, which have been highly successful for Singapore. It worked in a country which is fairly ethnically homogeneous with the overseas Chinese predominating in business. (Forget about Singapore being one of the most multi-cultural societies in the world. Its southern neighbor Australia, often portrayed as exclusively White, Anglo saxon and Protestant, has a more ethically diverse population. In Singapore more than 75% of the population is Chinese.) It worked in a small densely populated nation island state of 3,000,000. But to extend this model to other countries gives little attendance to the multi-cultural and multi-religious populations, and vast territories of other countries in ASEAN and East Asia. Indeed, we hear little about Japanese values, but we know that Japanese values permeate much business throughout Asia. And Thailand, Philippines, Vietnam, and Malaysia... they all have their own values which best suit their potential and culture.

The Asian miracle, like the Emporer's new clothes, now looks like any other modern day “miracle”.

Glorious, over publicized, ....and illusory....

It was time for Asia to claim its potential back then. Claim it we did, but when the greed of international finance got into the act, the growth became clearly unsustainable. The good solid growth of the last 20 years is due to hard work and simple development cycles. The “miracle” and the crash of it, was due to financial speculation, the happy coincidence of Asian face and consumerism, and the fact that Asia was the only place to invest. Only then did it become a miracle and Asian values was claimed as a cause. Asian stock and currency markets are now just under what they should be and will stabilize upwards soon. In the cold hard light of day, even after taking into account the events of the last seven months, the growth of Asia has been remarkable.. ..and predictable. We need neither a miracle nor Asian Values to explain it.

For the Emporer, indeed, had no clothes..

More on Asian Values from the Rat's archives:

• The Economics of Asian Values...16th December 1997
• Austerity and Independence in Malaysia...9th December 1997
• Well past time to cease this hypocrisy...5th November 1997
• Mahathir still on the Western warpath while Singapore sobers up...22nd August 1997
• Economist asks, "Is the Asian miracle over?"...6th March 1997
• Mahathir and the Asia Pacific Management Forum on Asian Values and International Respect....21st May 1996