When Deng Xiaoping launched China’s strategy of “reform and opening up” in 1978, economists in the West had their doubts. In their view, a vibrant market economy was fundamentally incompatible with China’s authoritarian political system. But many in the East – including Koreans like me, who witnessed the East Asian miracle while living under developmental dictatorship – were hopeful.
Hong Kong is on a knife’s edge. Once one of Asia’s freest and most open cities, it now faces the spectre of a new China-imposed security law that would curtail its people’s liberties and create a climate of fear. The law is in flagrant breach of the Sino-British Joint Declaration, which is registered at the United Nations (UN), and would open the way for widespread human-rights violations.
When the Cold War ended, many pundits anticipated a new era in which geo-economics would determine geopolitics. As economic integration progressed, they predicted, the rules-based order would take root globally. Countries would comply with international law or incur high costs.Today, such optimism looks more than a little naive.
