How have East and South Asian nations pursued economic development, and how have political regimes shaped those efforts?

China, Japan, and the countries that became known as the “Asian Tigers” (South Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan) experienced fantastic economic growth in the last decades of the twentieth century. The Chinese Communist Party managed a transition in which it maintained tight political control amid liberalization and economic growth. Japan’s economy stagnated in the 1990s and struggled to recover amid growing competition from its neighbors. In South Asia tensions between India and Pakistan persisted.