Protective taxes. Domestic growth. Expertise. Drop taxes and start telling everyone else how great free trade is.
It's a pretty winning playbook.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automotive_industry_in_Thail...
When arguing something works you can't just ignore how often it doesn't. Development Economics is not so simple.
It isn't bullshit. It is truth.
> In Thailand, they opened up markets to car manufacturers and suppliers, with the result that Thailand is now one of Asia's largest car manufacturing hubs.
But thai car companies aren't building the cars. They are just building cars for foreigners.
> In Malaysia, they imposed protectionist barriers and tried to build their own cars. Ever heard of Proton or Perodua? No? There's a reason you haven't -- they're terrible.
Can you name a thai car company?
"According to Paul Bairoch, since the end of the 18th century, the United States has been "the homeland and bastion of modern protectionism". In fact, the United States never adhered to free trade until 1945. "
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protectionism_in_the_United_St...
The US was protectionist. Korea, Japan are protectionist. Russia is protectionist. And even much of europe is/was protectionist.
You need protectionism to develop your own companies/industries. Otherwise, you become just a supplier for a company.
The difference between thailand and malaysia is that malaysia want their own "Ford/Toyota/etc". Thailand just wants to be a low-end supplier on the bottom of the supply chain.
S. Korea is not a SE Asian country...
A better comparison: S. Korea, Thailand, Indonesia, and Vietnam all started with sub $200 GDP/capita in 1960. As of last year, S. Korea's has exploded to ~27k, while Thailand and others are below $6k.
No. It is in the NORTHEAST of asia.
"In common usage, the term Northeast Asia typically refers to a region including China.[2][3] In this sense, the core countries constituting Northeast Asia are China, Japan, North Korea, and South Korea."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_Asia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Northeast_Asian_count...
If you don't even know simple things like geography and locations of major nations, why are you even talking about economics?
> Nation groupings aren't exactly scientific taxonomies.
We aren't talking nation groupings. We are talking GEOGRAPHY. NORTH/SOUTH/EAST/WEST.
Consider Thailand and Malaysia, two neighbouring countries in SE Asia. In Thailand, they opened up markets to car manufacturers and suppliers, with the result that Thailand is now one of Asia's largest car manufacturing hubs. In Malaysia, they imposed protectionist barriers and tried to build their own cars. Ever heard of Proton or Perodua? No? There's a reason you haven't -- they're terrible.