Globalization of Markets
The Asia-PaciĀ c region comprises a wide range of countries and national systems. Geographical factors feature so strongly, with the PRC so clearly pre-eminent in terms of land mass and population. The countries of the region range from those with very
large populations like the PRC, to ācity-statesā like Hong Kong and Singapore with a
few million inhabitants.2 This population variable will, among others, help to shape the nature of the labour market and the labour force, as will the level of economic development, among other factors. However, this variable is relatively invariant in the
short term. An attempt to evaluate where Asia-PaciĀ c economies, including that of the PRC, are going has been made by the present writer and a colleague based on āthe Late- Development effectā (see Ng and Warner, 1999). It breaks down the whole into two
sectors, namely the advanced economies and sectors, on the one hand, and the less developed countries, on the other. Yet there remain problems with compressing so much into a basic dichotomy. The economies of the region have, on the other hand, been economically and industrially dominated by another nation, namely Japan. The
ālittle dragonā economies in turn also stand apart from many others in terms of the level
of economic development they have achieved. Most of the regionās economies have had
a rapid rate of growth over the last two decades, although it may have been uneven from
year to year Whether the Asian so-called āmiracleā will be able to be sustained into the
twenty-Ā rst century is of course moot. Even if Asian economies grow at respectable
rates of growth, they may not pick up the pace of the 1990s. China has had a Ā uctuating
Convergence Divergence
Hard 1 4
Soft 2 3
Figure 1 Convergence/divergence: a four-fold analytical framework
Warner: Globalization, HR and Asia-PaciĀ c economies 385
growth rate for the last ten years and it was down to around 8 per cent per annum for 2000, if ofĀ cial statistics are to be believed.3 But even this level is well above the
average for, say, EU economies. The growth variable is highly variant even in the short
term, however.
Globalization
āGlobalizationā was the byword of the 1990s; it was to herald the creation of both
world-wide markets and transnational enterprises. Its theoretical origins