The asian economic “flu”: A geography of crisis

This paper examines the recent economic turmoil in East Asia which has been linked to the convulsive nature of global capital movements. East Asia, once the site of rapid capital accumulation, lost its economic momentum beginning in July 1997 with a series of currency devaluations, culminating in a net outflow of private capital within a year. International capital's ability to disembed the region, however, has been highly uneven over space. That China, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan are far more territorially resilient while others like Indonesia, Thailand, and South Korea initiated major political changes suggests that the geography of crisis is far more complex than is currently presented.