Business networks and the regional economy of East and Southeast Asia in the late twentieth century

This study treats East and Southeast Asia as a regional economy. The regionality of East and Southeast Asia is defined by the linkages between two regional business networks, the Japanese enterprise networks and the ethnic Chinese business networks, and the economy of China. The density of the linkages between the two regional business networks and the economy of China has been primarily responsible for the rise of East and Southeast Asia to become the center of accumulation in the capitalist world-economy in the late twentieth century.;By treating East and Southeast Asia as a regional economy, the study argues against the development theory which uses the nation-state as the unit of analysis and conventional world-system theory which uses the world as the unit of analysis. Both have not paid serious attention to the significance of region-specific networks in the development of the capitalist world-system after the Second World War.;The ethnic Chinese regional business networks over the last twenty-five years have become the linchpin of business networking in the region. By examining the case of Malaysia and Indonesia, the study shows that the ethnic Chinese business networks have developed dense business linkages with Japanese business networks. The study shows that the ethnic Chinese business networks have developed equally dense linkages with the economy of China. The linkages between Japanese enterprise networks and the economy of China, in contrast, remain relatively thin.