For half a century, East Asia's economic miracle has served as a model of development worldwide. This growth model has been based on two preconditions.

On the one hand, it has rewarded countries and regions that managed to develop or benefit from competitive export industries - from Japan to the "tiger economies" (China's Taiwan and Hong Kong, South Korea, and Singapore), to Chinese mainland and eventually India in the 1990s.

The other precondition of the growth model has been the ability and willingness of the global economy - led by the US consumer - to absorb these exports.