There are exceptions. South Korea has done more to reinvent itself than other economies. Its banks are functioning well, and lower rates and fiscal spending have empowered consumers. The Philippines, for all its problems, also has a big enough domestic economy to offset falling export demand.
Yet consider how many Asian eyes are on the US Federal Reserve these days. For better or worse, it has become a global central bank of sorts. The Fed may have 12 districts in the US, but its portfolio has grown with globalization. This dynamic was most apparent during the 1997-1998 crisis, when the world looked to Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan to restore calm to cascading capital markets half a world away. It repeated itself again last year.
Sure, the Fed makes decisions based on US events. Yet these days it's not farfetched to think of Mexico as the Fed's 13th district, South America as the 14th, Southeast Asia as the 15th, Russia as the 16th and so on.
Asia, quite simply, is doing what it does best. Its one-trick economies that know all there is about exporting their way to prosperity -- but little about doing so internally -- are sticking to what has worked. Only, as the world changes around them, so must Asia's ways of doing things.
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