On the Question of Economic Globalization

In July of last year, a financial crisis that originated in Thailand rapidly swept across all the countries of Southeast Asia and then affected Korea and Japan, eventually causing tremors all over the globe. This brought people to a deeper realization of the increasingly intricate interrelationships among the economies of the countries of the worldâthe relationships of mutual linkage, penetration, influence, and interdependenceâthat exist among all our economies around the planet. The globalization of the economy has become indeed an unavoidable reality, a great trend that does not depend on human will. Only when we look at the issues against the broad backdrop of economic globalization can we have a fuller and better understanding of the deep-seated reasons that caused the Southeast Asian financial crisis, and only then can we bring forward [sound] policy proposals that are in conformity with reality regarding how we may best do our economic work in the future.