There has been much talk about Asia's rising middle class and the development of a new model based on domestic consumption. So far that is all it has been: talk. The plain fact is – the dazzling retail emporiums of Asia's up-and-coming cities aside – the region has become more, not less, dependent on foreign demand.
A decade ago, when Asia was in the midst of its home-grown crisis, exports accounted for 37 per cent of regional output. Partly in reaction to that shock, which exposed an over-reliance on flows of foreign capital, economies ramped up their production of manufactured goods. A decade later, overseas shipments accounted for 47 per cent of output.
Asia's heightened reliance on external demand has been masked. In many countries, particularly China, consumption has conspicuously risen; people have been trading in their bicycles for scooters, and their scooters for cars. But consumption has lagged behind overall economic expansion. While they were buying at home, their governments were even more furiously spending swelling trade surpluses on what Paul Krugman, the Nobel economist, calls “sterile claims” on the US Treasury. China's household consumption, for example, has fallen to a lowly 35 per cent of gross domestic product, against 50 per cent in the 1980s.