A tale of two countries - economic impact of Philippine protectionist policies and lack of protectionism in Hong Kong

Reason, June, 1994 by William McGurn

This strategy was not simply do-nothingism. At the same time the government was keeping taxes low and spending under control, it embarked on a public housing scheme that would eventually shelter more than half the population. The difference was that Cowperthwaite could afford to do this since he maintained fiscal restraint and resisted calls to subsidize Hong Kong industry or give them any protection.

"Had Cowperthwaite taken the advice or yielded to all those who wanted more government intervention," says Richard Wong of the Hong Kong Center for Economic Research, "Hong Kong would not have prospered. By keeping Hong Kong open he ensured that it would remain competitive."

Certainly history has vindicated Cowperthwaite's judgment. During the 10 years between 1961 and 1971 that Cowperthwaite was Hong Kong's financial secretary, income grew faster there than anywhere else in Asia. The policy of keeping the door open to imports also fueled an export boom--at a phenomenal average annual rate of 13.8 percent over these years. Real wages increased by more than 50 percent over this period and remain roughly twice those of both Korea and Taiwan.

Hong Kong's disavowal of protectionism extends to the lack of anti-dumping laws that are used even in the United States to keep competitors out. "Any economist will tell you that when you keep foreign business out you simply hurt your own people," says Hong Kong treasury secretary and former trade negotiator, Donald Tsang. "All you are doing is cutting your nose off to spite your face. We keep our economy open because it is in our self-interest."

If Hong Kong owes its impressive wealth to a conscious political decision not to micro-manage the economy, the Philippines' pervasive poverty represents the negative version of the same argument. There, a series of conscious economic choices made over the past four decades--especially a hostile attitude toward foreign investors--has allowed local monopolies to flourish at the expense of both workers and consumers.

Some have called it "crony capitalism." But the preferences enjoyed under this arrangement have little in common with capitalism, and the cronies would lose their protected empires tomorrow if the state weren't propping them up. The ruling elite in the Philippines has taken a country with a well-educated English-speaking work force and an enviable location smack dab in the midst of the world's fastest growing market and turned it into an economic basket case.

This took some doing. Providence had bequeathed the Philippines many advantages, including an almost inexhaustible supply of natural resources: gold, iron ore, copper, cement, salt, granite, marble. Its soil was rich and its produce bountiful, including rice, sugar, coconuts, tobacco, bananas, and avocados. In the late 1950s and early '60s, it was second in Asia only to Japan, and everyone assumed that its future would be as bountiful as its present.

As the World Bank put it in an upbeat report, "By comparison with most underdeveloped countries, the basic economic position of the Philippines is favorable.... |Apart from its~ generous endowment of material resources and high level of literacy, other favorable factors are the growth of the labor force, the availability of managerial and technical skills, the high level of savings and investment, rather good prospects for most of the Philippines exports, and considerable possibilities for import substitution." The Philippines was considered so successful, in fact, that in the '60s Manila was sending specialists to Korea to advise them on their development.