Economic growth and reform in China have been the focus of heated debate throughout this year's annual meeting of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, which draws to a close on Tuesday in Hong Kong. The IMF director, Mr Michel Camdessus, praised China for its proposed restructuring of state enterprises and the World Bank published a report which claims that China has the capacity to reach the standard of some of the Asian "tiger" economies by the year 2020 if it remains on the right path.
There is general consensus at the bank and the fund that the tiger economies of East Asia hold the policy blueprint for economic growth and recovery. The World Bank for one has used East Asia's experience - or more accurately, its own interpretation of that experience - to draw up a checklist of good policies elsewhere. It is, of course, impossible to deny the reality of East Asia's "economic miracle": 30 years ago poverty in the region was deep and pervasive, average incomes were comparable to those in subSaharan African and economic growth rates were slow.
Since the 1960s East Asia has witnessed the fastest reduction of poverty for the greatest number of people in history. In the two decades after 1970 some 200 million people were lifted out of poverty while an additional 425 million people were added to the region's population above the poverty line. The incidence of poverty fell from one in three to one in 10. The contrasts with other developing countries are striking. As we approach the end of the 1990s, there are more poor Latin Americans than there were in 1980. And in sub-Saharan Africa the number of poor people is growing in relative and absolute terms.
The most striking feature of East Asia's success is the efficiency with which economic growth has been translated into poverty reduction. For each percentage point of growth achieved in East Asia, the number of people in poverty has fallen by around 3 per cent; the equivalent figure for most countries in sub-Saharan Africa is slightly over 1 per cent; for most in Latin America it is less than one.
Rising real wages and the growth of employment have been positive aspects of the East Asian experience. Critics, including Oxfam, are cautious, however, and contend that East Asia's success is often overstated, and that the price of growth has been high.
A recent Oxfam report, Growth with Equity: An Agenda for Pov- erty Reduction, highlights the considerably less positive aspects of the success story with the continued denial of basic workers' rights, and exploitative labour practices.
Most countries in the region restrict basic rights of association and independent trade union action. In Indonesia, China, Thailand and South Korea, independent trade union leaders are subject to arbitrary arrest and in some cases torture and lengthy imprisonment. The right to strike is severely curtailed.
Women face special problems, ranging from direct wage discrimination to health and safety risks. In countries such as Indonesia, Thailand and Taiwan, women workers frequently earn between 20 and 30 per cent of a man's wage for equal work. Labour intensive industries in Indonesia often recruit female labour, including child labour, from distant rural villages, transferring women to factory compounds.
While most countries have impressive industrial health and safety guidelines, these are widely ignored. In 1993 two events cast a shadow over East Asia's export boom. The first was a fire in the Dader factory in Thailand, which killed 188 and injured 469 mainly female workers. The second was another fire, six months later, at the Zhili toy factory in Shenzhen, China, which killed 87 people.
Both factories were producing toys for export to the US and Europe, and in both cases health and safety standards had been fatally compromised to reduce costs and enhance competitiveness. The incidents were simply the tip of the iceberg. Each year thousands of workers are killed or maimed in the booming export industries of China, Indonesia, Thailand and other countries. Most are women, most are working in factories where basic trade union rights are denied, and most are the victims of policies which allow employers and foreign investors to compromise the safety of workers in the interests of expanding exports.
The increasing mobility of capital has enabled foreign investors to graft the most productive technologies onto highly exploitative labour systems. In Indonesia the Nike Corporation employs 100,000 people, mostly women, who produce one-third of the company's annual footwear turnover. Basic labour rights are said to be denied and wages are low.
In the mining sector, foreign investors collude with the government in depriving vulnerable communities of their land rights to exploit mineral and forestry resources. Without moves to enhance labour rights and to develop higher standards for foreign investment, East Asian countries are likely to face growing pressures from the industrialised world which regards labour exploitation as an unacceptable source of competitive advantage.
Authoritarian governance has been the central factor behind East Asia's economic success, with human rights being subordinated to the pursuit of economic growth. Corrupt and unaccountable elites pledge their allegiance to "Asian values"; in effect, a euphemism for suppressing basic citizenship rights, while pursuing vested interests and plundering public finances.
Recently the Malaysian Prime Minister has gone to the bizarre lengths of seeking an East Asia "opt-out" from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, claiming that continued economic and social progress requires the suppression of liberties. While many countries may look with envy at East Asia's growth and apparent wealth, missing from East Asia's success story is progress in the development of participative political structures. Ultimately, development is about more than economic growth and material welfare, and poverty has dimensions which go beyond income, health and education.
Mary van Lieshout is policy manager of Oxfam Ireland