The Rise of the Middle Classes in East Asia and the Formation of an "Asian" Identity.

(From Journal of Japanese Trade & Industry (JJTI))

Byline: Shiraishi Takashi

Over the past 15 to 20 years, middle class societies have developed in the East Asian region. This is evident in urban shopping centers in Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur and Jakarta, as well as in the new suburban towns. For example, the new town of Lippo Karawaci is located about an hour to the west of downtown Jakarta along the east-west expressway that runs through the city. Here, in a wide-open space separated from the outside world by gates and walls, are neatly placed rows of houses with gardens and garages. There is a university, a shopping mall and a golf course in the center of the area, and the people who live here can spend most of their time, aside from their hours working in the city or the nearby industrial complexes, within the confines of this neighborhood.

This middle class society first began to emerge amidst the regional economic development of the 1980s and 1990s, and the process by which it occurred is well known. First, Japan experienced high growth and industrialization. As Japan lost its comparative advantage in certain industries, they were shifted to the East Asian NIEs1 through direct investment and technology transfers, propelling those countries toward industrialization. Then, as investment and technology transfers began to be directed from both Japan and the East Asian NIEs into the Association of South-East Asian Nations, those nations were then able to industrialize. This dynamic international division of labor facilitated the advancement of East Asian industrialization, the expansion of trade and the formation of an integrated regional economic zone. The middle classes in East Asia grew steadily and widely against the backdrop of this regional economic development. This process occurred first in Japan in the 1960s and 1970s, then in South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore in the 1970s and 1980s, and then later in Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines and Indonesia in the 1980s and 1990s. Today there is yet another wave taking place, with the development of the middle classes in large Chinese cities like Shanghai and Guangdong.

As a result, people in cities like Tokyo, Seoul, Shanghai, Taipei, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Manila, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore and Jakarta have a great deal more in common in terms of their lifestyles, leisure activities, childrearing practices, fashion and education than the people in those cities did a generation ago. The reason Japanese cultural products like comics, cartoons, music and fashion are selling so well in East Asia is because the people there (and their children) are buying them. And the reason East Asia is winning so much attention as a consumption market is because of the growth of middle class society. How can this class be socially and culturally characterized? According to Only Yesterday (in Japanese: Chikuma Shobo Publishing Co.), the classic book about American social history by Frederick L. Allen, the emergence of a 20th-century middle class distinct from the 19th-century European middle class (bourgeoisie) coincided with the arrival of the mass consumer society in 1920s America. This was when people began to own washing machines and refrigerators and most people owned radios and automobiles. It coincided, in other words, with the establishment of 20th century Americanism. Furuya Jun defines "Americanization" as the "process of turning diverse immigrants with divergent histories, ethnicities, languages and religious beliefs into people who identify themselves as American citizens" (Americanism, University of Tokyo Press, 2002). In 20th century Americanism, however, creating middle classes by unbinding people from the spell of history meant the same thing as creating good Americans, or more importantly, good citizens. But what did these people, unbound by history, have in common as American citizens? The answer was the emergence of the "standard package." A standard of living "like everyone else's" became the goal of social consumption, and leading a lifestyle like everyone else, ...