From Miracle to Mirage: Rethinking Asian Exceptionalism Vis-A-Vis the Third World (Third WORLD PROBLEMS AND ISSUES: PAST AND PRESENT‪)‬

THE UNMAKING OF THIRD WORLDISM "Asian exceptionalism" is a concept now in eclipse, but during the "miracle" years of East Asian development it had a profoundly debilitating impact on Third World thought. This study explores that "miracle" effect, and poses the crucial question of how the Third World is going to respond to a world without miracle myths, whether Western or Eastern. With Western neoliberalism under suspicion throughout the Global South, and with "Asian values" discredited after the Asian Crisis, the Third World is effectively on its own. Will it embrace the challenge of this de facto liberation, or will it flee into the waiting arms of yet another miracle formula, such as Sino-globalization? (1)