The Asian situation is still in flux at the time of writing, information is still incomplete, and no careful economic studies are yet available. So this can only be a brief and provisional summary.
During 1995 a number of economists had begun to wonder whether the countries of Southeast Asia might be vulnerable to a Latin-type crisis. The main objective indicator was the emergence of very large current account deficits. Closer examination also revealed that several of the countries had developed worrying financial weaknesses: heavy investment in highly speculative real estate ventures, financed by borrowing either from poorly informed foreign sources or by credit from underregulated domestic financial institutions. It is now known that during 1996 officials from the IMF and World Bank actually began warning the governments of Thailand, Malaysia, and other countries of the risks posed by their financial situation, and urged corrective policies. However, these warnings were brusquely rejected by those governments.
As in the case of the other regional currency crises, financial markets showed little sign of concern until very late in the game. The extraordinary growth record of the region seems to have convinced many that the usual cautions did not apply. (One pension fund manager described to me a briefing on Indonesian prospects by someone from Moody's. Some members of the audience had expressed worry about the reliability of the data and the financial reports they had seen. His response was that you should think of it as being like a Javanese shadow puppet show - you couldn't actually see the puppets, but you could see their shadows, and that told the story).
The slide toward crisis began with an export slowdown in the region, partly due to the appreciation of the dollar (to which the target currencies were pegged) against the yen, partly to specific developments in key industries, partly to growing competition from China. With export growth flagging, the overbuilding of real estate - especially in Thailand - became all too apparent. In turn, dropping real estate prices pulled down stock prices and placed the solvency of financial institutions in question.
Up to this point, the developments were mainly a domestic financial crisis, similar in general outline to the bursting of Japan's "bubble economy" in the early 1990s. During the first half of 1997, however, speculators finally began to wonder whether the financial distress of Southeast Asian countries, especially Thailand, might provoke them to devalue in the hope of reflating the economy. The growing suspicion that such a move might be in prospect, despite government insistence that it was not, led to widening interest premia; these in turn increased the pressure, both by adding deflationary impetus and by creating cash flow problems for financially stressed businesses.
On July 2 Thailand gave in to the pressures and floated the baht; as in the other crises, this led to speculation against other regional currencies, and was followed shortly by somewhat smaller devaluations in Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines. The wave of devaluations, and the troubled financial picture revealed by the crisis, shook investor confidence; in an effort to regain that confidence, all of the countries involved have imposed new fiscal austerity. Thailand received an emergency loan from the IMF; part of the conditionality was a cleanup of its financial system.
At this point the real consequences of the crisis are still to be revealed. There seems to be general agreement that Thailand, like Mexico, will suffer an initial blow to its growth. Typical estimates are that it will go from the 9 percent average rates of recent years to roughly zero growth over the next year. The impact on neighboring economies is a subject of considerable dispute, with the IMF predicting only a small impact while many private economists predict much more severe slowdowns.
At this point it remains unclear how far the contagion will spread. South Korea is the most interesting case: it has severe internal financial problems and a massive current account deficit, but has few real linkages to the Southeast Asian economies. At the time of writing there does not seem to have been any pressure on China, even though the giant nation is reported to have massive quantities of bad internal debt.
An interesting counterpoint to the Latin experience is provided by Hong Kong, which like Argentina has a currency board and is pegged to the U.S. dollar (and intends to remain that way, even though it is politically now part of China). After a brief probing, financial markets seem to have decided that the HK dollar is not at risk, and what is now the Special Administrative Region thus seems to have insulated itself from the crisis.
The most peculiar aspect of the Asian crisis has been the reaction of some of the region's leaders. Malaysia's Prime Minister, Mahathir bin Mohamed, has taken the lead, blaming the crisis on the conspiratorial activities of George Soros (whom he has described as a "moron"), prompted by U.S. government officials. Unless new evidence surfaces, this claim is even odder than it sounds: as far as market participants are aware, Soros was not even a player in this crisis, and indeed seems to have guessed wrong, buying Malaysian ringgit. Mahathir temporarily imposed limits on stock trading intended to stop the alleged conspiracy, and has made public calls for an end to currency trading that have made financial markets understandably nervous that he might try to impose capital controls.