I was thinking of the current financial impositions that have pushed the area into recession, and the political constraints upon industrialisation coming out of the Kyoto summit, the World Bank's pulling the plug on the Narmada Dam, the growing campaign against the Three Gorges Dam in China. Most Western investment in the region has been of a fairly specualtive character, that caused more instability than growth. I think you could have argued that East Asian growth was due to external factors as late as the 1970s, maybe, but at the moment the developments in Shanghai, Singapore, Seoul are largely generated from within. Western reactions to those have been a mix of speculative investment, a desire to restrain through political sanctions, and an attempt to impose financial restraint. One pair of trainers does not investment make. -- Jim heartfield