I draw your attention to a front page WSJ article, March 8, 1999:
Bearing Up Resilient Russia Dodges Calamities Predicted After Ruble's Collapse Inability to Import Bolsters Domestic Manufacturing ; Barter Proves a Safety Net The Banks aren't Much Missed.
The point of the article is that there is life after the Western banks left. The key sentence is: "Going cold turkey has been less ruinous than predicted." With imports now priced out of the market, domestic production has picked up in some industries, etc.
Your assumption that Asia must need Western capital and capitalism and Western markets is valid only in your head. Asia will survive better with only 15% of its GDP devoted to trade, as the US does. And Asia is working hard to concentrate trade within the region. The West is not indispensable.
Henry C.K. Liu
"D. L." wrote:
> I have sympathy for the people who were hurt and are being hurt
> and that's
> why my politics are as they are. Still, I ask you, where was the money to
> come from if not the West? Where are the markets? Autarky for Thailand
> and Korea is not possible. They have to deal with the rest of the
> capitalist world and that means buying, selling, loaning and borrowing in
> Western currencies and yen. So, once again I say that absent a new way of
> generating more solidly-backed, internationally-tradable credit-money, the
> people of the second and third worlds are going to be playing poker with
> currency traders and Western banks.
>
>