International Competition, Globalization and Mechanisms of the Expanding Crisis. Is the Simultaneity of the Crises in Japan and Korea a Coincidence?

In April 1997, the Japanese economy, which had suffered from a depression that had dragged on since since March 1991, was struck by a new crisis. At the end of 1997 Korea too was hit by a currency and financial crisis. This simultaneity is the primary phenomenon in the bilateral economic relationship between Japan and Korea since the end of the Second World War, i.e., since the founding of the Republic of Korea in 1948. When we consider this remarkable circumstance, the question immediately arises as to whether the simultaneity should be seen as a coincidence or a determined event.