CHINA, JAPAN and the FOUR TIGERS (South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore)
1960
- South Korea’s first president, Syngman Rhee, resigns after 12 years.
- Taiwan implements its “Plan for Economic and Financial Reform;” begins to emerge as an Asian Tiger.
- The Soviet Union removes advisors from China, cancels major projects & contracts amidst the chaos of Mao’s “Great Leap Forward.”
- Oil production begins at Daqing, China’s largest and most productive oil field, in Heilongjiang province in the northeast of the country.
1961
- Construction begins on Japan’s first nuclear reactor at Tokai, north of Tokyo.
- Taiwan Stock Exchange opens; the Bank of Taiwan re-established as the Central Bank after a decade hiatus.
- British Hong Kong starts its extraordinary 180x GDP growth up to the Chinese handover in 1997; inspires Milton Friedman’s label of Hong Kong as “an almost laboratory experiment” in freedom.
- Zhou Enlai and the Chinese delegation walk out of the Soviet Party Congress in Moscow.
1962
- China’s “Great Leap Forward” (Second Five-Year Plan) ends after four years; causes tens of millions of deaths and the worst famine in recorded history; limited privatization reintroduced in countryside.
1963
- President Park Chung-hee ushers in South Korea’s Third Republic; reorients to export-led growth & foreign investment; begins what becomes known as “The Miracle on the Han River.”
1964
- High-speed “bullet” train service starts between Osaka and Tokyo, Japan.
- Japan hosts the Olympic Games.
Tokyo 1964 Welcomes the World to the Olympic Stadium
- Violent race riots in July and September in Singapore between Chinese and Malays.
- Chinese physicists test a nuclear device at a former salt lake at Lop Nur in Xinjiang Province.
- China’s first successful launch of rocket for biological experiment (whit mice).
- The People’s Liberation Army publishes Mao Zedong’s Little Red Book of Quotations.
1965
- South Korea sends over 250,000 troops to assist the American war effort in Vietnam.
- Taiwan starts great expansion in GDP – of 360% over next 20 years.
- Lee Kuan Yew becomes prime minister of a fully-independent Singapore republic after a two-year federation with Malaysia; emerges as mighty fourth Asian tiger.
- Japan and South Korea normalize diplomatic relations (June).
1966
- Japan builds its first nuclear power plant, in Tokai.
- China begins its catastrophic 10-year “Cultural Revolution.”
1967
- South Korea reaches 8% economic growth rate.
- Daewoo industrial conglomerate (chaebol) in South Korea founded in March.
- Singapore introduces universal service for men 18 and up; joins four other Southeast Asian countries to found ASEAN.
- Mao and Zhou Enlai declare the start of China’s manned space program (July 14).
1968
- Neptune Orient Lines started as Singapore’s national shipping line (December)
1969
- Soviet and Chinese soldiers clash over Damansky Island on the Ussuri River in the Far East (March). Chinese invasion feared; Soviets fortify the Far East. Life Magazine terms the dangerous and highly-militarized Sino-Soviet border “an angry frontier.”
1970
- Germany’s Bosch and Japan’s Canon Corp. open manufacturing plants in Taiwan’s “Export Processing Zones.”
1971
- Start of “Ping Pong” diplomacy/ positive relations between US and China: American ping pong team invites US team to China (April); National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger visits China secretly (July)
- The People’s Republic of China admitted to the United Nations under resolution 2758; PRC obtains Security Council seat (ousting Taiwan)(October 25)
1972
- President Richard Nixon meets Mao Zedong and Chou Enlai in China for eight days (February).
- Honda Motors introduces its “city car” or Civic.
- New constitution in South Korea gives president increased powers; inaugurates the Fourth Republic.
- Singapore Airlines commences operations.
1973
- Stock exchange of Singapore founded.
- The Christian [Miao] pastor Wang Zhiming executed (December 29) after four years imprisonment as a counter-revolutionary during the Cultural Revolution; Wang became one of 10 Christian martyrs memorialized at Westminster Abbey in 1998.
20th Century Martyrs, Westminster Abbey, London. Wang is statue on the right.
1974
1975
- Singapore (“The Lion City”) ranks as the world’s third busiest port behind Rotterdam and New York.
- Chiang Kai-shek dies (April 5).
Singapore Today
Taiwan Skyline