First published in 1999, this book explores the question of is the business organisation a result of efficiency or is it a result of a state-business organisation a result of a state-business interaction? This question being in the context of the Korean chaebol system and the Japanese Keiretsu system; this book explores the political and economic growth and then the following down fall of these systems occurred without rupturing either country's state policy regarding the chaebol or the keiretsu.

Both the Cold War view and the so-called "clashes of civilization" view within the post-Cold War perspective of international relations fail to explain why the entirety of East Asia is experiencing a worsening of intranational and international confrontations in the 21st century, despite the high level of standards of living and the expanding freedom and democracy in the region. Hong Kong and Taiwan refuse to reunite with China despite their cultural and ethnic similarities, while South Korea and Japan are at loggerheads despite their long-term friendship and strategic alliance with the US....