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I have compared these two areas because they are quite similar. Both were colonized by europe. Both had violent civil wars, fighting of communism. So why is southeast asia an emerging economy today and sub Sahara africa still a mess?
Religion may have actually had more to do with it than anything else. Southeast Asia consisted of cohesive areas which had long traditions of either Buddhism or Islam, and as such, were seen as relatively civilized by the industrial powers, compared to the Animism that prevailed in Africa.
Southeast Asians spoke a relatively small number of languages, each with wide coverage, so it was much easier to educate them in their own languages, which did not need to overcome such high hurdles of cultural traditions or tribal barriers. Today, SE Asia all speaks only seven languages, and national borders pretty much follow linguistic boundaries, which is an important consideration on national development.
Southeast Asia had been pretty well 'colonized' in antiquity, mostly by the Chinese, before European colonization, so had been introduced at an earlier date to a world view.
SE Asians have a long history as mariners, and have been trading by sea for millennia, which made it easier to establish import-export dynamics that were essential to industrial development. It existing harbors were convenient to other nearby trading ports of countries already well on the way to development.
Before looking up the per capita GDP of the countries in question, I would have said that your post made a number of interesting remarks, some of which I still agree with, but the GDP issue raises far more questions about the threads premise.
But enough of that for now...
One of the points that you hit on that I think is rather important is the historical relative homogeneity of Southeast Asian countries as opposed to the completely arbitrary ones which make up the territories of various African nations.
Sub-Saharan South Africa's GDP exceeds every post colonial Asian country.
Nigeria's GDP is higher than Singapore.
Kenya and Ethiopia exceed the GDP of Myanmar.
If you want to compare PPP( GDP per capita)
Gabon, Botswana, Namibia, and South Africa exceeds the PPP of the People's Republic of China!
Sorry but this is like heroin for thought, not food. Comparing GDP of the 8th most populous country in the world with that of a single city makes no sense at all. Especially given the fact that Nigeria is among the largest exporters of oil in the world.
I have compared these two areas because they are quite similar. Both were colonized by europe. Both had violent civil wars, fighting of communism. So why is southeast asia an emerging economy today and sub Sahara africa still a mess?
One reason is that Southeast Asia is much less affected by debilitating diseases such as AIDS and Malaria.
But Sub-Saharan Africa is also more ethnically heterogeneous which makes it more prone to violence.
Indonesia and Thailand (in certain areas) still have it's share of internal stability problems, and Myanmar/Burma is a 3rd world cesspool, rulled by a military junta, of african proportions....but Rambo single-handedly wiped out half of Burma's military in his last movie so maybe now the country has hope.
One difference between South East Asia and SubSaharan Africa was European trade and colonialism came to South East Asia in the 16th Century and Subsaharan Africa in the 19th and 20th century. South East Asia was the spice islands and places like Malabar in South India. Spices like black pepper, opium and tea are light weight high value products that justified the cost of sailing the crude ocean going vessels available to the Western Europeans all the way around Africa or as Columbus tried due west. Spices and other high value items from Asia like silk , china, jade and other advanced products not available in Europe were even worth the hard road all the way across Eurasia to get to market. So first it was Spain and Portugal who went follwed by the Dutch, British and French. They sailed around Africa and had very good maps of the routes. They set up coastal bases like El Mina in Ghana, Lagos, or Capetown to service the shipping and provide food and fresh water to the crews of said ships. The first Europeans did not have the technology to control and fight tropical diseases like malaria so this was a big disincentive to colonizing Africa and although such diseases are a problem in SE Asia the risk was balanced by the chance to control the wealth producing trade from the area. This changed in the 19th century for Africa when Europeans discoverted quinine and how to make artificial drugs just as effective as natural quinine from coal tar. Quinine surpressed malaria and other new drugs handled other tropical feevers.
Gold and diamonds were also discovered in Africa and now Europe had a reason for occupying Africa's interior and the race was on to add African territories to European empires.
I think jtur88 hit the nail on the head. SE Asia was composed of actual countries/empires that were conquered and colonized. They have have homogenous ethnic and cultural identities that go back millenia. In the case of sub-Saharan Africa the borders were essentially drawn by the colonial powers and you are dealing with many various ethnic and cultural groups that have long standing hatred and differences.
The other major difference is that SE Asia is primarily a manufacturing and export economy, while any wealth in the African countries is almost universally in raw materials. This difference in foundational economies allows a middle class to exist in the SE Asian countries and there are opportunities for moving forward. In the case of Africa, the wealth is concentrated in a very small group and it creates a massive divide between rich and poor with almost no middle class.
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