After reading the fundamental monograph "Models of Prosperity (Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia)" by one of the leading Russian Orientalists L. F. Pakhomova, it becomes obvious that this extremely interesting work is based on the long-term work of a person for whom this topic has become her second self. Behind each paragraph, you can feel the author's desire to convey his thoughts as accurately and at the same time in an accessible form to the reader, even if this reader is neither a specialist in the economy of developing countries, nor an expert on the problems of Southeast Asia, which are so diverse and intertwined that it is often difficult for even experts to understand where the economy ends and politics begins, and at what stage, for example, religion or long-standing historical grievances get involved in these problems.

It is no coincidence that the author chose these four countries out of ten members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations-Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia-for her analysis. They are among the "veterans" of the founding Fathers of ASEAN. These included the Philippines in 1967, when the Association was established, but this state, despite its belonging to Southeast Asia, has always stood apart, perhaps because the Philippines is the only country where the absolute majority of the population professes a religion" alien " to Asia - Catholicism. An important factor is that the Philippines, unlike other Southeast Asian countries, did not win, but gained independence from the United States in 1946 - the only "empire" that at that time was at the stage of not decline and collapse, but rise (unlike the British, French and Dutch colonial empires). It was able to interact correctly, including economically, with its former colony. As a result, the property of American investors in the archipelago was not subjected to "nationalization-Filipinization", as was the case in other Southeast Asian countries. Further, Brunei Darussalam is also a special case. This " Southeast Asian Kuwait "joined ASEAN after gaining independence from Britain in 1982, and has remained an"energy mini-power" ever since. Finally, the three "communist" states of Indochina-Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos-entered the path of market transformation only a couple of decades ago, and Myanmar, which has been dominated since the early 1960s by a bizarre system of military-civilian state-monopoly (and deeply corrupt) "socialism", which, however, the current leaders have been talking about. they prefer not to mention it once again, and it can hardly be attributed to the "models of prosperity"included in the title of the book. For this country, the problem of survival and preservation of its territorial integrity is more urgent, which in modern conditions can be solved, however, only through serious, rather than cosmetic, socio-economic and political reforms.

The remaining Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia as the subject of the study also required an extremely large amount of analytical work, and the author's work seems to have been fully justified. The reader will find in the book a lot of interesting factual material and, no less important, very sharp and original author's generalizations and conclusions. In this regard, a question may arise - especially among those who have nothing to do with this region: how much and in what ways are all this analytical material and invoice useful for us? Of course, Singapore is a special case. Apart from some purely economic and technological aspects, which, by the way, Singapore's leaders borrowed from the West at one time, its experience can hardly be usefully applied in Russia. Well, unless it is decided to form a special economic zone in their native penates.

Moscow: Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 2007, 256 p.

page 177

like. For those who are not familiar with the topic, it may be recalled that Singapore was originally part of the Federation of Malaysia formed in 1963, but "the federal government, which was dominated by Malays, sought to use administrative levers to restrain Singapore's initiatives aimed at accelerating its economic development. Resolve contradictions... It turned out to be impossible" and Singapore became a sovereign state at the end of 1965 (pp. 21-22). If Singapore's experience is applicable in Russia, it is only if some particularly "advanced" region (for example, the Kaliningrad Region) withdraws from its membership, i.e. violates the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation.

Malaysia has made significant strides in developing its economy over the past decades. The educational potential is also growing. Suffice it to say that in recent years, Chinese companies have been increasingly moving their production to this country, including because the Chinese labor force, despite everything, is becoming more expensive and is increasingly more expensive than the labor force in Southeast Asia. Thailand has reached a certain level of prosperity, but it still has a very long way to go in this direction. One of the most important (if not the most important) factors in this process was political stability, provided by the unshakable and unquestionable authority of the royal power, despite all the military coups, the initiators of which first swore allegiance to the king. In this sense, the country turned out to be similar to Japan with its imperial dynasty, which has served as the core of the nation for two and a half thousand years.

All the country-specific sections of the book are of great interest, but the chapter on Indonesia attracts particular attention. Much has already been said about the fact that for all its dissimilarity, this country resembles Russia in a number of ways - both in its large population, and its multi-ethnic composition, and in the fact that in Russia, where more than 80% of the population lives in the European part, and in Indonesia, a similar share is concentrated in Java, while Sumatra Borneo and other islands are similar to Siberia - both in terms of rich resources, sparsely populated, and even in the practice of using it as a place of hard labor and exile. Finally, like Russia (both pre-revolutionary and post-Soviet), Indonesia primarily relies on raw materials for its exports. However, when reading the work of L. F. Pakhomova, other analogies arise. Take the ideology of "directed democracy" and "directed economy" officially proclaimed by Dr. President Sukarno in 1959-1960 (p. 183). Or like in 1963. For the first time in the world practice of relations between states and foreign mining companies, the Indonesian authorities introduced the so - called kontrak karya, which is the actual production-sharing agreements that are now well-known to everyone (p.182). Or the fact that nationalized foreign enterprises were managed, in fact owned, by the civil and military bureaucracy, whose representatives were aptly nicknamed" kabirovs " (kapitals birokrats) (p. 181). The results of their "work" were that the country was constantly "changing not only the fundamental principles of the chosen course, but also issued hundreds of different resolutions, decrees, decrees, often mutually exclusive" (p. 183). All these phenomena were observed in Indonesia more than forty years ago, but it is impossible to say that they are now completely obsolete.

In this regard, I would also like to note that the author probably did not accidentally list four countries in the title of the book - Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia - not alphabetically. If we take this as a hint that the word "prosperity" applies to them in descending order, then this list seems completely justified.

The monograph by L. F. Pakhomova is a significant contribution to the domestic science that studies the politics and economics of foreign countries. Experts and anyone interested in the life and experience of other nations will find it useful to read it.

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