Willy Shih, professor of management practice in business administration at the Harvard Business School in Boston, Massachusetts, said big companies in Taiwan, Japan and China had been expanding their business globally by leveraging differences in their strategic marketing, management and distribution.

Taiwan has experienced a disproportionate impact but with few global brands.

Japan cited a significant global brand and distribution footprint but stagnant performance. However, there are some of signs indicting big change recently, Shih said.

For China, there is a lot happening as the country is accelerating its global push.

Shih said Thailand was a key strategic hub for big Asian companies for their global expansions such as Japan’s Toyota Motor, which began exporting cars before moving to local production and management.

Toyota started with Thailand and then expanded to Australia and the US.

Matsushita (Panasonic), Honda, Cannon and Sony used the same trick by beginning with a focus on exports and manufacturing.

Shih said successful Japanese firms called this approach force learning.

He said they sent young leaders abroad and forced them to learn foreign markets through trial and error.

He said Taiwan companies took a shorter-term path towards original design manufacturing and equipment manufacturing in overseas markets.

The longer term approach necessitated splitting the contract manufacturing of electronic manufacturing services from brand and market development.

Shih said the most successful Taiwanese product internationally was the semiconductor, and that was because of the government’s lead and guidance.

Taiwanese semiconductor manufacturers entered the US market with their products priced competitively and took advantage of ongoing price wars, he said.

By March, Chinese companies announced the purchase of US companies valued at US$39 billion (Bt1.3 trillion), eclipsing 2015’s full-year record of US$17 billion (Bt595 billion) through 114 deals.

Fourteen Chinese firms spent US$102 billion (Bt3.5 trillion) to buy companies outside its borders.

However, China’s central bank governor warned that country’s corporate debt was too high and was a risk to the economy.