Once upon a time, there were 4 Asian Dragons: Hong Kong, Korea, Singapore and Taiwan.

Between the early 1960s and 1990s when China was extremely poor (GDP below $400 bln), these regions experienced exceptionally rapid industrialization and economic growth, with growth rates often exceeding 7% a year. They transformed from developing economies into high-income, developed ones, becoming major global players in finance and technology.

Fast forward to 2025, China GDP is projected to be around $19.4 trillion USD, ranking it the world's second-largest economy, with an estimated growth rate around 4.8%, and importantly, China is the world's number 1 economiy when measured by Purchasing Power Parity (PPP). China's economy has held this rank since around 2014. Today in terms of PPP: China ~$41.02 trillion vs United States ~$30.62 trillion.

China's rise to become Asian's Super dragon has weaken the 4 Asian Dragons economies.

Korea:
As of 2025, several authoritative reports from Korean think tanks and industrial surveys indicate that China has successfully overtaken South Korea in both foundational technology and market competitiveness across several critical sectors, including Steel making, semiconductor procution, automobiles and parts, ship building.
Recent industrial surveys of South Korean firms predict that China will overtake South Korea in all 10 major export areas by 2030, including Petrochemicals and Biomedical/Health products. Korea's only remaining perceived advantage as of late 2025 is in Product Brand, but even this is expected to be eclipsed within five years.

Taiwan is doing well because::

• China offered Taiwan favorable terms through the 2010 Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA), which significantly reduced tariffs, boosting Taiwan's exports (especially tech like semiconductors) and creating a large trade surplus for Taiwan. taiwan tradee surplus wiht China and Hong Kong were $80 bln in 2024.
• TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company) is the world's largest dedicated chip foundry. It produces 70% of high end chips and 90% of most advance 5nm, 3nm, and upcoming 2nm nodes chips.
  (How long can these last depends on: China willing to continue to support the current trade agreement between China and taiwan; and, how much progress China makes in high end chip production.)

Hong Kong economy slowed in recent years due to aggressive anti China foreign trade policies. China is doing all it could to help HK reverse the economic slowdown and there are signs of improvements.

Singapore:
Under the "clever opportunistic manipulation" by Lee Kuan Yew (LKY), Prime Minister from 1959 to 1990, who transformed Singapore from a developing port to a global economic powerhouse.

To this day, the English spoken and an Americanised nation, continued to gain economic and trade benifits from its allies USA and Japan, often working quiety in the background, against the geopolitical interest of China.

There are signs that China is taking steps to put Sngapore in its place:

• Hainan free trade port and developing HongKong to displace Singapore as the Asia's top financial hub.

AIMHO.