Will the I.M.F. impose western-style governing on Asian nations?
JIM LEHRER: Are you concerned at all, Mr. Secretary, that when this is all said and done that the I.M.F. is going to come–a lot of people are–not a lot of people–a few people are, I guess–that when this is all said and done, you’re going to have these Asian governments who have been working on–been governing themselves based on their own standards, they’re all going to have western-style governments because the I.M.F. is basically a western organization, and they’ve come in there and imposed western-style governing on them? SEC. ROBERT RUBIN: I don’t think this is a question of government or the processes of government, Jim. This is a question of problems in the economic structure of these countries. For example, in Korea, you had a situation where the banks were extending credits to these very large conglomerates on non-economic bases, and a lot of that, in turn, was a function of policy direction from the government. The result of that was a lot of credit extension that was not
