Earlier quoted context omitted.
A small country that effectively operates as an island with angry nuclear-armed neighbors and no natural resources has figured out how to survive in the world through the skills nurtured within its own people. South Korea doesn't have the privileges that Canada and Finland both have of friendly adjacent neighbors and natural resources, which provide opportunities when Nortel and Nokia respectively stopped succeeding…
Koreans believe they can brute force their way to success but during the last 10year these policies have been failing them. It does not help that they are naturally fatalists so its always all or nothing scenario.
PRC got similar problem, but it's more they're producing too much talent than opportunties so involution happens. With like 50m more STEM + skilled labour on the way to add the the competition. But one saving grace is PRC has like 150 cities with over a million people that folks can fuck off too and still have decent quality of life. You can always lay flat and chill in a tier2/3 city nearly as vibrant as Seoul/Tokyo/Tapei with less cost of living. SKR/TW and somewhat JP is kind of fucked in that sense, most of the opportunities are in a few geopgraphic grinders where you have to be.