Ten years after the east Asian financial crisis, congressional Democrats are poised to veto President George W. Bush’s proposed free trade agreement with South Korea.

The new protectionism in the US Congress is an indirect legacy of the east Asian crisis. The financial shocks of 1997-98 were the greatest to rock the region since the Great Depression. They plunged several countries into severe recession and forced three, including South Korea, to seek International Monetary Fund programmes in order to restore confidence.