 Even as late as the mid-twentieth century, East Asia remained nonindustrial, poverty-stricken, and torn by the ravages of World War II.Since the 1960s, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, and Mainland China have all achieved a modern economic takeoff leaving the economic rise of modern East Asia to become one of most important economic success stories in modern world history.In spite of decades of setbacks and turmoil, East Asia is now one of the most economically prosperous and technologically advanced regions in the world.