Countries that went the other way include Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea and later Mauritius, bywords for miraculous growth. Countries that changed tack in the twentieth century include Japan, Germany, Chile, post-Mao China, India and more recently Uganda and Ghana. China’s Open Door policy, which cut import tariffs from 55 per cent to 10 per cent in twenty years, transformed it from one of the most protected to one of the most open markets in the world.
