Nov. 7, 2010 (Bloomberg) -- There’s a bit of karma involved in the Group of 20 holding its summit in Seoul.

Thirteen years ago, South Korea was at the center of chaos that was going global in a hurry. Investors who ignored troubles in Thailand and Indonesia had no choice but to confront reality once the then-11th biggest economy crashed.

South Korea had U.S. stocks reeling and the Federal Reserve worried. Korea in the late 1990s was like Spain today, and Thailand was like present-day Greece -- a canary in the financial coal mine. We feared its woes would be shared by more vital places. Today, we worry Spain, the No. 9 economy, will be the Korea-like domino that causes a chain reaction.

The G-20, along with discussing China’s currency, will focus on Japan. Namely, keeping the U.S. and euro zone economies from experiencing their own lost decades.

That’s where Korean karma comes into play. Korea offers a good road map to fighting the Japanifaction of the global economy. Past actions put its economy on a virtuous path, allowing it to steer around deflation and falling living standards.

Just two years ago, South Korea was on tap to become the next Iceland. The fear was that its companies didn’t learn the lessons of the Asian crisis and issued too much short-term debt in foreign currencies. To many, that meant Korea looked like a giant hedge fund. Korea confounded the skeptics and today is growing at 4.5 percent.