This paper highlights the highly contingent and constrained possibilities for states concerned with gaining and maintaining economic and, relatedly, strategic advantage in East Asia in a world dominated by global value chains (GVCs) owned and controlled by transnational capital. While the reorganisation of production has given rise to new contender states such as China, challenging the economic and strategic positions of others, the ability for states to engage in non-market conforming behaviour designed to reduce technological dependence, accumulate reserves and embolden national positions against competitors is far more constrained than it once was. Prioritising the relative power and leverage of states operating in various contexts over time, three types of state are identified within contemporary East Asia: former developmental states under persistent competitive pressures compelling very different policy agendas to those that underpinned their respective development stories; a somewhat exceptional constrained “aspirant state”, attempting mercantilist strategies to achieve strategic upgrading under the spectre of systemic exclusion and formidable domestic challenges; and, finally, relatively vulnerable “eke-out” competition states, attempting to leverage labour cost, geography and regulation to maintain economic relevance within the context of hyper competitiveness while also engaging in forms of quarantining and patronage. Our overarching argument is that the latitude to both pursue and leverage ES strategies common in the past is all but gone, even for the most powerful of contender states.