This article unpacks how neoliberal discourse functions as a dominant but problematic system of reasoning that changes and shifts the ways in which we come to think about early childhood education and care. A post-structuralist lens is deployed to understand the production of fears and hopes under the looming shadows of contemporary education reforms and social policies. Highlighting Taiwan, Hong Kong and Korea as three cases from East Asian cultures, this article seeks to elucidate how a similar neoliberal economic and political imaginary is at work to (re)construct East Asian children as human capital for the alchemy of productive citizens in the 21st century.