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Begin New Search Topic International Trade and Finance Political Geography East Asia

1. East Asia's Decoupling

Author:
Roland Rajah
Publication Date:
01-2019
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Lowy Institute for International Policy
Abstract:
East Asia is no longer reliant on US or Western markets to fuel its growth, giving it more room to manage amid global trade tensions. Heightened global trade tensions and the US desire to ‘decouple’ from the Chinese economy for national security reasons pose significant risks to East Asia’s export-driven growth model. However, the latest data suggests East Asia is no longer so dependent on exporting to the West, with China in particular eclipsing the United States as the leading source of ‘final demand’ for the rest of the region’s exports. This gives East Asia much greater room to manoeuvre, as regional integration is now a more viable platform for growth while US decoupling efforts will likely struggle to find traction in the region.
Topic:
Economics, International Trade and Finance, Global Markets, and Exports
Political Geography:
China, East Asia, Asia, North America, and United States of America

2. Between the Eagle and the Dragon: America, China, and Middle State Strategies in East Asia

Author:
G. John Ikenberry
Publication Date:
03-2016
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Political Science Quarterly
Institution:
Academy of Political Science
Abstract:
For more than half a century, the United States has played a leading role in shaping order in East Asia. This East Asian order has been organized around American military and economic dominance, anchored in the U.S. system of alliances with Japan, South Korea, and other partners across Asia. Over the decades, the United States found itself playing a hegemonic role in the region—providing security, underwriting stability, promoting open markets, and fostering alliance and political partnerships. It was an order organized around “hard” bilateral security ties and “soft” multilateral groupings. It was built around security, economic, and political bargains. The United States exported security and imported goods. Across the region, countries expanded trade, pursued democratic transitions, and maintained a more or less stable peace.
Topic:
Security, Diplomacy, International Trade and Finance, Treaties and Agreements, Bilateral Relations, and Hegemony
Political Geography:
Japan, East Asia, and South Korea

3. India-Japan Brief

Author:
Rani Mullen and Kashyap Arora
Publication Date:
11-2016
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Centre for Policy Research, India
Abstract:
Japan and India constitute two of the oldest democracies in Asia and also stand among Asia’s three biggest economies. It was in the year 1952 that India and Japan signed their first treaty and six years later in 1958, India received its first official development assistance from Japan. However, a major breakthrough in the bilateral ties took place only in the year 2000 when Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiko Mori visited India. The visit witnessed establishment of ‘Global Partnership between India and Japan’. This relationship was elevated to ‘Global and Strategic Partnership’ in 2006 which was later followed by up gradation of the bilateral partnership to the status of ‘Special Strategic and Global Partnership’ in 2014. In December 2015, both Indian and Japanese leaders also laid out the future roadmap of India-Japan ties in a joint statement referred to as ‘Japan and India Vision 2025: Special Strategic and Global Partnership Working Together for Peace and Prosperity of the Indo-Pacific Region and the World’. Both the economies also find themselves in a mutually beneficial situation with Japanese economy finding it difficult to sustain economic growth due to its ageing and shrinking population size, whereas India suffers from infrastructural bottlenecks. More importantly, stronger India-Japan alliance also provides impetus to balance and counter the growing Chinese influence and ensure freedom of navigation and multilateralism in the Indo-Pacific. Both the countries also constitute a strong source of mutual support at multilateral level on global issues including each other’s candidature as a permanent member of an expanded United Nations Security Council (UNSC) as well as India’s membership in the four international nuclear export control regimes among many others.
Topic:
International Trade and Finance, United Nations, Bilateral Relations, Partnerships, Economies, and Multilateralism
Political Geography:
Japan, South Asia, India, and East Asia

4. The Japan-South Korea Identity Clash: East Asian Security and the United States

Author:
Brad Glosserman and Scott A. Snyder
Publication Date:
05-2015
Content Type:
Book
Institution:
Columbia University Press
Abstract:
Japan and South Korea are Western-style democracies with open-market economies committed to the rule of law. They are also U.S. allies. Yet despite their shared interests, shared values, and geographic proximity, divergent national identities have driven a wedge between them. Drawing on decades of expertise, Brad Glosserman and Scott Snyder investigate the roots of this split and its ongoing threat to the region and the world. Glosserman and Snyder isolate competing notions of national identity as the main obstacle to a productive partnership between Japan and South Korea. Through public opinion data, interviews, and years of observation, they show how fundamentally incompatible, rapidly changing conceptions of national identity in Japan and South Korea--and not struggles over power or structural issues--have complicated territorial claims and international policy. Despite changes in the governments of both countries and concerted efforts by leading political figures to encourage US-ROK-Japan security cooperation, the Japan-Korea relationship continues to be hobbled by history and its deep imprint on ideas of national identity. This book recommends bold, policy-oriented prescriptions for overcoming problems in Japan-Korea relations and facilitating trilateral cooperation among these three Northeast Asian allies, recognizing the power of the public on issues of foreign policy, international relations, and the prospects for peace in Asia.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Democratization, International Trade and Finance, International Affairs, and Power Politics
Political Geography:
Japan, East Asia, and South Korea
Publication Identifier:
9780231539289
Publication Identifier Type:
ISBN

5. Chinese Strategy and Military Modernization: A Comparative Analysis

Author:
Anthony H. Cordesman and Steven Colley
Publication Date:
09-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
China’s emergence as a global economic superpower and as a major regional military power in Asia and the Pacific, has had a major impact on its relations with the United States and its neighbors. China was the driving factor in the new strategy the United States announced in 2012 that called for the U.S. to “rebalance” its forces to Asia-Pacific region. At the same time, China’s actions on its borders, in the East China Sea, and in the South China Sea have shown that China is steadily expanding its geopolitical role in the Pacific, and having a steadily increasing impact on the strategy and military developments in other Asian powers. As a result, the People’s Republic of China (PRC), the United States, and China’s neighbors face a critical need to improve their understanding of how each state in the region is developing its military power, and find ways to avoid the kind of military competition that could lead to rising tension or conflict.
Topic:
Arms Control and Proliferation, Industrial Policy, International Trade and Finance, and Power Politics
Political Geography:
China and East Asia

6. China's economic reform plan will probably fail

Author:
Derek M. Scissors
Publication Date:
02-2014
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
Reactions to the Chinese Communist Party's announcement of major economic reforms in November have ranged from unbridled optimism to skepticism about the party's ability to implement sweeping change. In fact, the reforms themselves are flawed in multiple ways-most are inauthentic, uncredible, or nonviable. However, the areas of land and finance offer more limited prospects for true reform. The primary means of judging reform progress should be progress in reducing excess capacity. The most likely outcome is that the party will claim success but the economy will slowly stagnate, harming China's partners.
Topic:
Economics, International Trade and Finance, and Reform
Political Geography:
China and East Asia

7. ASEAN Centrality and the ASEAN-US Economic Relationship

Author:
Peter A. Petri and Michael G. Plummer
Publication Date:
03-2014
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
East-West Center
Abstract:
ASEAN has become a focal point of the rapidly changing economic architecture of the Asia-Pacific region. ASEAN members are increasingly stable and politically confident, and constitute an emerging economic powerhouse. The region is dynamic, with 600 million citizens and a gross domestic product (GDP) that exceeds $2 trillion and is expected to grow 6 percent annually for the next two decades. (The Appendix at the end of this paper reports detailed output and trade projections to 2025.) Through deeper internal integration via the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) and external initiatives such as the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), ASEAN is becoming a driving force in regional cooperation and a much-courted economic partner. The AEC and the RCEP projects are globally significant: the AEC could generate powerful demonstration effects for other developing regions, and the RCEP could become an important building bloc of the multilateral trading system.
Topic:
Security, Economics, International Trade and Finance, and Markets
Political Geography:
United States, East Asia, Asia, and Asia-Pacific

8. Regional Trade Agreements in East Asia

Author:
Innwon Park
Publication Date:
03-2014
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Norwegian Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
Both intra - and inter-regional trade agreements are proliferating in East Asia. Deepening regional interdependence through trade and investment, and the necessity for stability and revitalization of the regional economy since the East Asian financial crisis in the late 1990s led the East Asian countries to adopt discriminatory RTAs. Accordingly, East Asian commercial policy stance has shifted from unilateral to bilateral to mega-lateral liberalization. This report attempts to assess the East Asian countries' efforts to liberalize the regional market by cooperating with each other. We investigate (i) why RTAs have been proliferating in East Asia, (ii) what the main characteristics of East Asian RTAs are, (iii) whether the East Asian countries are natural trading partners for each other to enhance welfare gains from RTAs, and (iv) whither East Asian RTAs. From our analysis, we recommend following policy options. First, East Asian RTAs should follow an expansionary RTA path (for example, AFTA and five ASEAN+1 FTAs → RCEP and/or TPP → FTAAP). Second, as we consider the high dependence on external economies through global trade and investment, East Asia needs to cooperate with major external trading partners by forming cross-regional RTAs with the EU and US. Third, in order to enable East Asian economies to take the more desirable expansionary RTA path, harmonizing or simplifying ROO, the cumulation of value contents among the RTA members in East Asia, and enhancing trade facilitation should be a prerequisite considering the complicated web of RTAs, regional production networks, and the consolidation of the FTAAP.
Topic:
Economics, International Trade and Finance, and Regional Cooperation
Political Geography:
East Asia and Asia

9. Sustainability of Public Debt in the United States and Japan

Author:
William R. Cline
Publication Date:
10-2014
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Peterson Institute for International Economics
Abstract:
This paper applies the probabilistic debt sustainability model developed for the euro area in Cline (2012, 2014) to sovereign debt in the United States and Japan. The results indicate that to avoid further increases in the expected ratio of public debt to GDP over the next decade, average annual primary deficits will need to be reduced by about 0.75 percent of GDP in the United States and by about 3 percent of GDP in Japan from the likely baselines as of mid-2014.
Topic:
Debt, Diplomacy, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
United States, Japan, and East Asia

10. His Excellency Shinzo Abe, Prime Minister of Japan

Publication Date:
09-2014
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
Columbia University World Leaders Forum
Abstract:
This World Leaders Forum program features an address by His Excellency Shinzo Abe, Prime Minister of Japan, followed by a question and answer session with the audience.
Topic:
Security, Arms Control and Proliferation, International Trade and Finance, and International Affairs
Political Geography:
Japan and East Asia