外部约束与东亚经济结构转型

长久以来,东亚经济增长一直是在供求要素结构不完备的经济体系下实现的,这一内在缺陷决定了东亚需要借助外部力量才能实现经济增长。外部力量既是东亚外向型经济增长的结构基础,也是影响或控制东亚经济增长的主要制约因素。2008年全球金融危机的爆发预示着有利于东亚经济增长的外部环境发生逆转,迫使东亚开始新一轮的结构调整与转型。而此次结构调整与转型将主要通过对过去经济运行体系特别是市场要素缺失的矫正来实现,以尽可能减少外部力量对经济增长的负面影响。     

多边主义与东亚高政治合作

中国在国际关系中积极倡导多边主义,充分体现了中国外交与时俱进的精神和当代中国外交文化的先进性内涵.推动东亚政治合作是面向21世纪中国奉行多边主义外交战略的重要步骤,它事关东亚能否崛起为世界重要一极.中国在东亚的多边主义战略目标是构建一个和谐的东亚政治经济和安全环境.由于传统和历史的原因,东亚国家一直比较重视在"低政治"领域展开合作,但对"高政治"领域的合作却畏首畏尾,显得比较缓慢和迟钝.其实,东亚国家在战后初期就存在着大国主导"高政治"领域合作的空间.东亚虽然是世界主要的文明发祥地、战后各主要国家也先后实现了经济的起飞,但是政治上的作用却未能很好发挥出来.相反,东亚却成为霸权主义和强权政治轻易得手和随意操纵的地方,特别是由于政治合作意愿淡薄,直接导致了东亚大国政治上的分散化和政治问题的频繁发生,进而也威胁到经济社会发展领域,中日关系就是一个突出的例子.解决朝核问题的多边主义模式应该机制化,这是东亚"高政治"合作的重要起点,而中国应该成为该机制化过程中的主导力量.     

Japan and global environmental leadership

Japan is poised to take on the responsibilities of environmental leadership. The environment is a “new” issue and the assumption by Japan of an activist role will not provoke unease in Asia about Japanese intentions or be viewed in the United States as a challenge to its global hegemony. Japan more than any other country appears to have broken the link between economic growth and ecological degradation. It offers a cognitive model to other nations, especially its East Asian neighbors concerned by the nonsustainability of current growth models. Japan also deploys financial and technological resources that make a leadership bid credible.     

Neomercantilism and Energy Interdependence: Russian Strategies in East Asia

Abstract

This article examines the potential for Russia's Siberian and Far East energy projects to create webs of interdependence with the major energy-importing countries of East Asia. Energy policy toward Asia is analyzed with reference to Europe's problematic energy dependence on Russia, where Moscow has supported attempts by state-owned companies like Gazprom to extend control over energy supply and distribution. This analysis finds that Moscow's neomercantilist energy strategy, designed to advance Russian state power, has been marginally more successful with the weaker, more energy-dependent states of Japan and South Korea. China, Asia's major rising power, is more sensitive to the prospect of becoming too dependent on Russia as a supplier of oil and gas, because dependence could constrain Beijing's global ambitions.     

中日两国在东亚区域内贸易中地位的变化及其影响

东亚区域内贸易比重的迅速上升是现阶段东亚贸易发展的一个重要特征。中国和日本作为东亚区域内两个最大的经济体,两国在东亚区域内贸易中的地位和影响力的变动对相互之间的经济合作以及区域内经济合作模式的选择,具有十分重大的影响。本文在分析东亚区域内贸易发展现状的基础上,从中间产品和最终产品的贸易结构与贸易竞争压力的角度,分析了中日两国在东亚区域内贸易中地位的变动及其影响。     

Indonesian local party politics

Since the fall of Soeharto in 1998, economic reforms have been linked to internationally supported programs to introduce market-facilitating “good governance” practices, which include the promotion of democratic elections and administrative and fiscal decentralization. International development organizations have thus put forward decentralization as necessary, essentially, to save Indonesia from becoming an irredeemably “failed state” — an issue that has now grown in importance because of the current nature of Western security concerns in Southeast Asia. But this article suggests that the way decentralization has actually taken place can only be understood in relation to the entrenchment of a democratic political regime run by the logic of money politics and violence, and primarily dominated by reconstituted old New Order elites. Taking local party politics in North Sumatra and East Java as case studies, the article shows that local constellations of power, with an interest in the perpetuation of predatory politics, still offer significant sites of resistance to the global neoliberal economic and political agenda.     

The United States and East Asia in an age of financialization

This article starts from Peter Gowan's notion of a Dollar-Wall Street Regime (DWSR) characterized by financial deregulation, the dollar as the world's currency, large international capital flows, and frequent financial crises. The author argues that the DWSR has relied on a special economic relationship between the United States and East Asia, characterized by large East Asian trade and current account surpluses with the United States and the investment of East Asian dollar holdings in U.S. capital markets. For some time both parties benefited from this relationship, but eventually it gave rise to financial crises in East Asia. Thus, Japan's financial crisis around 1990 and the 1997/98 East Asian financial crisis are both related to economic over-accumulation caused by the buildup of currency reserves through trade with the United States. Attempts at East Asian monetary integration since 1997 are viewed as a potential challenge to the DWSR. These attempts have however been blocked or rendered harmless by regional divisions as well as by U.S. resistance. While an East Asian political challenge to theDWSRis unlikely for the time being, the special U.S.-East Asian economic relationship may become substantially weakened by the growing problems of the U.S. economy.     

Yasuhiro Nakasone Proposal on Maritime Security in East Asia

Maritime security in East Asia is essential to the peace and prosperity of the world. Today, serious problems in this domain have arisen in the region. Resolving these problems is a pressing issue that impacts not just the region, but also the preservation of the peace and prosperity of the entire globe. Despite this urgent need, cooperative frameworks for preventing problems from arising in the first place—as opposed to mere security regimes for deterring conflicts—have yet to be organized. To preserve a maritime security order in East Asia that is based on laws and rules, mechanisms based on mutual trust must be arranged for deterring and preventing conflict.

Based on the foregoing, the Institute for International Policy Studies (IIPS) has been engaged in research on problems of maritime security in East Asia. In December 2015, IIPS held the High-Level Conference on Maritime Security in East Asia and unveiled the “Yasuhiro Nakasone Proposal on Maritime Security in East Asia” (the “Nakasone Proposal”). This paper will discuss the “Nakasone Proposal” and the background to its formulation, as well as the institute's future endeavors.     

China and the competition for oil and gas in Asia

While its economic dynamism stimulates continued growth in Asia, China's increasing demand for energy is creating intense competition, particularly with Japan, over international sources of supply. Domestic fields have generally been disappointing, as have efforts to pipe gas from Central Asia and Russia to the east coast. Consequently, China is not only paying greater attention to potential petroleum resources in the East and South China Seas, but also considering the vulnerability of its sea-lanes to the Middle East and beyond. Its need to diversify has promoted closer relations with Central Asia, the Middle East, and the oil producing countries of Africa and Latin America, but the jury is out on whether China's concerns for secure energy supply will lead to international cooperation against terrorism or fuel the already heated competition for oil and gas. As China continues to assure its future energy security in Asia and many areas of the world, sustained bilateral and multilateral diplomacy to reconcile disputes and avoid conflict will become more important than ever.     

东亚区域的生产分工、产品需求结构与贸易模式转型

东亚区域生产分工经历了产业间、产业内和产品内三种分工形式以及雁行和生产网络两种分工模式的演进路径,并且影响着东亚区域内产品需求结构的变化。对外部最终产品市场的严重依赖是东亚区域产品需求结构的主要特征,东亚区域外需主导型的贸易模式亟待转型。中国在东亚贸易模式转型过程中将发挥重要的作用。     

Issues in regional integration of east asia: conflicting priorities and perceptions

Since the end of the 1990s, the ASEAN countries and China, Korea and Japan have been pursuing regionalist efforts, namely the ASEAN?+?3 process. With Japan's participation, it is the first major endeavour for East Asia to establish a regionwide economic integration. The success of the integration process, however, depends on how the countries solve multiple issues, such as diverse expectations of economic integration among the members, the drifting course of US policies towards East Asia and an emerging contest for regional leadership between Japan and China. This article intends to illustrate these issues and suggests that there are a number of uncertainties in the integration process and that the region may have not necessarily found effective means to overcome the problems.     

Challenges for currency cooperation in East Asia

The defects of the current international financial system are creating tremendous distortions in the economies of East Asia. For the time being, most of the developing countries in East Asia have no choice but to adopt some sort of a flexible, wider band system (crawling band) while resorting to capital control when necessary, in order to avoid the recurrence of the Asian currency crisis. Japan's approach to building a stable international financial system in East Asia has gone through several stages since the late 1970s. Though the latest approach of setting up the Asian Bond Fund (ABF) is a step in the right direction, the ABF has severe limitations in reducing the risks for the developing countries in Asia. The ABF needs to be replaced by the Asian Bond Corporation (ABC) in order to develop an international capital market in Asia and use the abundant saving in Asia for financing the growth of Asia. In the process of expanding the activities of the ABC, Asia can adopt the notional common currency based on a basket of major currencies. That notional currency will pave the way toward introducing the Asian common currency, which can be the ultimate goal for the economic cooperation and integration in East Asia. In the meantime, while enhancing currency cooperation, East Asia needs a lender of the last resort in order to keep its economy from collapsing from another currency attack. Japan has been trying to play that role and is poised to take that responsibility as the largest and the most developed economy in the region. International capital markets and a truly international currency must be supported by numerous institutions and intellectual frameworks. Asia is yet to build those institutions. To help build those institutions, we in East Asia need to establish a new international research institution which would coordinate the strenuous intellectual efforts needed for building institutions that bolster the international capital market in Asia. The envisaged new institute can be dubbed the "Asian Monetary Institute," or "AMI."     

区域安全竞争中的东亚区域主义——基于对欧洲/北美区域主义的比较分析

区域主义的启动和深化受区域内外安全环境的影响。欧洲区域主义的启动和深化与其内外安全环境之间呈正相关关系,因而它得以历经冷战而不衰,并在冷战后进一步强化。比较而言,北美区域主义的深化与其内外安全环境总体上都是负相关关系,因而北美区域主义至今基本上仍仅限于经济领域。与北美区域主义类似,东亚区域主义的深化与东亚区域内外安全环境也基本上是负相关关系,但不同的是,由于东亚区域的内部安全环境是竞争性的,因此东亚区域的"共同体感觉"虽然呈日益强化之势,但总体上说是脆弱的。东亚区域主义的深化不仅受区域内部安全竞争的挑战,还受到区域外部的竞争性安全环境———区域间大国和全球大国安全竞争———的制约。     

The limits of feminist political intervention in Singapore

This article uncovers the strongly ideological quality in Singapore's theory and practice of pragmatism. It also points to a strongly pragmatic quality in the ideological negotiations that play out within the dynamics of hegemony. In this complex relationship, the combination of ideological and pragmatic manoeuvring over the decades has resulted in the historic political dominance of the People's Action Party (PAP) government in partnership with global capital. But in an evolving, diversifying and globalising society, this manoeuvring has also engendered a number of mismatched expectations. It has also seen a greater sensitivity and attention to the inherent ideological contradictions and socio-economic inequalities that may erode what has been a relatively stable partnership between state and capital. This article argues that Singapore's one-party dominant state is the result of continuous ideological work that deploys the rhetoric of pragmatism to link the notion of Singapore's impressive success and future prospects to its ability to attract global capital. In turn, this relies on maintaining a stable political system dominated by an experienced, meritocratic and technocratic PAP government. While this Singaporean conventional wisdom has supported the political and economic interests of the state and global capital in a period of neo-liberal globalisation, its internal contradictions and external pressures have also begun to challenge its hegemonic pre-eminence.     

Korea’s regional economic role

Conclusions The deepening of economic integration in Northeast Asia and East Asia as a whole will be a major dynamic of change that will accelerate in the coming years, and the ROK is well positioned to play a number of critical roles in the way that this process unfolds. There are limits, however, on what can feasibly be expected. Korea's ambitions to be a larger regional player should be tempered by political and market realism. Continuing efforts to improve the business environment in the ROK to attract FDI will need to accompany efforts to expand regional roles. It also seems inevitable that coordination of political and security dimensions to the US-ROK relationship with the implications of the ROK's growing regional economic activities and relationships will become more complex and demanding on both countries in the future, and both should be prepared for this likelihood.     

Review essay: Recent books on Indonesia's occupation of East Timor and the East Timorese struggle for self-determination

Abstract

East Timor is the site of one of the great genocides since World War II. Out of a population of about 700,000 at the time of East Timor's brief independence, about 200,000 people have died as a result of the Indonesian invasion and the ensuing war, politically created famine, and the ongoing occupation. From the time of the Indonesian invasion on 7 December 1975 until January 1989 Jakarta kept East Timor closed. Apart from official foreign delegations, some international aid workers, and a limited number of journalists, few were able to enter the territory. On 27 December 1988 the Indonesian authorities accorded East Timor open-territory status following a one-day visit in November to the territory by Indonesian president Suharto. Jakarta was keen on encouraging foreign and “domestic” (Indonesian) investment in its “twenty-seventh province” as well as presenting an image to the outside world of normalcy in East Timor. On both accounts, Jakarta has largely failed in its objectives. The ongoing resistance by the East Timorese people to Indonesian hegemony and the concomitant political instability in East Timor as well as the relative poverty and isolation of the territory have prevented the influx of private capital. In terms of international opinion, the “opening up” of East Timor has not helped to suppress the image of the brutal nature of Indonesia's illegal occupation of the territory.     

Japan Confronts the Global Economic Crisis

In the face of the global economic crisis of 2008–09, Japan has played a positive role in helping to stabilize the regional and global financial systems. Among the positive actions it has taken have been large-scale fiscal and monetary stimulus at home, an unprecedentedly large loan to the International Monetary Fund, liquidity support to South Korea, and a proactive role in G-20 discussions. However, regional arrangements such as the Chiang Mai Initiative have been of minimal importance in preventing financial crises in East Asia. Japan can continue to demonstrate leadership in promoting regional economies and financial systems by expanding its current activities, while ensuring that regional arrangements continue to support global ones.     

东亚经济地区主义的终结?——制度过剩与经济整合的困境

冷战结束以来,东亚的经济地区主义虽然取得了一些进展,但至今仍然没有发展出一个成熟稳定的区域制度框架来推动区域经济进行深度整合。该地区多重制度框架相互竞争,造成了一种"制度过剩"的特殊格局。这导致东亚地区在经济整合的过程中,缺乏有力的制度推动和有效的区域治理,具体表现为该地区至今仍难以建立有助于提高经济绩效的经济要素完全自由流动的统一经济区;难以采取集体行动,共同应对来自外部的各种经济风险和冲击。本文认为,东亚地区多重制度竞争的背后,是由于与该区域相关的主要行为体对塑造东亚经济秩序有着不同的利益偏好和战略诉求,他们各自极力推动对自身有利的区域机制,从而形成"制度过剩"。主要行为体在东亚的主导权竞争以区域制度竞争的形式展开。随着金融危机之后中国经济的加速崛起以及美国决心重返东亚,东亚经济整合中制衡与反制衡的矛盾将日益突出,从而带来更加激烈的制度竞争,这是东亚经济地区主义遭遇挫折而非取得成功的标志,东亚地区将因此继续沦为经济全球化进程中的"碎片"。     

东亚共同体的主导与中日韩的自身定位

伴随东亚一体化的进展,东亚各国对于东亚一体化主导权的争夺非常激烈。近年来,在东亚地区的经济增长之下,东亚共同体构想开始提上日程。对于东亚共同体的建设,东亚各国都各有其构想及自我定位。本文分析了中国在东亚一体化中的自我定位及面,临的现实挑战,梳理了由史至今日本整合东亚的历史及其失败影响,分析了韩国在东亚一体化中的自我定位及现实局限。在缺乏强有力的推动力量下,东亚一体化的未来仍应该以东盟为核心,以＂10＋3＂机制为推动力量,以开放性原则推进东亚共同体的建设。     

Peter Gowan's “American grand strategy”

While this article broadly agrees with Peter Gowan's concern about the new militarism of the United States and the appalling consequences that have emerged as a result of U.S. preemption in Iraq, it questions the extent to which his portrait of U.S. hegemony addresses all the relevant issues as they affect the Asian region. Given the numerical dominance of Asia in world population and the rising power of China and India, how Gowan's “American Grand Strategy” applies to this part of the world is of fundamental importance to the relevance and sustainability of his argument. Part 1 on U.S. economic hegemony argues that U.S. capital has not been an unmitigated evil for India and where U.S. interests have been damaging they are not uniquely so: the European Union's economic policies have also been deeply damaging even though Europe is not a hegemon. Part 2 on U.S. political hegemony argues that bringing Pakistan and India into the U.S. alliance system has been beneficial for regional security and domestic political-ethnic stability. Part 3 considers responses to U.S. hegemony, arguing that this supremacy is more fragile than Gowan assumes because new powers, such as China and India, have long-term strategies to reduce their dependency. The conclusion suggests that despite widespread criticism and dissatisfaction with the nature of U.S. engagement in Asia, the dominant view in the region is one that sees the United States as a useful wedge between the emerging interests of China, India, and Japan. In short, the “American Grand Strategy” is not as negative, overwhelming, or as unpopular as Gowan suggests.