The new impetus towards economic integration between Europe and Asia

With the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union the large economic space of the Eurasian super-continent has also become part of the world-wide globalization process. How this process of integration of Eurasia is proceeding in key areas of cross-continental linkages is of great importance for the future of the region and for the future of the World as a whole. One of the key questions will be whether the regional and global institutions can provide adequate support for this integration process.This paper was presented as a keynote speech at The Fourteenth OSCE Economic Forum in Vienna on 23 January 2006. It draws on a longer paper by (Linn and Tiomkin in press).The authors are, respectively, Executive Director of the Wolfensohn Initiative at The Brookings Institution, Washington, DC, USA, and MBA and MPA/ID candidate at Harvard University. Johannes Linn served as Vice President for Europe and Central Asia at the World Bank from 1996 to 2003.

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US economic statecraft in East Asia

Linkage politics in the US were revived after the terroristattacks in 2001 as the US endeavored to bolster its positionin the international system. This paper examines current USeconomic statecraft in East Asia, particularly through the useof the preferential trade agreement instrument. As the US encountersincreasing threats in the region through China's economic andmilitary expansion, the emergence of Islamic militancy, andcontinuing tensions on the Korean peninsula, it is attemptingto reinforce its strategic position through the economic reinforcementof its bilateral politico-military alliances. However, as theestablishment of its recent free trade agreements has revealed,neo-mercantilist politics, as motivated by US Congressionalattention to domestic lobbying, present a risk to this strategy.It is possible that this tendency to economic nationalism, asevidenced in the Australia–US Free Trade Agreement, willdetract from the broader purpose of reinforcing the US strategicposition in the region. Received for publication April 10, 2007. Accepted for publication February 19, 2008.     

The economic transition in Central Asia: Implications for democracy

Ten years have now passed since the August coup of 1991 heralded the collapse of the Soviet Union. Whilst many of these states have successfully navigated themselves through the processes of democratic transition and consolidation, others have not. Although each of the states within the Central Asia region have held elections so that we can speak of some sort of formal democracy having been established, substantive democracy within these states is either absent or falls short of the mark. This article identifies the obstacles to democratic transition and consolidation arising from current economic circumstances and the leaders' appraisal of the political costs of further democratization.     

How European integration is perceived in Asia

From modern Asian academicians point of view European integration is multidisciplinary phenomenon. It is considered as such simply because those educators view the phenomenon from various perspectives e.g. trade and business, economics, security, law, politics, social and other relevant issues. Even though focal points of interest among Asian educators are diverse in nature but they can, perhaps, be categorised into following groups: The first group pertains to economics interest, particularly for those who wish to explain and analyze the effect of economic integration within and outside the EU. Equally interested are those who are active in the subject of world economy such as global trade and commerce. They view the EU as world economic major player similar to USA, Japan and newly emerging economy such as China–more or less as competitors between each other. The second group has a political motivation and views the EU as the most successful modern political integration. Particularly those academicians who wish to learn from the process of political integration, e.g. regionalism and enlargement of the EU. Pertaining to this group are international relations people, who, in some cases, shifted their focus to the EU as a result of the initiatives of the institutions of the European Union itself. They are also interested in the true understanding and relations among the EUs member and non-member countries. Other international relations concern such as the extent to which security and defense are becoming issues in the EU falls within this group as well. The last and perhaps the largest group views the EU social order through the method of comparative analysis among civilized societies. Comparative studies of the EU social structure and its development with other societies may bring solutions to various social problems. This group hopes to discover the strengths and weaknesses of the societal aspect of integration and hope that experiences gained through comparative analyses such as comparative law, comparative government and its welfare system, political economy of regional integration, the true effect of the acquis communautaire, etc. would contribute to new knowledge.     

Immigration and economic development in Eastern Asia

This work describes recent trends in East Asian migration and their economic effects. The great waves of emigration of the past have largely ceased from Japan and the "dragons" of East Asia, and all have become countries of illegal immigration, return of emigrants, and legal entry of professionals. All the countries except Hong Kong have maintained strict immigration policies in order to protect their traditional and homogeneous societies and the employment and income of their own citizens. But despite active encouragement of industrial displacement to countries with cheap and abundant manpower, the labor shortages in these countries have become so severe that they have had to tolerate increased immigration. There is little evidence that immigrants have taken the jobs of natives or caused their incomes to decrease. They appear to complement shrinking local labor forces in these countries of drastically reduced fertility. The annual growth of the active population is predicted to decline from 523,000 in the 1980s to 227,000 in the 1990s in Japan, from 231,000 to 149,000 in Taiwan, and from 400,000 to 300,000 in Korea. Full employment was achieved in Japan in the early 1960s, in Taiwan in the late 1960s, in Hong Kong in the early 1970s, and in Korea in the late 1980s. Full employment was the major factor prompting relaxed immigration controls in these countries. The foreign workers are concentrated in less skilled jobs in dirty or dangerous industries that are shunned by the local population. Opponents of liberalized immigration policies cite the supplementary expenditures for infrastructure and services necessitated by the workers as well as for integration of workers desiring longterm settlement, especially if they are of different ethnicity. No definitive conclusions can be drawn about the overall positive or negative impact of immigration in East Asia without specifying the perspective from which the analysis is made--economic or social, short or long term, from the employee's viewpoint or the employer's. The consequences of importing manpower must be studied in relation to possible alternatives.     

Russia's economic and strategic interests in North-East Asia

  Since the middle of the 1990s and especially after Vladimir Putin assumed the presidency Russia started to pursue an active foreign policy in North East Asia, an area considered vital for Russian national political, economic and strategic interests. While continuing to use every available method to conduct this policy Moscow placed special emphasis on promoting economic cooperation with the neighboring states, not in the least because of the development needs of Siberia and the Russian Far East. The current trends on the world energy market as well as the growing energy requirements of Russia's neighbors help to make at this stage exploration of Russian rich energy resources in East Siberia and around the Sakhalin Island to be one of the most attractive areas of regional economic cooperation. Even though these developments help to meet some of the current Russian requirements in foreign investments and modern technologies Russia is clearly interested in extending the scope of regional cooperation to other areas as well. In particular, Russia is interested in promoting its industrial exports. Another prospective area of its cooperation with regional states may cover joint transport projects – from construction of international gas and oil pipelines to linking Russian and Korean railway systems.     

Going nuclear in Northeast Asia: a global view

Northeast Asia (NEA) is on the international security agenda for a lot of reasons. The historical legacy, territorial disputes, the region’s growing importance as an economic actor and a trading partner accompanied by increasing defence expenditures and acquisition of high tech weaponry and the political isolation of a “rogue” North Korea have all contributed to fear that NEA could open a Pandora’s box of a nuclear arms race. In this paper, I analyse recent strategic trends in Asia and try to evaluate the main motivations and objectives of a country like North Korea behind Weapons of Mass Destruction proliferation and the impact of this “nuclear diplomacy” on the evolution of defence policy of major military power like Japan.

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Lessons of the European crisis for regional monetary and financial integration in East Asia

The debt crisis in several member states of the euro area has raised doubts on the viability of the European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) and the future of the euro. While the launch of the euro in 1999 stirred a lot of interests in regional monetary integration and even monetary unification in various parts of the world, including East Asia, the current crisis has had the opposite effect, even raising expectations of a break-up of the euro area. Indeed, the crisis has highlighted the problems and tensions that will inevitably arise within a monetary union when imbalances build up and become unsustainable. This article discusses the causes of the current European crisis and the challenges that EMU countries face in solving it. Based on this analysis, it derives five lessons for regional financial and monetary cooperation and integration in East Asia.     

Civil war mediation and integration into global value chains

How does the globalization of production affect interstate behavior? While scholars have paid significant attention to the effect of global value chains on trade and political economy, there has been substantially less focus on the interaction between globalized production and conflict behavior. However, the changing economic landscape has the potential to alter the decision calculus of leaders on a variety of issues, including conflict mediation. In this research note, I argue that when deciding how to allocate scarce mediation resources, major powers pay attention to the position of potential beneficiaries in the global production network. In particular, among states involved in intrastate conflicts, those that are more heavily involved in the production and sale of intermediate inputs are more likely to receive mediation from major powers. I test this argument using data on intermediate trade and civil war mediation between 1991 and 2011. The results of the analysis are consistent with the theory, suggesting that major powers are more likely to provide mediation for producers of intermediate goods, but not for consumers.     

East Asia and Europe—partners in global politics?

Practitioners and researchers have repeatedly portrayed the Asia–Europe Meeting as an institution that is not fully able to realize its agenda-setting potential in global negotiations or discourses. This paper argues that this assessment basically holds true even after 10 years of cooperation: Although ASEM tries to improve on this meagre balance by establishing a virtual secretariat and advancing common positions on trade, finance and environmental issues, cooperation between Asian and European states is frequently marred by the pitfalls of informality and the antagonisms of different cooperation cultures. Yet, successful moulding of common positions on climate change resulting in the adoption of a respective declaration may indicate an improved multilateral effectiveness of ASEM. Howard Loewen is senior research fellow at the Institute of Asian Studies (now part of GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies) in Hamburg.     

Sub-regionalism,regionalism, trans-regionalism. Implications for economic integration and international trade policies

  This paper provides a summary of the various concerns surrounding regionalism. First, it provides a brief review of regionalism with a general explanation of what regionalism means, especially in terms of regional trade agreements. Second, it discusses the various benefits that allegedly arise due to regionalism. Third, in contrast, the disadvantages and problems associated with regionalism are discussed. In conclusion, it seeks to explain the implications of regionalism in terms of economic integration, international trade policies and the future of Asia–Europe relations. It suggests that regionalism is inexorably progressing, that in the end we will all tend to share in its benefits and that countries particularly in Asia and Europe should prepare themselves in light of these developments.     

Regionalisation of higher education services in Europe and East Asia and potential for global change

International provision of higher education services in both European and East Asian countries increasingly have a regional dimension. The European Union has since 1987 promoted the mobility of students, faculty, and content through its Erasmus Programmes. The ‘Bologna’ process that began in 1998/1999 now brings over 40 European countries together to create a European Higher Education Area by the end of the current decade. Meanwhile, East Asian countries (10 in ASEAN, plus P.R. China, Japan and South Korea) are also in a process of internationalising their higher education sector with an increasing regional component. Led by Japan, the “ASEAN+3 study group on facilitation and promotion of exchange of people and human resource development” advanced a comprehensive report, welcomed by the East Asian leaders meeting in October 2003, that strives for regional promotion of lifelong learning programs; credit transfer systems; scholarships and exchange programs for students, faculty, staff; research and development cooperation; ‘centres of excellence’ including e-learning; and curricular development as bases for common regional qualification standards among interested institutions. Both regional processes could reinforce each other in various ways, but possibly chiefly through the Asia–Europe Meeting (ASEM) process, unique among various recent inter-regional dialogue and cooperation processes around the world. Moreover, European and East Asian converging higher education processes could help the rest of the world through world inter-regionalism, and through an overhaul of international organisations dealing with higher education. This research was mainly funded by a grant from the Spanish Ministry of Education, Secretary of State for Universities and Research, cofinanced by the European Social Fund. A research fellowship from the Japan Foundation’s Japanese Studies and Intellectual Exchange Department is also kindly acknowledged.

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Determinants of civil war in post-colonial Asia, 1950-1992: the role of trade openness and economic development

Although Asia has experienced civil war about as often as Sub-SaharanAfrica during the post-World War II era, there have been fewsystematic investigations into the determinants of civil warin Asia. This article examines the effects of trade opennessand economic development on the onset of civil war in post-colonialAsia, controlling for political, demographic, and geographicfactors. Analyzing data on post-colonial Asian states between1950 and 1992, we find that the onset of civil war is less likelywith increased trade openness. However, when taking into accountinteraction between trade openness and economic development,we discover that increased trade openness reduces the likelihoodof civil war onset significantly only in the context of higheconomic development. This result is robust with different modelspecifications.     

Southeast Asia and the global ‘war on terror’ discourse

This study explores global and regional war on terror discourses. It focuses upon language construction ‘framing’ the character of, and global and regional responses to, terrorism. It is concerned with social power and critiques the war on terror discourse globally and in Southeast Asia. Central to this are constructions of Islam. The analysis assesses the complexities behind often essentialized depictions of Islam. The paper argues that a deeper understanding of the complexities of the discursive dimension of the war on terror can help provide an additional understanding of the ideational background for operational counterterrorism policies and practices.