The challenge of institution-building in Asia and its implications for Asia-Europe relations

  East Asia, including Northeast Asia and Southeast Asia, has developed tightly-linked production/distribution networks through globalizing corporate activities. The vertical chain of production in East Asia has been even more sophisticated than economic integration in East Europe or Latin America. However, the political environment of East Asia for trade and investment has been far from borderless. The integration effort at the policy level has been very much limited so far, due to the historical background as well as geopolitics surrounding East Asia. The Asian currency/financial crisis provided these countries a historical turning point. After the burst of the crisis, East Asians realized that they have to take care of themselves in their difficulties, not depending on outside forces. A natural choice for them was to step into the realm of regionalism. In 1998, Japan and Korea officially announced that they would discard the long-lasting GATT/WTO-only approach and adapt the multi-layered approach, including both regionalism and multilateralism. The ultimate goal of regionalism would be a region-wide integration including ASEAN+3. As a steppingstone, Japan signed the Japan-Singapore Economic Partnership Agreement (JSEPA) in January 2002. In a parallel move, the ASEAN and China Leaders announced in November 2001 the establishment of an ASEAN-China Free Trade Area (ACFTA) within 10 years. This article will follow up the most recent advancement of regional institutional building in East Asia with the emphasis on peculiar characteristics of economic integration in the region and discuss its implications for Asia-Europe relations. This paper is heavily drawn from Kimura (2002, 2003).     

The emergence of regional economies in China and its implications,with special reference to Hong Kong and Guangdong

  China's continental physical expanse has been a dominant, shaping influence of its political, social and economic development throughout its modern history. Thanks to its relative ethnic homogeneity, as well as the absence of political reform, it has – unlike the former Soviet Union – preserved its unity as a state. Nevertheless, regionalism remains a powerful counterpoint to centralisation in China. In particular, under the impact of post-1978 economic reforms, differentials and tensions between provinces and regions have emerged as a potent force, threatening the authority and power of Beijing. This article begins by seeking to explore some of the regional forms in which economic change has manifested itself during the last two decades. It highlights the unique problems faced by an economy that is still in transition in a country as large as China. Brief consideration is also given to the wider regional context in which China is sometimes placed as the central player – namely, that of `Greater China'. At the heart of the article is a case study that examines the evolution of a particular kind of regionalism, captured in the economic integration – even symbiosis - between Hong Kong and Guangdong. The question is addressed whether the form of regionalism contained within the forging of an ever-closer economic relationship between these two areas of South China can be a model for the integration of other regions both within and across China's national boundaries. Hong Kong's transformation from a tiny, dependent, colonial enclave into one of the most successful economies in the world is one of the most remarkable stories of post-World War II economic history. During the 1960s and 1970s, Hong Kong's growth record was unmatched anywhere else in the world. But by the beginning of the 1980s, high land rents and spiralling wages started to erode the international competitiveness that had been the basis of Hong Kong's previous economic success. By a happy coincidence, however, the emergence of such pressures coincided with the opening of China to the outside world. China's `open door' policy thereby made available to Hong Kong entrepreneurs a huge, hitherto untapped reservoir of cheap labour and gave them access to inexpensive factory sites just across the border in Guangdong. It was a lifeline to which they responded eagerly and, through the relocation of their factories, provided the means whereby Hong Kong manufacturers discovered a new lease of life. The benefits associated with this process accrued not only to Hong Kong through the regeneration of its manufacturing industry. Rather, it was a two-way process that also facilitated economic growth, structural transformation and improvements in living standards in Guangdong (above all, in the Pearl River Delta). In short, the process became the basis of deepening integration between the economies of the two regions. Indeed, it was the key element in the emergence of a new regional economic grouping, known as `Greater China' – an informal triangular partnership between Hong Kong, Taiwan and two southern Chinese provinces (Guangdong and Fujian). The emergence of `Greater China' can be regarded as a particular manifestation of the coastal bias that has so strongly characterised China's economic trajectory under reform. To this day, the triangular economic nexus between Hong Kong, Taiwan and South China remains an important dimension of China's external economic relations, even if developments in other coastal provinces have caused it to weaken. To what extent recent and future developments have challenged and will continue to challenge the regionalism inherent in the original notion of Greater China is something that deserves close attention. Not least, the strategic initiative of opening up China's western regions poses interesting and important questions that touch on future developments of `trans-nationalism' and `trans-regionalism' affecting China.     

New regionalism(s) in the global political economy. Conceptual understanding in historical perspective

  This paper places the contemporary study of regionalism in historical context. It argues that the study of regionalism has occurred in two waves. The first gathered pace as a sub-field of International Relations from the late 1950s and the second emerged in the context of the globalisation of the late 1980s and the 1990s. RID="*" ID="*" This paper, originally presented as a lecture to the Asia Europe Foundation University, 7^th Summer School, Barcelona: November 11, 2002, represents an abbreviated and revised version of Shaun Breslin and Richard Higgott (2000) Studying Regions: Learning from the Old Constructing the New, New Political Economy 5 (3): 333–352. Permission of the Editors of New Political Economy to publish in this form is gratefully acknowledged. The support of the Economic and Social Research Council in the writing of this paper is also gratefully acknowledged.     

European perspectives towards the rise of Asia: contextualising the debate

To what extent can we speak of a distinctively ‘European’ security approach towards the Asia-Pacific region? In order to address that timely question, this article examines how Britain, France, Germany and the European Union (EU) are framing their evolving security roles in the Asia-Pacific region, and how those individual perspectives intersect with each other. The article identifies a number of important common features in Europe’s approaches towards security in the Asia-Pacific, namely the tendency of most European actors to emphasize the economic and diplomatic nature of their contribution to regional security, their promotion of regional multilateral security fora, their rejection of the notion that China’s rise is inherently challenging for regional and global security, and their willingness to signal their differences towards Washington’s emphasis on military power and alliance-based approach. However, and despite the existence of common traits, individual European actors show different degrees of closeness vis-à-vis the US and China and feature different perspectives regarding which security relationships they should prioritize in the region (if any), or the appropriate balance between diplomacy and security and defence cooperation. Such divergences prevent Europeans from developing a coherent security profile in the region and preclude us from speaking of a distinctively European security approach towards the Asia-Pacific.     

Intellectual property provisions and support for US trade agreements

Intellectual property rights are a key piece of the expanded trade agenda, and the United States has pushed hard to strengthen protections beyond WTO standards in its trade agreements. While agreement provisions governing intellectual property are commonly thought to be an important driver of corporate preferences over US trade policy, systematic empirical evidence for this proposition, especially in comparison to other determinants of trade policy, is generally lacking. To fill this void, this paper examines variation in reliance on intellectual property across US industries to explain attitudes and lobbying on US trade agreements. The effects of IP provisions on support for US trade agreements are politically substantial, though trade remains the primary determinant of preferences over trade agreements.     

The Effects of Political Talk Radio On Political Attitude Formation: Exposure Versus Knowledge

The effects of political news on the mass audience are usually difficult to establish empirically. Recent models of mass communication effects have held that political knowledge is a better indicator of media reception than traditional measures of exposure. This claim is tested in two studies of attitudes toward Democratic and Republican leaders during the 1996 U.S. presidential primary campaigns. The impact of messages from three types of political talk radio (PTR) is examined: Rush Limbaugh, other conservative hosts, and liberal/moderate hosts. Political knowledge and exposure to talk radio are found to be equally good predictors of attitudes toward political leaders when studied separately. However, when tested against one another, exposure is the more effective measure. Agreement between Rush Limbaugh's messages and his audience's attitudes toward political figures is consistent and strong. Biased processing of PTR content by audience members with partisan predispositions contrary to those of the host is also examined.     

朝鲜的变化与中朝关系--从"传统友好合作关系"到"实利关系"

中国和朝鲜关系自1999年开始恢复,这虽不表示两国已恢复过去的同盟关系,但一定会对朝今后的发展起到积极作用.本文首先介绍中朝关系的变化;然后分析在向朝鲜提供改革模式及理念、经济资源、政治军事援助过程中,中国对朝鲜变化产生的影响;最后得出主要结论,即虽自20世纪90年代后期开始,朝中关系正式进入恢复阶段,但双方关系不再以共享理念和战略目标为基础,而是基于现实利益或战术目标.朝中关系这一新特点将继续制约中国对朝鲜变化过程的影响.此外,文章还针对朝鲜的发展变化,就中韩合作问题提出了若干建议.     

The European Union’s trade and investment policy in Asia: new challenges and opportunities in a changing global environment – or: following individual roadmaps

Asia is Europe’s largest trading partner and EU-Asia trade relations have undergone a rapid change since the global financial crisis. On a global scale, the new multilateral trade agreements such as the now stalled Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) involving European Unions’ (EU) major trading partners such as Japan, Singapore and Vietnam also have the potential to change the trade equations. In this paper, we evaluate the new EU trade policy which has been designed to ensure that the EU benefits from the changing global trade scenario and also look at the steps which have been taken by the EU to promote trade relations with its major trading partners in Asia in the predicted ‘Asian century’. We look into the Free Trade Agreements, which are being negotiated with its Asian partners and seek to understand the reasons which have resulted in delays in their signing and negotiations. We evaluate new policies pushed forward by its Asian partners such as the One Belt One Road policy by China and Japan’s policy of securing a large number of trading agreements in the America. Moving ahead, we also shed light on the indirect factors that may influence the success of EU trade negotiations in Asia such as the EU policy on granting China market economy status and the commencement of the ‘Brexit’ process. Lastly, we try to present a list of immediate priorities for EU in Asia, which will ensure that it secures a toehold in trade with the region. All in all, it is shown that the EU has not one and the same approach for all Asian countries but it negotiates flexibly and individually country by country. Because of this “country by country approach” the EU is also not ready to enter into general EU-ASEAN trade negotiations again.