Globalization and inter-city cooperation in Northeast Asia

Globalization has increased the role of a country's capital city as an agent of cross-national cooperation. The arduous task of solving urban problems can no longer be handled by a single city or viewed as the domestic affair of a nation-state that cannot be interfered by others. In Northeast Asia, the three capital city governments of Beijing, Seoul, and Tokyo have taken steps to cooperate among themselves through promoting the exchange of capital, labor, information, and technology. This study reviews the BESETO (Beijing-Seoul-Tokyo) cooperative scheme and considers it the beginning of a cooperative model, which can ideally promote regional integration as well. It argues that the idea of BESETO is suited for the era of global and regional cooperation, which demands a higher degree of inter-city interdependency and complementarity among major urban centers in the region. The article also touches on the domestic and international factors that have contributed to the slow development of the BESETO scheme.