East Asian Integration

The growth of world trade has been stagnant in recent times; trade liberalisation now has been challenged. The recent rise of anti-globalisation calls for a better integration in East Asia. How should East Asia manage its openness? This book provides profound analyses on rules of origins, non-tariff measures, restrictiveness in services and investment. It gives insight into how East Asian countries should shape its trade, investment and industrial policies. This book helps to answer what kind of a better integration it should be, and how East Asia can realise it.

A Brookings Institution Press and the Research Institute of Economy, Trade, and Industry (Japan) publication East Asian economic integration is on the rise. In the past decade, all of the region's powers have begun negotiating free trade agreements with their neighbors. They are also exploring broader regional options, such as the creation of an East Asian summit or free trade area. These developments have not always been welcomed by observers in other parts of the world. Some fear that they mark a turn away from integration into the global economy and herald the emergence of a closed, inward-looking bloc. In this timely and important book, Naoko Munakata offers an alternative perspective, based on her experience as an economic official and trade negotiator over the past 20 years. East Asian integration, she argues, is not driven by defensiveness or anti-Western sentiment. Instead, it reflects pragmatic calculations of economic interest, as well as a desire for mutual trust and a sense of community. Munakata makes her case by analyzing developments in the region since the mid-1980s, highlighting such important factors as the evolution of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), the impact of the 1997–98 Asian financial crisis, and the rise of China. She also outlines possible future scenarios for the region and offers policy prescriptions for building on regionalism's achievements to date. Over the coming decades, the rise of China, its relationship with Japan, and the institutional arrangements that bind those countries to the United States and the countries of East and Southeast Asia will become critical factors in the global balance of power. Transforming East Asia is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the roots of this transformation.

'This book offers a fascinating exploration of the contradictions of East Asian economic integration: a topic of enormous contemporary significance to observers of world political and economic affairs. The collection provides an unusually rigorous and systematic treatment of this important topic, drawing on contributions from an impressive array of experts. It will provide a valuable resource for students, scholars and other observers seeking deeper understanding of the contemporary dynamics and challenges of East Asian integration.' - Kate MacDonald, University of Melbourne, Australia 'East Asia is a crucial part of the global economy. This book analyses three key elements of East Asian economic integration: trade, investment and international finance. The authors are leading experts in their fields. Their book represents an important addition to the literature on a subject of fundamental importance both regionally and globally.' - Bradly J. Condon, ITAM, Mexico City This book analyses recent developments and likely future paths for trade and financial integration in East Asia. It suggests a more coherent, balanced way forward for regional economic integration and analyses implications for institution building in East Asia. East Asia has achieved a high degree of intra-regional trade, investment and GDP correlation, through an expanding web of free trade agreements and production networks. However, financially, most regional economies are linked more closely to North America and Europe than to each other. As trade integration has accelerated, financial and monetary integration has not kept pace. East Asian Economic Integration analyses potential reasons and remedies for this phenomenon through a multidisciplinary framework of law, politics and economics. This comprehensive book will appeal to researchers and students in political science, international relations, trade law, international finance law, and regional studies generally. It will also be of great interest to regional

This volume is intended to be the most comprehensive textbook on economic integration in East Asia. It introduces the reader to various issues related to the topic such as institutional building of FTAs; production networks and the location choice of MNEs; R&D and innovation; infrastructure development and transport costs; international migration and service trade; monetary integration; regional disparity and poverty. It also deals with the critical energy, environmental and agricultural concerns. Each chapter contains ample data and rigorous analyses, complemented by illustrative box articles. Covering a wide range of aspects surrounding economic integration in East Asia, this well-researched text will appeal to undergraduate and postgraduate students of development studies, regional economics and Asian studies. It will be of particular value to those on courses concerned with economic and regional integration.

This comprehensive Handbook provides an in-depth analysis of the nature of East Asian economic integration alongside thoughtful insights into contemporary issues, such as agricultural development, structural transformation and East Asian trade, alongside skills and human capital development policies of ASEAN. Contributors also provide detailed explanations on trade, poverty and Aid for Trade, institutional reforms, regulatory reform and measuring integration.

East Asia is now experiencing significant economic growth and social change. Integration of East Asia seems an irresistible trend, as East Asian countries are closely interdependent with each other and share many common interests in economic development. This book analyzes the cooperation and challenges of East Asian countries in the process of integration. It includes 15 chapters in four sections. The first section discusses the impact of East Asia cooperation and economic integration. The second section emphasizes the election of political leadership in East Asia. The third section covers the topics of East Asian cultural identity, history and norms. The fourth section studies the relationship between East Asia and the World. The chapters are selected from two Trilateral symposia held in Seoul and Shanghai in 2013 and 2014, respectively. The Symposia offer comprehensive and diversified views of scholars from China, Korea and Japan.

Both international trade and investment by East Asian countries have become significantly regionalized. To support this development further, efforts for regional integration have flourished in the forms of bilateral and regional free trade agreements and the ASEAN+3 and East Asia Summit processes, among many others. This book is a compilation of papers and discussions originally presented at the international symposium held during the recent global financial crisis. The symposium aimed to shed light not only on the usual economic aspect but also on other aspects of the multidimensional phenomenon called "regional integration." Thus, in this volume the authors explore the relationship between the U.S. influence and East Asian regionalism, the characteristics of East Asian integration, and the politics of inclusion/exclusion in the integration process. In addition, they point out some "missing links" in integration efforts such as cooperation in the areas of logistics, finance, trade in services, infrastructure and human resource movement. Since the global financial crisis did not deter integration efforts (rather, it has encouraged them), this book serves as a guide for future East Asian integration in terms of what to expect and what is to be done.

With featuring far-reaching diversities and disparities among the regional states in their political, economic and social systems and cultural and religious orientations, East Asia is a microcosm of international society at large. Nevertheless, there are unique dynamics unfolding in East Asia at the turn of the twenty-first century, namely the rise of China as a contender for regional and global hegemony and a set of collective initiatives to integrate the region into a harmonious community. This book provides new arguments on China’s rise and the transformation of East Asia and analyzes the foreign policy behavior of the regional states and relations among them. In doing so, the contributors show why and how China is rising, and how China’s rise shapes the emerging regional structures and institutions in East Asia. Furthermore, given the East Asian context where the world’s second and third largest economies coexist with much smaller states and with China’s ascendency likely to continue, this book challenges the pervasive dichotomy of hegemony and community. This allows for a fuller and more nuanced account of China’s role and the shifting regional policies in East Asia in which hegemonic cooperation does not necessarily lead to a hegemonic form of regional order. Presenting strategic, political, economic and historical perspectives on China’s changing role in the region and the development of regionalism, China’s Rise and Regional Integration in East Asia will be of great interest to students and scholars of Chinese politics, Asian politics, international relations and regionalism.