Suchergebnisse

Although the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), China, and Japan commonly recognize that development of the Mekong region is indispensable for achieving the smooth promotion of regional integration in East Asia, their approaches to this issue have been diverse and redundant. While ASEAN has exhibited interest in Mekong development since the mid-1990s, its members' commitments have showed significant disparity. The Chinese government has identified close links with the Mekong region as a key to advance political and economic linkages as well as to sustain the development of its underdeveloped southern areas. Japan's Mekong policy has shifted from developmental to geopolitical, combining formal institutions, financial resources, and normative ideas. Such a strategic orientation aims to balance China's growing influence by fostering direct political linkages with the Mekong countries. Weak coordination in approach to and interests in Mekong development has had negative impacts on institution building in East Asia. ASEAN's limitation to coordinate development programs has undermined its credibility as the central body to advance institution building in the region. The different approaches of China and Japan have intensified rivalry on institution building in East Asia, disturbing the evolution of ASEAN+3 institutions in the development field. (Asian Perspect/GIGA)

This article seeks to explore how stable regional order under the possible community formation can be created in East Asia in moves towards China's ascendancy. For this objective, it takes advantage of a framework assuming that the development of an East Asian community would be possible under conditions that the states in the region develop common identity and norms, as well as multilateral institutions that guarantee the long-term interest. Moreover, the society needs to be involved in identity formation and institution-building. This article argues that China has been gradually embedded into formal multilateral institutions and less formal policy networks formed by state and non-state actors, which have been conducive to the creation of a regional community. However, both collective norms at the governmental level and shared cultural consciousness at the public level have not developed enough to have significant influences on directing China firmly to the formation of a regional community. (J Contemp China/GIGA)

This article examines Japan's evolving commitments to technology development and technology diffusion in Asia. It explores Japan's technology strategies in three areas—Internet protocol, open source software, and horology—focusing on the importance of technology standards. The development and diffusion of technology standards has become one of the core elements in establishing industrial competitiveness. The importance of technology standards encouraged the Japanese government and firms to pursue a regional policy to develop and diffuse new technological ideas and standards in Asia. Japan's commitments were accepted by its neighbors because they could obtain various benefits from collaboration with Japan, such as technological exchanges, technology transfer, and financial aid.

This article examines interactions among the United States, Japan and the European Union over steel trade disputes with particular interest in Japan's reactions to the disputes. For this objective, this paper establishes an analytical framework that takes into account bilateral, international, and domestic factors in formulating a state's external policy and relations. It was found that the special relationship with the United States still impinged on Japan's reactions to steel trade disputes, but its influence has gradually declined. Moreover, growing familiarity with World Trade Organization (WTO) rules and practices and collaboration with other countries enabled Tokyo to expand its policy options to handle steel trade conflicts with Washington. Significantly, Japan formally adopted seemingly bold measures to cope with the US steel safeguard action, but the measures' substantial influence on the US government was limited compared with those adopted by the European Union. Weak policy coordination among ministries prevented Japan from formulating strategic and effective measures in managing steel trade disputes with the United States. (Pac Rev/GIGA)

AbstractThis article aims to articulate business representation in the process towards creating a unified market by comparing the regional integration process in Europe in the 1980s and in Southeast Asia in the new millennium. Both the European Community (EC) and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) adopted the creation of a single market as a feasible strategy to respond to an economic hardship. In this process, US business associations played a critical role in identifying problems and issues in promoting actual integration. As for local business, the existing business associations did not function effectively and a new association comprising individual business executives was formed. Importantly, an initiative to create a new association came not from the private sector in Europe but from the member states in Southeast Asia. This difference led to disparities in the relative influence of the two associations on the actual integration processes.

This article examines how states attempt to overcome collective action problems for promoting regional integration, by highlighting such attempts by members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). It considers two kinds of collective action problems: collaboration games where actors are lured to defect from an agreement in order to obtain short-term gains, and coordination games where actors face difficulty in reaching an agreement. The article argues that although ASEAN countries have not intended to establish a supranational body to resolve collective action problems, they have gradually developed feasible enforcement mechanisms by intensifying the centralized nature of regional organization. It also contends that some member states have begun to play a "focal point" role in resolving coordination problems resulting from accelerated regional integration and market liberalization, and the resolution of coordination problems has been pursued in a framework where extra-regional countries and environments play a significant role.