This volume analyses the business environment in East Asia with reference to trade and investment flows within the region and between East Asia and Europe. Focusing on the two-way flow of management ideas, investment and technology, this study highlights the way in which both sides can benefit.
This text analyses the economic relationship that has evolved between the European Union and East Asia, and its future prospects, especially in the wake of the financial crisis that shook East Asia.
Examines the rapidly expanding economic relations between ASEAN and China in recent years, covering trade, investments, economic challenges, competition and opportunities in the various sectors of the two economies.
This new edition updates its precedessor and uses the Asian economic crisis to indicate how theoretical differences identified in the South-East Asian boom were brought into even sharper relief in the analysis of the crisis and recovery strategies.
As the world's most dynamic region, Asia embodies explosive economic growth, diverse political systems, vibrant societies, modernizing militaries, cutting-edge technologies, rich cultural traditions amid globalization, and strategic competition among major powers. As a result, international relations in Asia are evolving rapidly. In this fully updated and expanded volume, leading scholars from Asia, Europe, and North America offer the most current and definitive analysis available of Asia's regional relationships. They set developments in Asia in theoretical context, assess the role of leading external and regional powers, and consider the importance of subregional actors and linkages. Combining interpretive richness and factual depth, their essays provide an authoritative and stimulating overview. Students of contemporary Asian affairs—new to the field and old hands alike—will find this book an invaluable read. Contributions by: Amitav Acharya, Sebastian Bersick, Nayan Chanda, Ralph A. Cossa, Michael Green, Samuel S. Kim, Edward J. Lincoln, Martha Brill Olcott, T.V. Paul, Phillip C. Saunders, David Shambaugh, Sheldon W. Simon, Scott Snyder, Robert Sutter, Hugh White, and Michael Yahuda
From the founding of the Ming dynasty in 1368 to the start of the Opium Wars in 1841, China has engaged in only two large-scale conflicts with its principal neighbors, Korea, Vietnam, and Japan. These four territorial and centralized states have otherwise fostered peaceful and long-lasting relationships with one another, and as they have grown more powerful, the atmosphere around them has stabilized. Focusing on the role of the "tribute system" in maintaining stability in East Asia and fostering diplomatic and commercial exchange, Kang contrasts this history against the example of Europe and the East Asian states' skirmishes with nomadic peoples to the north and west. Scholars tend to view Europe's experience as universal, but Kang upends this tradition, emphasizing East Asia's formal hierarchy as an international system with its own history and character. His approach not only recasts common understandings of East Asian relations but also defines a model that applies to other hegemonies outside of the European order.
"Easily the most informed and comprehensive analysis to date on how and why East Asian countries have achieved sustained high economic growth rates, this book] substantially advances our understanding of the key interactions between the governors and governed in the development process. Students and practitioners alike will be referring to Campos and Root's series of excellent case studies for years to come." Richard L. Wilson, The Asia Foundation Eight countries in East Asia--Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia--have become known as the "East Asian miracle" because of their economies' dramatic growth. In these eight countries real per capita GDP rose twice as fast as in any other regional grouping between 1965 and 1990. Even more impressive is their simultaneous significant reduction in poverty and income inequality. Their success is frequently attributed to economic policies, but the authors of this book argue that those economic policies would not have worked unless the leaders of the countries made them credible to their business communities and citizens. Jose Edgardo Campos and Hilton Root challenge the popular belief that East Asia's high performers grew rapidly because they were ruled by authoritarian leaders. They show that these leaders had to collaborate with various sectors of their population to create an environment that was conducive to sustained growth. This required them to persuade the business community that their investments would not be expropriated and to convince the broader population that their short-term sacrifices would be rewarded in the future. Many of the countries achieved business cooperation by creating consultative groups, which the authors call deliberation councils, to enhance accountability and stability. They also obtained popular support through a variety of wealth-sharing measures such as land reform, worker cooperatives, and wider access to education. Finally, to inhibit favoritism and corruption that would benefit narrow interest groups at the expense of broad-based development, these countries' leaders constructed a competent bureaucracy that balanced autonomy with accountability to serve all interests, including the poor. This important book provides useful lessons about how developing and newly industrialized countries can build institutions to implement growth-promoting policies.
While, over the last 30 years, the global economy's center of gravity has shifted to East Asia, the region has remained surprisingly free of interstate military conflict. Yet this era of peace and growth has been punctuated by periodic reminders of enduring security problems in the region—from China's military modernization, to unresolved territorial disputes, to persistent tensions on the Korean peninsula. This volume is one of the first to treat these issues of economics and security as interconnected rather than separate. Its authors—leading scholars from the U.S. and China—shed new light on this important nexus by applying insights from a rich variety of approaches to explore and explain the dynamics of a region whose importance for students of both international political economy and international security has grown dramatically. They show that both economic and security 'fundamentals' matter if one is to understand the reasons for, and evaluate the durability of, East Asia's recent peace and prosperity.
Following in the tradition of generations of expatriate Chinese merchants, they began establishing small family businesses. Today, the authors show, these have expanded into conglomerate business empires. Entrusting corporate divisions almost exclusively to relatives, and dealing extensively with fellow expatriates, these entrepreneurs have formed close-knit and formidable business spheres throughout Southeast Asia - a "bamboo network."