Showing papers on "East Asia published in 2000"

The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy

Abstract: "The Great Divergence" brings new insight to one of the classic questions of history: Why did sustained industrial growth begin in Northwest Europe, despite surprising similarities between advanced areas of Europe and East Asia? As Ken Pomeranz shows, as recently as 1750, parallels between these two parts of the world were very high in life expectancy, consumption, product and factor markets, and the strategies of households. Perhaps most surprisingly, Pomeranz demonstrates that the Chinese and Japanese cores were no worse off ecologically than Western Europe. Core areas throughout the eighteenth-century Old World faced comparable local shortages of land-intensive products, shortages that were only partly resolved by trade.Pomeranz argues that Europe's nineteenth-century divergence from the Old World owes much to the fortunate location of coal, which substituted for timber. This made Europe's failure to use its land intensively much less of a problem, while allowing growth in energy-intensive industries. Another crucial difference that he notes has to do with trade. Fortuitous global conjunctures made the Americas a greater source of needed primary products for Europe than any Asian periphery. This allowed Northwest Europe to grow dramatically in population, specialize further in manufactures, and remove labor from the land, using increased imports rather than maximizing yields. Together, coal and the New World allowed Europe to grow along resource-intensive, labor-saving paths.Meanwhile, Asia hit a cul-de-sac. Although the East Asian hinterlands boomed after 1750, both in population and in manufacturing, this growth prevented these peripheral regions from exporting vital resources to the cloth-producing Yangzi Delta. As a result, growth in the core of East Asia's economy essentially stopped, and what growth did exist was forced along labor-intensive, resource-saving paths--paths Europe could have been forced down, too, had it not been for favorable resource stocks from underground and overseas.

Dividends and Expropriation

Abstract: In Western Europe and East Asia, capital markets require higher dividends from corporations tightly affiliated (at the 20% level of control) to a group and, within a group, from corporations whose controlling shareholder has a lower ratio O/C of ownership to control rights. For loosely-affiliated corporations (whose controlling shareholder holds between 10% and 20% of control rights), dividends are positively related to O/C, reflecting expropriation not contained by capital markets. Such corporations comprise 2.94% of European corporations, but 15.44 % of Asian corporations. In our 9 Asian economies, the 11 largest groups at the 10% level comprise 53.75% of all corporations and 84.58% of loosely-affiliated corporations, so most expropriation occurs here. Dividend are higher in Europe than in Asia; having multiple large shareholders increases dividends in Europe but decreases them in Asia.

Productivist Welfare Capitalism: Social Policy in East Asia:

Abstract: The article engages with the literature on the ‘East Asian welfare model’ by using Esping-Andersen's ‘worlds of welfare capitalism’ approach to analyze social policy in the region. It describes the main features of a productivist world of welfare capitalism that stands alongside Esping-Andersen's conservative, liberal and social democratic worlds. It then shows that Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan are all part of this world, though they divide into sub-groups within it. To account for productivist welfare capitalism in East Asia, the article focuses particularly on bureaucratic politics at the unit level, and on a range of key shaping factors at the system level. It closes by considering the implications of East Asian experience for comparative social policy analysis.

Tiger Technology: The Creation of a Semiconductor Industry in East Asia

Abstract: List of figures List of tables Preface Abbreviations Introduction Part I. The 'Real' East Asian Miracle: 1. Tiger chips: the rise of East Asia in the global semiconductor industry 2. Technology leverage as latecomer strategy Part II. National Institutional Pathways: 3. The Tangbun boom and the chaebol: how Korea did it 4. A cat can look at a king: how Taiwan did it 5. Jack and the beanstalk: how Singapore and Malaysia are doing it Part III. The Technology Leverage Strategy: 6. East Asian semiconductor industries: national strategies and sustainability 7. Limits to technology leverage strategies 8. National systems of economic learning: lessons from East Asia Appendix I. Exchange rates: 1975-97 Appendix II. Chronology Glossary Bibliography Index.

The Great Divergence

Abstract: A landmark comparative history of Europe and China that examines why the Industrial Revolution emerged in the West The Great Divergence sheds light on one of the great questions of history: Why did sustained industrial growth begin in Northwest Europe? Historian Kenneth Pomeranz shows that as recently as 1750, life expectancy, consumption, and product and factor markets were comparable in Europe and East Asia. Moreover, key regions in China and Japan were no worse off ecologically than those in Western Europe, with each region facing corresponding shortages of land-intensive products. Pomeranz’s comparative lens reveals the two critical factors resulting in Europe's nineteenth-century divergence—the fortunate location of coal and access to trade with the New World. As East Asia’s economy stagnated, Europe narrowly escaped the same fate largely due to favorable resource stocks from underground and overseas. This Princeton Classics edition includes a preface from the author and makes a powerful historical work available to new readers.

Constructing a Security Community in Southeast Asia

Abstract: Key issues in determining the future stability of the Southeast Asian and Asia Pacific region are covered, including:  intra-regional relations and the effect of membership expansion  the ASEAN Regional Forum and East Asian regionalism  ASEAN's response to terrorism and other transnational challenges  debates over ASEAN's non-interference doctrine  the 'ASEAN Security Community' and the ASEAN Charter  the impact of the rise of China and India and ASEAN's relations with the US and Japan.  The new edition will continue to appeal to students and scholars of Asian security, international relations theory and Southeast Asian studies as well as policymakers and the media.

Natives or immigrants: modern human origin in east asia

Abstract: East Asia is one of the few regions in the world where a relatively large number of human fossils have been unearthed--a discovery that has been taken as evidence for an independent local origin of modern humans outside of Africa. However, genetic studies conducted in the past ten years, especially using Y chromosomes, have provided unequivocal evidence for an African origin of East Asian populations. The genetic signatures present in diverse East Asian populations mark the footsteps of prehistoric migrations that occurred tens of thousands of years ago.

Interpreting China's Grand Strategy: Past, Present, and Future

Abstract: China's continuing rapid economic growth and expanding involvement in global affairs pose major implications for the power structure of the international system. To more accurately and fully assess the significance of China's emergence for the United States and the global community, it is necessary to gain a more complete understanding of Chinese security thought and behavior. This study addresses such questions as: What are China's most fundamental national security objectives? How has the Chinese state employed force and diplomacy in the pursuit of these objectives over the centuries? What security strategy does China pursue today and how will it evolve in the future? The study asserts that Chinese history, the behavior of earlier rising powers, and the basic structure and logic of international power relations all suggest that, although a strong China will likely become more assertive globally, this possibility is unlikely to emerge before 2015-2020 at the earliest. To handle this situation, the study argues that the United States should adopt a policy of realistic engagement with China that combines efforts to pursue cooperation whenever possible; to prevent, if necessary, the acquisition by China of capabilities that would threaten America's core national security interests; and to remain prepared to cope with the consequences of a more assertive China.

Women in the informal sector: a global picture, the global movement

Abstract: Over the past two decades, employment in the informal sector has risen rapidly in all regions in the world. Until the recent Asian economic crisis, it was only the oncerapidly-growing economies of East and Southeast Asia that experienced substantial growth of modern sector employment. However, in the wake of that crisis, most of these countries have experienced a decline in formal wage employment and a concomitant rise in informal employment. Even before the crisis, official statistics indicated that the informal sector accounted for over half of total non-agricultural employment in Latin America and the Caribbean, nearly half in East Asia, and as much as 80 percent in other parts of Asia and in Africa. And, in terms of urban employment, the informal sector accounted for well over half in Africa and Asia and a quarter in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Developmental states in transition: adapting, dismantling, innovating, not ‘normalizing’

Abstract: Capitalist diversity is doomed in a global economy and the coming century will see ever more countries adapting their institutions to resemble more closely the Anglo-American model. Or so many believe. But to what extent have the ideological and institutional fundamentals of East Asian developmental states been eroded and in what measure is change being driven by an external-economic logic? Five propositions are developed in the light of the catch-up process, the sources and outcomes of financial liberalization, the Asian financial crisis, and Japan's bank crisis. The article concludes that the East Asian experience offers little comfort to those who expect that liberalization will lead to ‘normalization’.

The Usual Suspects? Productivity and Demand Shocks and Asia-Pacific Real Exchange Rates

Abstract: A productivity-based model of East Asian relative prices and real exchange rates is tested using calculated productivity levels for China, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, and Thailand. Time-series regressions of the exchange rate on relative productivity ratios indicate such a relationship for Japan, Malaysia, and the Philippines (and Indonesia and Korea when oil prices are included). Panel regression provides slightly more encouraging results when the panel encompasses a subset of countries (Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, and the Philippines). Neither government spending nor the terms of trade appear to be important factors.

Corporate governance and finance in East Asia : a study of Indonesia, Republic of Korea, Malaysia, Philippines, and Thailand

Abstract: Corporate governance has become a major policy concern in the wake of the Asian financial crisis. Weak governance structure, poor investment, and risky financing practices of the corporate sector in the affected countries contributed to their sharp economic recession in 1997-1998. The weaknesses in corporate governance and finance undermined the capacity of these countries to withstand the combined shocks of depreciated currencies, mass capital outflows, increased rates, and large contraction in domestic demand. To help understand the corporate governance issues and their impact, as well as to identify needs for interventions in addressing policy and institutional weaknesses, the Economics and Development Resource Center of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) undertook a regional study on corporate governance and finance in selected developing member countries. The countries covered are Indonesia, Republic of Korea, Malaysia, Philippines, and Thailand. This book presents the major findings of the study. The policy recommendations will support ADB's financial sector work in its developing member countries.

Avoiding the Apocalypse: The Future of the Two Koreas

Abstract: Korea is experiencing three crises: a famine in the North, a confrontation over the North's nuclear weapons programme, and now an economic crisis in the South. This volume examines the implications of these crises for Korea, the United States, and others with interests in the peninsula.

East Asia in the aftermath: Was there a crunch?

Abstract: This paper investigates whether there was a credit crunch in East Asia during the recent financial and economic crises. Motivated by widespread concern that, over and above any increases in real interest rates, corporates may have also faced credit rationing, we adopt an explicit disequilibrium framework for analyzing the behavior of real credit with a view to assessing whether the supply of, or demand for credit has been a binding constraint. The findings highlight the dynamics associated with a credit crunch. We find evidence of a »credit crunch« in all three crisis countries (Indonesia, Korea, Thailand) in the period immediately following the crisis as the banking system distress deepened, and the supply of (real) credit declined. Thereafter, however, credit demand also fell sharply as economic recession took hold and corporate bankruptcies increased. By the end of the first quarter of 1998, therefore, the constraining factor was the demand for credit. We conclude that, beyond the initial crisis period, there is little evidence of a credit crunch at the aggregate level, although high real interest rates - and credit rationing of individual firms - may have continued to contribute to the difficulties of the corporate sector.

China's Quest for Energy Security

Abstract: China's two decades of rapid economic growth have fueled a demand for energy that has outstripped domestic sources of supply. China became a net oil importer in 1993, and the country's dependence on energy imports is expected to continue to grow over the next 20 years, when it is likely to import some 60 percent of its oil and at least 30 percent of its natural gas. China, thus, has to abandon its traditional goal of energy self-sufficiency - brought about by a fear of strategic vulnerability - and look abroad for resources. This study looks at the measures that China is taking to achieve energy security and the motivations behind those measures.

Enhancement of the warming trend in China

Abstract: The 1998 temperature averaged for the globe is the highest on record. Annual mean temperature of China in 1998 is +1.38°C above the normal, which also labels 1998 the warmest year since 1880 for China. Additional ice core δ18O and tree ring evidence shows stronger upward trend (of 0.50°C/100 years) than ever estimated based on temperature observations in eastern coast region only during the last hundred years. Enhanced warming trend has occurred in most eastern Asia, the remarkable trend is making the middle-high continent of eastern Asia one of the rapidest warming regions in world during the last 2 decades. And the warming time series in China indicates a sinusoidal variation over the past hundred years and is different than for the global average.

Abandonment, Entrapment, and Neoclassical Realism in Asia: The United States, Japan, and Korea

Abstract: For decades, area specialists have argued that international relations (IR) theory cannot adequately explain security dynamics in East Asia as a result of cultures, histories, and traditions distinct from the West. A shining anomaly put forth in this regard is the relationship between Japan and the Republic of Korea (ROK). Why have these two powers had such volatile relations, despite their elite ties, economic complementarities, and shared security adversaries throughout the Cold War and Post-Cold War eras? Area scholars point to historical antagonism as the primary explanatory variable; however, this at best explains only part of the picture (i.e., the friction but not the cooperation). Balance of threat theorists might explain Japan-Korea volatility as a function of changes in the level of external threat; however, variations in threats posed to the two powers do not correlate well with outcomes in bilateral interaction. Developing the concept of quasi-alliances (two states that remain non-allied but share a third power as a common ally), this article argues that Japanese and Korean perceptions of their common great power patron's security commitment (the United States) directly affects the level of political-military cooperation between the two quasi-allied states. Fears of U.S. abandonment determine when and under what conditions historical anger most affects the tenor of relations. The level of patron commitment is also a better determinant of alliance behavior than the level of external threat. Framing the relationship in this manner, I attempt to acknowledge area scholars' concerns about the critical role of history and culture, but consider history's salience in the context of equally critical but acultural security ties that underlie the two states' triangular relations with the United States. For alliance theory, this East Asian case shows how alignment choices are not a direct function of external threat but threats as refracted through perceptions of patron commitment. In security relationships with high degrees of asymmetrical dependence, patron promises matter more than adversarial threats because promises can mitigate threats, leading to behavior not predicted by balance of threat theory. Moreover, in extreme cases, promises (or lack thereof) can affect alliance behavior irrespective of variations in the objective level of external threat.

Industrial Policy: Growth Elixir or Poison?

Abstract: The debate about industrial policy occasioned by the East Asian financial crisis is the latest chapter in an ongoing discussion about the effectiveness of selective government intervention in fostering rapid industrial growth. The crisis that began in the Republic of Korea in 1997 and the weak growth in Japan over much of the 1990s have prompted a reexamination of the effectiveness of the government actions in the two countries that pursued sectorial selectivity most intensively. If indeed industrial policies were important in accelerating growth, there may be lessons for other countries still in the early stages of industrialization. Conversely, if the magnitude of the contribution was small, more conventional policies should be pursued unless it is assumed that governments can improve on the efforts of Japan and Korea.

Seasonal characteristics of tropospheric ozone production and mixing ratios over East Asia: A global three-dimensional chemical transport model analysis

Abstract: We examine seasonal and geographical distributions of tropospheric ozone production and mixing ratios over East Asia with a global three-dimensional chemical transport model called Model of Ozone and Related Tracers, version 1 (MOZART 1). Net ozone production within the East Asian boundary layer exhibits three distinct seasonal cycles depending on region (north of 20°N, 5–20°N and south of 5°N). North of 20°N, net ozone production over East Asia from spring through autumn is found to have a maximum extending from 25°N–40°N and from central eastern China to Japan, resulting from the strong emission and transport of anthropogenic O3 precursors. In winter, maximum O3 production in this region occurs between 20°N and 30°N. This is a region of long-range transport. Over the Indochina peninsula, between 5°N and 20°N, net O3 production is controlled by the seasonal cycle between wet and dry seasons and has a maximum at the end of the dry season due to emissions from biomass burning. South of 5°N, in the true tropics, O3 mixing ratios are relatively constant throughout the year and do not exhibit a seasonal cycle. A spring-summer maximum of net O3 production is found throughout the troposphere in East Asia. We estimate an annual net O3 production in East Asia of 117 Tg/yr. Both model results and analysis of measurements of O3/CO correlations over East Asia and Japan show strong variability as a function of both photochemical activity and seasonal meteorology, and indicate ozone export off the coast of East Asia in spring. An upper estimate of O3 export from East Asia to the Pacific Ocean in the mid-1980s of 3.3 Gmol/d (58 Tg/yr) is obtained.

Social Welfare Development in East Asia

Abstract: List of Tables Preface The Study of State Welfare in East Asia East Asia and Theories of Comparative Social Policy The Social Investment State in Singapore Authoritarianism and the Social Insurance State: The Case of Taiwan Authoritarian Developmental State and Social Welfare in Korea Toward a Social Investment State? Social Welfare Development of Hong Kong Social Welfare Provisions in East Asia and Quality of Life The Future of State Welfare in East Asia References Index

Population structure and history in East Asia

Abstract: Archaeological, anatomical, linguistic, and genetic data have suggested that there is an old and significant boundary between the populations of north and south China. We use three human genetic marker systems and one human-carried virus to examine the north/south distinction. We find no support for a major north/south division in these markers; rather, the marker patterns suggest simple isolation by distance.

Language policies and Language education : the impact in East Asian countries in the next decade

Abstract: This book grew out of a special project which sought up-to-date information on the language planning and language learning/teaching situation in each of the countries in East Asia. Covering fifteen countries in the region, the book seeks to: update much of what is currently available in print in English; build a better understanding of language issues in East Asia; and make available an annotated bibliography of articles, reports, and documents in English and in the languages of the region. This new edition features numerous updates to the research data and information to reflect the changes in the educational climate in the various East Asian countries, including two new chapters ("Mongolia" and "Coda"). Each chapter, written from an insider's perspective, reviews the development of that country's language policy and emphasises the critical role of language policies in its national, educational and social development. READERSHIP: Academics, educationists, policy-makers and administrators, and those interested in the study of applied linguistics in an Asian context.

Wheels Within Wheels: Rethinking the Asian Crisis and the Asian Model

Abstract: The East Asian economic crisis of 1997–1999 had its causes not mainly in the “East Asian model” nor even in departures from the model, but in international capital markets and the governments of the core economies, especially the United States and Japan. The post–Bretton Woods system, without any link between the dollar and gold, allowed the United States to finance persistent external deficits by creating US government bonds. These bonds raised the foreign reserves of the surplus countries, notably Japan and East Asia. The rise in reserves triggered credit booms that generated asset inflation and industrial overcapacity. The booms gave way to crisis. The East Asian variant differed from the earlier Japanese one by being fueled by very large capital inflows in the early to mid 1990s from recession-hit Japan and Europe, as well as from the United States. This perspective, which highlights causes outside of East Asia, suggests that emerging market economies will remain vulnerable to such crises in the absen...

Politics and Markets in the Wake of the Asian Crisis

Abstract: This book is a challenging volume by distinguished, leading scholars of East Asian political economy; it provides a distinct alternative to simplistic accounts of the Asian crisis which generally swing between an emphasis on convergence imposed by global economic forces, and the resurrection of the special patterns of East Asian economic governance. The authors argue that global forces and domestic structures are engendering new forms of economic and political regulation in East Asia. While these signal the death knell of the ...

Re-Territorializing Transnationalism: Chinese Americans and the Chinese motherland

Abstract: A youth festival sponsored by the Chinese (P.R.C.) government for overseas Chinese youth (hua yi) who visit China represents a political ritual of the Chinese state that draws upon a long history of invoking discourses of Chinese culture to create connections to the Chinese abroad. Though framed in a context of continuity, the festival ironically produces new knowledges about different ways of being Chinese, exposing the fissures within the assumed nexus of race, culture, and nation, and thus complicating notions of what constitutes a transnational community. [China, Chinese diaspora, transnationalism, identity, race and culture, modernity].

Economic Growth and Policy Reform in the APEC: Trade and Welfare Implications by 2005.

Abstract: This paper examines the impacts of key trade reforms likely to affect the APEC region over the next decade It does so by taking an economy-wide perspective using projections to the year 2005, based on the global CGE model known as GTAP The paper begins by showing that the empirical impact of implementing the Uruguay Round depends significantly on how China and Taiwan are treated It then explores the market implications of increased economic growth in China, as well as several policy shocks It is shown that increased industrial growth in China – due to China integrating more into the global economy – would be beneficial to the world, since it would boost industrialization in other Asian countries Failure to honour Uruguay Round obligations to open textile and clothing markets in OECD countries, on the other hand, is shown to reduce East Asia’s industrialization and thereby slow the growth in this region’s net imports Further MFN trade liberalization by APEC members, however, could add substantially to the growth and structural changes expected in the region and beyond over the next decade The latter benefits are shown, though, to depend heavily on the inclusion of agriculture in the APEC reform, something that Northeast Asian countries have been reluctant to do