Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Millions of people crossing previously tightly controlled national borders in Northeast Asia each year are becoming an important element of international relations in the region, changing the economic, social, cultural, and even political landscape of the border regions of China, Japan, Mongolia, and Russia. The paper examines recent trends, current issues, and future prospects of cross-border migration and its role in promoting or threatening the development of regionalism in Northeast Asia.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This paper will consider how patterns of regional cooperation have evolved in Northeast Asia since 1998 with respect to fisheries; maritime boundaries; environmental issues, including nuclear waste disposal;informal oceanographic research; and resource extraction. Both bilateral patterns and the emergence of regonal regimes will be considered. Comparison will be made to Southeast Asia, and conclusions drawn regarding causality. The argument will be made that leadership activism and transformation in the policy stance of key nations, particularly China, have been largely responsible for observable policy change.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Although there exists an overall positive correlation between an economy’s exposure to international trade and the size of its government, East Asian economies are empirical anomalies in that have small public sectors despite their high levels of and growth in openness. In particular, welfare spending on labor is extremely low, and this, I argue, is best explained by the long absence of public programs on unemployment insurance (UI) and assistance, which, in turn, is explained by the presence of an alternative means of protection in the form of employment protection mechanisms. This policy choice was initially a result of political competition and labor incorporation into politics. What significantly improved labor welfare, however, was labor-intensive industrialization policy centered on job creation. More interestingly, the authoritarian regimes, which severely restricted the labor’s rights to collective action and bargaining, nonetheless provided job security and generous wages particularly for male laborers in key industrial sectors to induce investment in technical skills that underpinned government-led industrial deepening. Ironically, the political will and capacity to supply job security waned in the democratic era with the upsurge of business power and autonomy from the government and the eventual dismantling of industrial policies. Korea and Taiwan adopted and expanded UI as the labor market environment became more precarious especially due to the East Asian financial crisis in 1997-1998.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: At the outset of the Cold War, the so-called San Francisco System put Northeast Asian countries--particularly China, Japan, and South Korea--on a unique institutional path, characterized by a bilateral-multilateral institutional mix in both the trade and security issue areas. Aside from informal networks based on corporate and ethnic ties, the San Francisco System created few incentives for Northeast Asian countries to develop exclusive regional arrangements of their own. The conventional wisdom argues that Northeast Asians are inherently unable to manage their own economic and security affairs in a collective manner without an external actor, namely the U.S. Yet the traditional institutional order in Northeast Asia has come under heavy strain in the triple post period: namely the post-Cold War, the post-Asian financial crisis of 1997-98, and the post-September 11, 2001 attacks. This paper examines the origins and evolution of Northeast Asia's new institutional architecture in a more comprehensive and systematic manner, as this question is at the forefront of the minds of both academics and policymakers. First, we provide a systematic categorization of different types of trade and security arrangements associated with Northeast Asian countries. After reviewing conventional explanations for the lack of institutionalization in Northeast Asia, we also develop an institutional bargaining game approach to explain the rise of new institutional architecture in Northeast Asia. From an institutional bargaining game perspective, we analyze the process by which various types of trade and security arrangements have been pursued in the region in the triple post period.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Since early 2003, China has been playing an increasingly more pro-active but equally more frustrating role in seeking a resolution to the North Korean nuclear crisis. Specifically, Beijing has been instrumental in providing the impetus and venue for the trilateral meeting and later, Six-Party Talks. While the multilateral forum offers good opportunity for China and the United States to cooperate on an issue of common interest, it also imposes on China the unenviable task of reconciling apparently irreconcilable positions between Pyongyang and Washington, with the risk of alienating both in the process. The dilemmas and difficulties China faces and hence its balancing act must be placed in the broader contexts of Beijing's interest in a de-nuclearized Korean Peninsula, in particular in that it averts a possible nuclear domino effect in Northeast Asia; China-DPRK relations, not from an ideological perspective but more from one of securing a strategic buffer; and the growing ties between Beijing and Seoul and China's views of the longer term prospects of a unified Korea and the consequences for China's security. This paper seeks to analyze China's declared policies and its diplomacy, with a viewing to uncovering how and to what extent its pro-active diplomacy and occasional reluctance in involvement both advance and reflect its core strategic interests and larger implications for regional security.