East Asia: Economic interdependence and regional security

International Affairs

Volumn 73, Issue 2, 1997, Pages 219-234

  Cossa, Ralph A ^a   Khanna, Jane ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0040350315     PISSN: 00205850     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/2623825     Document Type: Article

References (33)

1. Lee H. Endress, Mark G. Harstad, and Jacquelyn Grizzard, Asia-Pacific economic update (Honolulu, Hawaii: US Pacific Command, Summer 1996), p. II. This annual report provides a wealth of data on US-Asia and intra-Asian trade and carefully documents the interrelated nature of economic and security issues and concerns.
2. World Bank, World Bank atlas, 1996. Unless otherwise stated, comparative economic statistics in this article will be based on the more traditional exchange-rate method.
3. Developing Asia is defined by the International Monetary Fund as all the countries of the Asia-Pacific region, including the newly industrialized economies or so-called 'Asian tigers' (Hong Kong, Republic of Korea, Singapore and Taiwan), but excluding Japan, Australia and New Zealand.
4. International Monetary Fund, Direction of trade statistics yearbook, various annual reports.
5. APEC is referred to as a gathering of economies rather than a gathering of nations or states owing to the presence in its ranks of Hong Kong and Taiwan which, diplomatically speaking, remain part of 'one China'. Taiwan's head of state is specifically not invited to attend the annual leaders' meetings.
6. For information on the Bogor meeting, see John J. Harter and Eugene Brake, Economic cooperation in the Asia Pacific area: perspectives and comments on the Bogor declaration (Washington DC: US Department of State, 1995), based on a 14 Oct. 1994 Washington DC symposium on the same topic.
7. For more information on APEC, see Jane Khanna, 'Asia-Pacific economic cooperation and challenges for political leadership', The Washington Quarterly 19: 1, Winter 1995, pp. 257-75 and Perspectives on the Manila Action Plan for APEC (Manila: Pacific Basic Economic Council, 1996).
8. For more information on APEC, see Jane Khanna, 'Asia-Pacific economic cooperation and challenges for political leadership', The Washington Quarterly 19: 1, Winter 1995, pp. 257-75 and Perspectives on the Manila Action Plan for APEC (Manila: Pacific Basic Economic Council, 1996).
9. ASEAN, the Association of South-East Asian Nations, was formed in 1967 by Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand, to accelerate economic growth, social progress, and peace and security in South-East Asia. It was later expanded to include Brunei and, most recently, Vietnam.
10. The ARF consists of the seven ASEAN states, plus Australia, Cambodia, Canada, China, India, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Laos, Myanmar, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Russia and the United States, as well as a representative from the European Union.
11. The major stumbling block is Myanmar (Burma), which continues to pursue a repressive domestic policy despite 'encouragement' from its ASEAN neighbours to reform. The United States (among others) has pressured ASEAN to delay Burma's entry. ASEAN's response has been to link together the entry of the remaining three South-East Asian states. While this somewhat reduces ASEAN's leverage over Burma, it sends a clear message regarding ASEAN's view of outside pressure on ASEAN's internal decision-making.
12. For details on the ARF and its intersessional support groups, see Bandar Seri Begawan, 'Chairman's statement of the Second ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF)', 1 Aug. 1995.
13. 'Track two' refers to unofficial meetings, normally hosted by independent research institutes, that bring together independent scholars, security specialists,former and current defense and foreign ministry officials and serving officials, participating in their 'private capacities'.
14. A North Korean infiltration submarine with commandos on board was discovered after mechanical difficulties caused it to be washed up on South Korea's coast. After much negotiation and delay, the DPRK issued an unprecedented 'statement of regret' which the ROK graciously accepted as an official apology.
15. Jose T. Almonte, 'A strategic framework for policymakers in Asia'. Keynote address to the Defense Asia Forum 1997, Singapore, 15 Jan. 1997. Excerpts from this address were also reprinted in Pacific Forum CSIS PacNet Newsletter, 7, 14 Feb. 1997.
16. Ibid.
17. Yoon Young-kwan, 'Globalization: toward a new nationalism in Korea', Korea Observer 26: 1, Spring 1995, p. 16.
18. Almonte, 'A strategic framework for policymakers in Asia'.
19. The case of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait is relevant. During Ralph Cossa's visit to Kuwait in May 1990, as the deployment of Iraqi troops to their mutual border was ringing alarm bells in the West, he was told by Kuwaiti officials, 'Relax, Iraq is too dependent on Kuwait economically to ever attack us; they would never bite the hand that feeds them.'This proved to be a fatal mistake for the Kuwaitis, just as the decision to attack ultimately proved fatal for Iraq's occupation forces. The failure of economic sanctions in the long months before operation Desert Storm to convince Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait, and the failure of economic and political sanctions since to convince Saddam Hussein to mend his ways, also point to the flaw in the argument that geoeconomics has rendered warfare obsolete.
20. Louis W. Pauly, 'Capital mobility, state autonomy and political legitimacy', Journal of International Affairs 48: 2, Winter 1995, p. 373.
21. Robert A. Scalapino, 'The United States and Asia: future prospects', Foreign Affairs 70: 5, Winter 1991-2, pp. 19-40.
22. For a detailed analysis of Asia-Pacific NETs see Amos A. Jordan and Jane Khanna, 'Economic interdependence and challenges to the nation-state: the emergence of natural economic territories in the Asia Pacific', Journal of International Affairs, 48: 2,Winter 1995, pp. 433-62.
23. A failure peacefully to resolve the South China Sea territorial dispute (between Brunei, China, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam) would have broad regional, if not global, consequences. Motivations behind the overlapping claims vary among the claimants but economics is clearly a common driving factor (i.e. the potential for profit in the form of oil, gas, fish and mineral resources and the desire to use claimed territories to extend each country's exclusive economic zones).
24. Last year's tensions between Taiwan and the mainland, as manifested in the PRC's military exercises and missile test firings, also had their roots in each side's overestimation of its respective economic leverage. Our own discussions with Taiwanese leaders convince us that Taipei believed that its economic involvement in the mainland - some $25 billion in direct investments and joint ventures - gave it a great deal of flexibility in dealing with Beijing. Unfortunately for Taipei, Beijing leaders at the time expected that Taiwan's investments would cause them to be less adventurous. When Beijing perceived, rightly or wrongly, that Taiwan President Lee Tung-hui was moving towards a formal declaration of independence, it decided to resort to the threat of military force to counter this threat to PRC sovereignty over Taiwan, regardless of the political or economic consequences.
25. For more details, see Ralph A. Cossa, 'Restructured Japan-US alliance is not a threat', The Daily Yomiuri (Japan), 23 Jan. 1997, p. 6.
26. For a detailed analysis of this NET, see Jane Khanna, ed., Southern China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan: evolution of a subregional economy, Significant Issues, 17: 7 (Honolulu, Hawaii: Center for Strategic and International Studies, 1995).
27. The most prominent South-East Asian NETs are (I) the Indonesia-Malaysia-Singapore Growth Triangle (IMS-GT), originally known as SIJORI; (2) the Indonesia-Malaysia-Thailand Growth Triangle (IMT-GT), linking North Sumatra and Aceh in Indonesia, Malaysia's northern states of Kedah, Perak, Penang and Perlis, with Thailand's southern provinces of Satun, Songkhla, Yala, Narathiwat and Pattani; (3) the Golden Quadrangle, which encompasses parts of northern Thailand, Yunnan province in Mainland China, northern Myanmar and Laos; and (4) the East Asian Growth Area (EAGA) that links Brunei with Indonesia's eastern provinces of East and West Kalimantan and North Sulawesi; Sabah, Sarawak and Labuan of Malaysia; and Mindanao Island of the Philippines.
28. Zhong Chen, 'Yellow Sea economic cooperation among China, Japan and Korea'; Bum-Joon Lee and Sung-Chul Yang, eds, The changing world order: prospects for Korea in the Asia Pacific era (Seoul, South Korea: The Korean Association of International Studies, 1992), p. 247.
29. For a more detailed assessment from which this analysis is derived, see Jane Khanna and Chang-Jae Lee, eds, Economic interdependence and challenges to the nation-state: economic cooperation in the Yellow Sea rim (Seoul, South Korea: Korea Institute for International Economic Policy, 1996).
30. See President Kim Young Sam's speech at Beijing University coupling the opening of economic relations in the Yellow Sea with a call for China's support in engaging North Korea in the 'movement towards open globalness'. BBC, Summary of World Broadcasts, 30 March 1994.
31. See quote by General Tetsuya Nishimoto, chief of Japan's defence forces, Far Eastern Economic Review, 13 April 1995, p. 5.
32. Quote by Li Shuguang, legal scholar at the Chinese University of Political Science & Law, Beijing, Business Week, 10 April 1995, p. 114.
33. Gerald Segal, China changes shape: regionalism and foreign policy, Adelphi Paper 287 (London: International Institute for Strategic Studies), March 1994, p. 49.