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15200 results in ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute

Page 194 of 760

  • 1 - Introduction

  • Edited by Hal Hill, Jayant Menon
  • Book:
    Managing Globalization in the Asian Century
    Published by:
    ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
    Published online:
    22 July 2017
    Print publication:
    16 November 2016, pp 1-24

  • Summary

    This volume, in honour of a great development economist and esteemed friend and colleague, Prema-Chandra Athukorala (hereafter “Chandra”), examines two of the most important, interrelated phenomena of the twenty-first century: the rise of the Asian economies and the inexorable process of global economic integration. In this chapter, we first provide an introduction to the key issues examined in the chapters that follow. Next, we provide a sketch of the life and times of Chandra, and his intellectual contributions, including especially his contributions to the issues examined in this book. Finally, we summarize and integrate the diverse and illuminating contributions to the volume.

    AN OVERVIEW OF THE ISSUES

    Virtually every dimension of globalization is increasing — the flow of goods, services, and capital across borders; the movement of people; and the dissemination of technologies, ideas, and cultures. Increasingly, porous borders and rapid technological change have popularized the notion of the “death of distance” (Cairncross 1997). The rise of Asia, as the most dynamic region in the global economy over the past half century, is central to this process. Most of the exceptionally high-growth economies over this period have been located in Asia, principally East Asia (Commission on Growth and Development 2008). The outcomes have been transformative, for people's lives, for regional and global architecture, and for the intellectual foundations of development theories.

    Both theory and empirics clearly demonstrate that, on balance, globalization is a force for good, especially for the countries that open up to the global economy, but also for consumers in export destinations enjoying the resultant increased welfare. The standard “triangles” analysis in static trade theory indicates that countries benefit from specializing in the production of goods and services in which they have a comparative advantage. The dynamic advantages of a more open economy are arguably more important still, through opening up to technology flows, the power of demonstration effects, the discipline of import competition, and much else. Empirically also there is a great deal of research concluding that, ceteris paribus, more outward-oriented economies do grow faster in the long run (Bhagwati 2007).

  • 4 - Growth Slowdown and the Middle Income Trap in Asia

  • from PART 1 - SPECIAL TOPICS
  • Edited by Hal Hill, Jayant Menon
  • Book:
    Managing Globalization in the Asian Century
    Published by:
    ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
    Published online:
    22 July 2017
    Print publication:
    16 November 2016, pp 77-96

  • Summary

    Many Asian developing countries are alleged to be stuck in a “middle-income trap”. A middle-income trap is associated with the slowing down of growth due to policy rather than the natural and inevitable consequence of catching-up with high-income countries. If growth slowdown is due to policy, does it mean ipso facto that a country is “trapped”? The answer is no, unless the policymaker has a vested interest in growth-inhibiting policies. Why should that be a particular problem for middle-income countries? The chapter provides an answer and some circumstantial evidence to support it.

    INTRODUCTION

    “Middle-income trap” is a concept of recent origin, but is already a household word in the foreign aid community, think-tanks, government agencies, and the popular press in Asia. A Google search of “middle-income trap” yields tens of thousands of results, but a search on IDEAS (the Internet database of economics articles and working papers) produces no more than a handful of references to the subject, which suggests that while the middle-income trap is a popular concept, especially in Asia, it is not one that economists have yet taken seriously.

    The notion of a middle-income trap is associated with a slowdown of long-term growth somewhere in the middle-income range. But the slowing down of growth in developing countries, according to conventional growth theory, is a natural and inevitable consequence of diminishing returns to capital-deepening and technology catch-up. Those who allude to a middle-income trap as an explanation for growth slowdown, however, generally ignore natural causes and instead attribute the slowing down of growth to various policies middleincome countries take that inhibit growth and others they fail to take that would promote it.

    Even if growth slowdown can be attributed, inter alia, to policy acts of omission and/or commission, the trap metaphor is not necessarily warranted. For, if all that is necessary to accelerate growth is to adopt different policies, how can a country be considered trapped? The trap metaphor would only be appropriate if there were some external constraint (e.g. politics) that prevented and/or discouraged authorities in middle-income countries from taking the necessary measures to restore growth to its long-run potential.

  • 8 - La Pesadilla Neoliberal: Why East Asia Did Not Experience a “Neo-liberal Nightmare” While Latin America Did?

  • from PART 1 - SPECIAL TOPICS
  • Edited by Hal Hill, Jayant Menon
  • Book:
    Managing Globalization in the Asian Century
    Published by:
    ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
    Published online:
    22 July 2017
    Print publication:
    16 November 2016, pp 193-220

  • Summary

    INTRODUCTION

    Most economists in East Asia would probably be surprised to hear Latin American policymakers refer to export-oriented policy strategies as la pesadilla neoliberal (the neo-liberal nightmare). This may be surprising in East Asia where export-oriented policy reforms resulted in high rates of economic growth that lifted entire societies out of poverty and generally lowered (or did not significantly raise) inequality. However, during its period of export orientation, Latin American economies saw much lower rates of economic growth and poverty alleviation, while inequality remained stagnant or, in some instances, grew.

    When Latin Americans couple these weak results with a number of financial crises and fiscal austerity packages often associated with macroeconomic reforms, many conclude that neo-liberalism and the Washington Consensus are indeed a “nightmare”. Therefore, since the late 1990s, Latin American politics has seen a decisive shift toward more left-leaning leaders. Beginning with Hugo Chavez's election in Venezuela in 1998, the onset of the new millennium has seen left-wing leaders take office in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay, while in Mexico left-wing leaders became major opposition candidates in recent elections. Indeed, two types of leftist movements have emerged in Latin America in recent years. A more liberal left (social democratic), which have embraced market-friendly policies in, for example, Brazil, Chile, and Uruguay; and a radical left, characterized by populism, expanded public expenditures and greater intervention in the economy in, for example, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Venezuela (Castañeda 2006; Weyland 2009; Edwards 2010; Madrid 2010).

    However, it is this latter group that is gaining momentum in the region. This is highlighted most predominantly by the creation of the ALBA, the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (Alianza Bolivariana para los Pueblos de Nuestra América), an international neo-socialist organization with a growing membership that includes Antigua and Barbuda, Bolivia, Cuba, Dominica, Ecuador, Grenada, Nicaragua, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Venezuela. It is ALBA countries, in particular, that represent an anti-trade paradigm that embrace import-substitution, large government and limited labour market mobility. That is, the antithesis of export-oriented reforms, as experienced in East Asia.

  • 9 - Housing Prices, Graduates, and Income Inequality: The Case of Singapore

  • from PART 1 - SPECIAL TOPICS
  • Edited by Hal Hill, Jayant Menon
  • Book:
    Managing Globalization in the Asian Century
    Published by:
    ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
    Published online:
    22 July 2017
    Print publication:
    16 November 2016, pp 221-239

  • Summary

    Globalization is often blamed for widening income gaps. However, there could be country specific causes of income inequality that could be addressed by domestic policy interventions. This chapter studies whether escalating housing prices have contributed to the growing income gap in Singapore. Housing price escalations involve a substantial income redistribution away from home buyers for owner occupation to property developers, rental property owners, and financiers. This effect is largely reflected in nonlabour earnings. Even with household labour income data, we find that rising private property prices have a small but statistically significant effect on income inequality, measured by the percentile ratio P90/P10. Unexpectedly, the most robust variable that explains this income ratio is the share of resident graduates in total employment. This variable shows an inverted U effect on income inequality. A similar inverted U effect is found with a productivity ratio variable used to measure the effect of globalization.

    INTRODUCTION

    Rising income inequality has been a global phenomenon, and Singapore is not an exception. Singapore's income Gini coefficient among employed resident households, for example, increased from 0.457 in 2003 to 0.482 in 2007. This dropped slightly after the global financial crisis, trended upward again until 2012, and then dropped to 0.464 in 2014. After accounting for government transfers and taxes, however, the Gini coefficient increased only marginally from 0.419 in 2004 to 0.432 in 2012, before dropping to 0.412 in 2014 (DOS 2015). The after-tax Gini coefficient in many Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries lies below 0.35.

    The widening income gap in many developed countries is often attributed to global forces. Nevertheless, some country specific causes are likely to set countries apart in terms inequality levels and trends. Understanding these causes would help in policy formulation.

    One factor that has contributed to a wider income gap in Singapore is the dual nature of Singapore's labour market openness. At the top end, competition for international talents drives up the earnings of top earners. At the lower end, the unlimited supply of low-skilled workers from the region keeps low-end wages stagnant. Options available for addressing the income gap caused by this divide are very limited. Excessively restricting foreign labour without offsetting gains in productivity is counterproductive. Productivity improvements, however, have been a long-drawn process.

  • 15 - Policies toward Globalization in Sri Lanka, 1960–2012: Change and Continuity

  • from PART 2 - COUNTRY STUDIES
  • Edited by Hal Hill, Jayant Menon
  • Book:
    Managing Globalization in the Asian Century
    Published by:
    ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
    Published online:
    22 July 2017
    Print publication:
    16 November 2016, pp 393-427

  • Summary

    This chapter examines the factors behind Sri Lanka's policy movements towards and away from globalization and their outcomes with respect to economic structure, growth rate, productivity, and poverty and income distribution. Several factors account for the movement towards and away from globalization since the 1960s. Analysing the history of political changes allows us to elaborate on the role of each of these factors. The principal influences on these movements have been political leadership, ideology, endowments, and institutions. These changes are analysed in the context of continuities that underpin globalization in Sri Lanka, i.e. the preservation of democracy, strong ideological commitment to the poor, the large size of the government, and constant political change through elections.

    INTRODUCTION

    The benefits and challenges of globalization are more pronounced for small open economies, which have to take world prices as given and are unable to affect world demand and supply in any market. Small, open economies also face greater price and income instability, given their narrow range of specialization and their limited endowments. Consequently, they face a formidable challenge in managing their economies in a globalized world. Thus, these countries tend to formulate policies that sometimes vacillate between moving towards or away from globalization. How and why this happens is examined in this chapter, taking Sri Lanka as a case study. The “how” of it is relatively well known, but the reasons “why” these policy changes take place are less well known.

    The chapter is structured as follows. After this introductory section, Section 2 examines the factors behind policy movements toward and away from globalization. Section 3 analyses the outcomes of changes in policies towards globalization, while Section 4 documents continuities that exist while these policy changes take place. Section 5 gives the conclusions.

    It is evident that economics alone cannot explain attitudes toward economic policies; a good measure of politics, ideology, and history must also be considered. In the case of Sri Lanka, the main factors that have led to changes in policies towards globalization are political leadership, ideology, institutions, and endowments, which are not the bread and butter of economic analysis. Other factors that underpin economic policies have remained largely unchanged over the 1960– 2012 period. These are the preservation of democracy, the large size of the government, strong ideological commitment to the poor, and regular change from one government to another. These were the main continuities.

  • 14 - Trade Policy and Industrialization in India Since the 1991 Reforms

  • from PART 2 - COUNTRY STUDIES
  • Edited by Hal Hill, Jayant Menon
  • Book:
    Managing Globalization in the Asian Century
    Published by:
    ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
    Published online:
    22 July 2017
    Print publication:
    16 November 2016, pp 358-392

  • Summary

    INTRODUCTION

    In 1991, after several decades of inward-looking economic policies, India began adopting significant economic reforms. Among the most important of these were far-reaching trade reforms, which essentially dismantled protectionist policies that had been in place since India's independence. A key objective of the reforms was to increase efficiency, output, and employment growth in the manufacturing sector. The trade reforms initially targeted the capital and intermediate goods sectors; restrictions on the consumer goods sector were only relaxed in the early 2000s. The gradual nature of the reform process, the move from a highly restrictive policy regime to a relatively open one, and the unevenness in reforms across sectors and over time make the Indian economy a good case study for exploring the efficiency implications of trade reforms.

    In this chapter, we assess how the Indian manufacturing industry responded to the far-reaching trade reforms of the 1990s. We examine the patterns of industrialization that have emerged in the two decades since the 1991 reforms. We focus on output and productivity growth for the period 1991/92 to 2009/10, as well as key labour market outcomes with respect to employment, wages, and wage share in total income. For this purpose, we use a very rich, disaggregated manufacturing dataset for the same period, which we have specially compiled for this chapter.

    The empirical evidence on the impact of the trade reforms on the performance of the Indian manufacturing sector is relatively sparse and not very recent. For example, using disaggregated panel data on Indian industry, Sen (2009) finds clear evidence of trade reforms positively affecting total factor productivity. However, the study period is from 1973/74 to 1997/98, which admittedly is a short period to assess impacts, given that the major trade reforms occurred in 1991 and beyond. Similarly, Milner, Vencappa, and Wright (2007) find that total factor productivity growth was faster in the post-reform period as compared to the pre-reform period. However, their study period also ends in 1997/98. Given that both of these studies only look at economic performance for six years after the 1991 reforms, it is difficult to accept their finding that performance improved with the trade policy reforms with any degree of confidence.

  • 12 - The Japanese Macroeconomic Mystery

  • from PART 2 - COUNTRY STUDIES
  • Edited by Hal Hill, Jayant Menon
  • Book:
    Managing Globalization in the Asian Century
    Published by:
    ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
    Published online:
    22 July 2017
    Print publication:
    16 November 2016, pp 297-332

  • Summary

    This chapter, written in honour of our old friend Prema-Chandra Athukorala, is designed to unravel a set of complications and mysteries concerned with the Japanese macroeconomy for the last twenty years, or even longer. This is the period of Japan's two lost decades, beginning around 1995. We draw on a huge and highly sophisticated, even brilliant, literature on this, written principally by Japanese economists (and also some Americans). Fortunately for us, much of it is written, or translated into, English, and we have tried to understand it. Our aim is to make the complex issues and possible solutions simple enough for non-specialists to understand. We also wish to see whether there are some lessons for other countries.

    What are these mysteries? Well, the single most interesting one is this. For about twenty years, the Japanese government has run significant and deliberate budget deficits that have been motivated by the Keynesian objective of stimulating the economy. Plenty of countries have run budget deficits for long periods, usually because of political difficulties in raising taxes or cutting spending. But this is different because the explicit Keynesian “fiscal stimulus” motive for maintaining aggregate employment or the growth rate is usually only short term, whereas the Japanese case is unique because it has gone on for more than two decades. But this does not mean that it is interesting only as a historical curiosity. Since the global financial crisis (GFC) of 2008, prolonged application of stimulus policies has become increasingly common as many major economies struggle to restore growth, and the Japanese experience is likely to hold lessons of wider contemporary relevance.

    THE BUBBLE AND AFTER

    The economic recovery of Japan after the war was impressive. It was indeed a boom, especially a boom in manufactured exports. The main problems came from two sharp world oil price rises. Details of this post-war period go beyond this chapter. The economic situation of Japan was dramatically transformed in a short period of five years — from 1985 to 1990 — by “The Bubble”. Indeed, this surprising episode was the bridge between the remarkably successful post-war years (lasting about thirty years) and the later long unfortunate period of stagnation or recession — described as the two lost decades — with which this chapter is mainly concerned.

  • 2 - A CGE Decomposition Approach to Identifying the Effects 27 of Trade Reform: NAFTA and the U.S. Economy Between 1992 and 1998

  • from PART 1 - SPECIAL TOPICS
  • Edited by Hal Hill, Jayant Menon
  • Book:
    Managing Globalization in the Asian Century
    Published by:
    ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
    Published online:
    22 July 2017
    Print publication:
    16 November 2016, pp 27-56

  • Summary

    Trade policies often get a bad rap. When it is difficult to pinpoint the causes of poor economic outcomes, it is convenient to attribute the problems to trade policies. In a much quoted article, Kehoe (2005) criticizes Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) modellers for underestimating the trade-stimulating effects of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). His evidence is that in the ten years following the signing of NAFTA, trade volumes for NAFTA countries grew more quickly than was shown ex ante in the CGE results. However, properly interpreted, the CGE results were not about how fast trade would grow in these ten years. Rather, they were about how NAFTA would affect growth in trade. Put another way, the CGE modellers were making projections of how much trade growth should be attributed to NAFTA. In this chapter, we address the attribution issue. Using a detailed CGE model, we decompose movements in U.S. macro and industry variables from 1992 to 1998 into contributions of NAFTA factors and other factors.

    INTRODUCTION

    The aim of this chapter is to identify as closely as possible the effects on the U.S. economy of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in the early years of its implementation. Towards this objective, we use a Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model to provide a decomposition of U.S. growth in macro variables and industry outputs between 1992 and 1998.

    To see what is involved, we suggest that readers look immediately at Tables 2.1 and 2.2. The layout of these tables can be understood by examining the first row of Table 2.1. It shows that between 1992 and 1998 real gross domestic product (GDP) for the United States grew by 24.40 per cent (row 1, column 1). Of this, 0.19 per cent (row 1, column 2) is attributable to what we refer to as NAFTA factors. Within this 0.19 per cent, columns 3 to 6 in row 1 identify the contributions to the GDP of changes specific to Canada and Mexico in U.S. tariffs and other aspects of U.S. trading relations. Column 7 of row 1 shows that growth of 24.20 per cent in the United States GDP was attributable to factors such as technical change (column 8), growth in aggregate employment (column 9), and developments in international trade not specific to Canada and Mexico (column 10).

  • 10 - The Role of Trade in Fostering Inclusive Growth in the Asia-Pacific

  • from PART 1 - SPECIAL TOPICS
  • Edited by Hal Hill, Jayant Menon
  • Book:
    Managing Globalization in the Asian Century
    Published by:
    ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
    Published online:
    22 July 2017
    Print publication:
    16 November 2016, pp 240-274

  • Summary

    Rising inequalities in wealth and income, alongside other measures of exclusion, have been observed in both advanced and developing economies in recent decades. These growing disparities are often interpreted as a threat to not only social stability but also future economic prosperity. Changing the dynamics of growth to make it more “inclusive” has therefore become a priority at both the national and international levels. Inclusive growth can be broadly understood as growth that is accessed and shared equitably by all segments of society. In this context, trade and investment are recognized as being intimately linked with issues of employment, income distribution, and equality. However, the role that trade and international economic openness plays in generating inclusive growth, and the evidence from the Asia-Pacific region, is not empirically analysed. This chapter reviews the trends in growth, and inequality in the Asia-Pacific region before setting out a framework for linking changes in trade with inclusiveness. Next, the chapter presents cross-country analysis linking inclusivity across four dimensions — aggregate employment, productivity, poverty and income equality, and gender equality — to international openness through trade and investment. The results show that an expansion of trade and investment does not necessarily produce more inclusive development. Rather, a range of complementary policies need to be deployed alongside managed opening of national economies. Effective complementary policies likely to raise the inclusivity of growth include: increasing labour market flexibility; raising aggregate investment; lifting expenditures on information and communications technologies; and improving equal access to education.

    INTRODUCTION

    The Asia-Pacific region has achieved dynamic economic growth matched with significant reductions in absolute poverty over the last four decades. However, there has not been similar success on other aspects of inclusiveness. In particular, inequality within many countries has worsened. Moreover, marginalized and vulnerable countries did not succeed in capturing a proportionate share of the benefits created by the region's growth. Put simply, the orthodox approach which emphasized using trade and investment to increase overall growth, and considered distributional issues as secondary, has not produced fully inclusive societies. If the tradeand investment-led growth pursued to date had been more geared towards inclusiveness, the number of poor would today be even lower. In this context, the chapter reviews whether international trade and investment policies have supported inclusive growth in the Asia-Pacific region and considers how more inclusive growth can be fostered in future.

  • 18 - Half a Century of Indonesian Economic Development: Continuity and Change

  • from PART 2 - COUNTRY STUDIES
  • Edited by Hal Hill, Jayant Menon
  • Book:
    Managing Globalization in the Asian Century
    Published by:
    ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
    Published online:
    22 July 2017
    Print publication:
    16 November 2016, pp 485-524

  • Summary

    INTRODUCTION

    Few countries have experienced such dramatic changes in economic fortunes and political governance as Indonesia since the 1960s. The world's fourth most populous nation and the ninth largest economy (in terms of purchasing power parity or PPP), it experienced more or less continuous economic decline for at least half a century prior to the mid-1960s (van der Eng 2002). By then it was one of the world's poorest countries. Two of the most influential studies of that period characterized the country as “a chronic economic dropout”, in the words of Higgins (1968), the leading development economics text, and as a country with little prospect of development in the seminal socioeconomic survey of Asia by Myrdal (1968).

    Then, in a remarkable turnaround, from 1966, the country achieved rapid economic development for the next three decades, such that it was classified as one of the “East Asian miracle economies” in the World Bank's (1993) major comparative study of the early 1990s. A decade and a half later, another World Bank-sponsored comparative analysis, by the Commission on Growth and Development (2008), concluded that, over the preceding century, Indonesia was one of only thirteen economies among the 150 studied to have achieved rapid economic growth for a sustained period of time. According to one analysis, by Australian Treasury staff (Au-Yeung et al. 2014), it may well be the fourth largest economy in the world by 2050.

    Indonesia has also had a history of consistently proving the doomsayers wrong. The pessimism of the mid-1960s has already been referred to. Influential theories of economic dualism, backwardsloping supply curves and non-economic behaviour in peasant agriculture originated in colonial Indonesia, famously developed by J.H. Boeke. Yet this was an analytical construct reflecting a system of governance that denied the population political and economic opportunities. Continuing this theme, at the time of the country's sudden independence in 1945, many observers saw little prospect for national unity, socio-economic development, and territorial preservation.

  • The Geopolitics of Xi Jinping's Chinese Dream: Problems and Prospects

  • David Arase
  • Book:
    The Geopolitics of Xi Jinping's Chinese Dream
    Published by:
    ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
    Published online:
    09 March 2019
    Print publication:
    07 November 2016, pp 1-31

  • Summary

    By now it should be clear that Xi Jinping's Chinese Dream to achieve the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation by 2049 involves an ambitious geopolitical agenda. This discussion begins with a macrohistorical overview of East Asian geopolitics to provide a slightly different perspective on the motivations and constraints that shape China's desire for great power predominance in East Asia today. It then summarizes the main features of current Chinese geostrategy and concludes by noting certain dilemmas and limitations.

    Geopolitics refers to the contest among states to control geographic space in order to gain security against potential enemies, increase power and influence over others, and assure access to markets and resources. The geopolitical strategy of a state traditionally relies upon military power and alliance arrangements, making geopolitics an arena traditionally dominated by great powers.

    In the study of geopolitics it is axiomatic that major developments in the balance of power cause states to alter their geostrategies and change the geopolitical status quo. There is no greater development in the balance of power than when a state is added or subtracted from the number of great powers, and today we see China asserting a great power identity and challenging the post-cold war unipolar structure of global politics. Offensive realists argue that when a state reaches for great power status, the desire for security from other great powers compels it to seek hegemony in its home region. If successful, security motivations drive it to weaken other great powers in their respective home regions (Mearsheimer 2014). Thus, few realists would be surprised if China's great power aspirations require strategic dominance in East Asia. The question is whether it develops a suitable geostrategy.

    THE GEOPOLITICS OF EAST ASIA IN MACROHISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

    Continental vs. Maritime Spheres

    Since the dawn of civilization, the geopolitical heartland or core of East Asia has been the vast fertile region bounded on the north by the Yellow River, the coastal seas to the east, the Pearl River in the south, and the Tibetan plateau and deserts to the west. The rich land and labour resources of the core permitted the rise of East Asian civilization and it became the seat of successive empires.

  • Foreword

  • David Arase
  • Book:
    The Geopolitics of Xi Jinping's Chinese Dream
    Published by:
    ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
    Published online:
    09 March 2019
    Print publication:
    07 November 2016, pp v-vi

  • Summary

    The economic, political, strategic and cultural dynamism in Southeast Asia has gained added relevance in recent years with the spectacular rise of giant economies in East and South Asia. This has drawn greater attention to the region and to the enhanced role it now plays in international relations and global economics.

    The sustained effort made by Southeast Asian nations since 1967 towards a peaceful and gradual integration of their economies has had indubitable success, and perhaps as a consequence of this, most of these countries are undergoing deep political and social changes domestically and are constructing innovative solutions to meet new international challenges. Big Power tensions continue to be played out in the neighbourhood despite the tradition of neutrality exercised by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

    The Trends in Southeast Asia series acts as a platform for serious analyses by selected authors who are experts in their fields. It is aimed at encouraging policy makers and scholars to contemplate the diversity and dynamism of this exciting region.

  • The Geopolitics of Xi Jinping's Chinese Dream: Problems and Prospects

  • David Arase
  • Book:
    The Geopolitics of Xi Jinping's Chinese Dream
    Published by:
    ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
    Published online:
    09 March 2019
    Print publication:
    07 November 2016, pp vii-viii

  • Summary

    EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

  • • Viewing China's current relations with neighbours in the East Asian littoral from geopolitical and macrohistorical perspectives enables us to evaluate China's current prospects for advancing its “peaceful rise”.

  • • Today the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC) articulates a Chinese Dream that envisions a new age of Asian predominance to match China's memory of past golden ages. To realize this dream, China seeks geopolitical predominance in the East Asian littoral.

  • • Judging from the foreign policy goals and behaviour pursued by Xi Jinping, China appears likely to govern the region according to its core interests even when this may require other states to give up their lawful sovereign rights and prerogatives.

  • • Ever since the East Asian core region birthed Chinese civilization, this core has experienced cycles of political consolidation and disintegration. Although large swathes of the continental periphery were incorporated into the core, geopolitical factors that remain relevant today prevented the conquest of the maritime periphery.

  • • Peninsular and archipelagic states in East Asia's maritime periphery are again individually hedging or counterbalancing against Chinese efforts. This aids U.S. rebalancing strategy and frustrates China's effort to remove U.S. strategic influence from the region.

  • • Faced with mounting resistance, China must attempt to overcome this resistance with stepped up forcefulness or modify its ambitions. Domestic political constraints may make it difficult for Beijing to compromise, even though pushing harder for geopolitical predominance promises only greater costs and risk without improving prospects for ultimate success.

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