Asia Europe Journal - Call for Special Issue Papers on 'Asia in Flux: Network Power, New Regionalism, and Global Development'

Guest Editors: 
Hong Liu, Nanyang Centre for Public Administration, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore 
Chen Li, Centre for China Studies, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong 
Guanie Lim, GRIPS Global Governance Program, National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies, Japan
email: g-lim@grips.ac.jp (this opens in a new tab)

Asia’s rapid growth since the conclusion of World War Two is nothing short of miraculous. It started with the extraordinary progress of Japan in the 1950s and 1960s, followed by the first-tier Asian tiger economies (i.e. Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and South Korea). These economies have radically uplifted their productive capabilities and captured increasingly more value-added from the globalization of trade and investment, attaining high income status in the space of mere decades. In more recent times, China has achieved remarkable economic catch-up, transforming itself to be the world’s second largest economy and largest trading nation. Other Asian economies also witnessed progress, albeit to varying extents. The end result sees global gross domestic product (GDP) gravity shifting incrementally towards Asia, generating profound, wide-ranging implications to the international economic order. 
The rise of Asia has shaped and also been driven by multiple dimensions of regional connectivity and integration, with increasingly dense regional networks orchestrating cooperation and competition across multiple levels of firms, industries, governments and international organizations. One of the most popular explanations of Asian dynamism is the ‘flying geese’ paradigm (Akamatsu 1962). Its proponents believe that industrialization migration is fundamentally driven by an international division of labour and an economy’s comparative advantage (see Kojima 2000). They also theorize that the ‘lead goose’ (Japan) shifts its labour-intensive activities to less advanced Asian economies (enjoying lower input cost) so that it could focus on capital- and technology-intensive activities. The cycle repeats itself when the less advanced economies further down the pecking order upgrade their industrial activities.

Despite some criticism against it, the flying geese model remains relatively well-accepted (e.g. Brautigam et al 2018; Lin 2012) [Note 1].  A more modernist way is to envision the increasingly dense networks crisscrossing the region’s manifold production sites as a ‘Factory Asia’. Indeed, following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, various states reliant on and/or sympathetic to autarkic economics have been subsumed into what was originally an East Asian-centric development model. Better-endowed states in Central Asia like Mongolia and Kazakhstan, for example, were incentivized to find newer markets for their natural resources. Resource-poor ones had no such buffer. They not only had to quickly absorb the policy lessons of their more advanced Asian peers, but also aggressively attract foreign direct investments (FDI). In the Mekong area, Vietnam stood out as one of the most eager industrializers. Although it has produced very few ‘national champions’ in the mould of Japan’s Mitsubishi Group and South Korea’s Samsung Group, the reality is that Vietnamese economic growth has almost always outpaced those within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) since the late 1980s (Ngo 2020). India and, to a smaller extent, Sri Lanka capitalised on their workforce’s relatively young age and good command of English to attract Western firms, targeting labour-intensive activities such as customer service and after-sales support (Asian Development Bank 2020). 

Implicit in the above accounts is a relatively benign international environment, which encourages resource exchange amongst these economies, in addition to between them and the rest of the world. However, in the face of deteriorating US-China relationship in recent years, the situation has been increasingly complicated. For one, China’s catch-up is facing increasingly challenging external environment as the US imposes restrictive trade and investment policy measures to constrain China’s industrial upgrading. There is also a growing perception that smaller regional economies are being forced to pick sides. This tightening arena not only circumscribes their strategic autonomy, but also jeopardizes wider region-building efforts. What is worse, the apparent build-up of alliances such as the Australia-United Kingdom-United States trilateral security pact (AUKUS) and Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) has generated even more uncertainty within Asia. 

Yet, history enthusiasts point out several silver linings. An oft-mentioned example is the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, which devastated several regional economies. In Indonesia, the severity of the downturn brought to an abrupt end the long-ruling Suharto administration (1965-1998). Notwithstanding the desperation, diligent politico-bureaucrats worked behind the scenes to establish emergency credit lines for distressed economies. While Japanese attempts to institutionalize these mechanisms in the form of the Asian Monetary Fund lacked support from the US and International Monetary Fund (IMF), the basic idea was welcomed by virtually all the affected economies (Khor et al 2022). In the post-crisis years, the ASEAN states even lobbied the ‘+3 partners’ (China, Japan, and South Korea) in establishing two landmark institutions: the ASEAN+3 Macroeconomic Research Office (AMRO) and Chiang Mai Initiative Multilateralization (CMIM). These institutions would go on to provide important regional ‘public goods’, ranging from conducting macroeconomic surveillance, supporting liquidity provision, to providing technical assistance to member states (Rana and Pacheco Pardo 2018; Hamilton-Hart 2012). Another unintended outcome of the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis is its imprint on the macroeconomic management of the regional economies, especially those most severely hit by the downturn. Wary of the turbulence resulting from the sudden outflow of capital, successive cohorts of policymakers have opted to run current account surpluses that are arguably larger than optimal as they accumulate foreign exchange to shore up their countries’ external position. Nevertheless, this ‘insurance’ policy inadvertently leads to a situation whereby capital cannot be effectively mobilized to pursue critical infrastructure projects with a longer-than-normal payback period, otherwise undersupplied by market forces.

It is within this context that Chinese technical expertise and financial support prove an attractive proposition. To this end, the advent of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2013 has created new opportunities for various Asian economies, not least those directly bordering China. For example, in Kazakhstan, local elites have internalized the largesse brought about by the BRI, directing Chinese capital and technology to finance costly projects, such as those involving automobile, hydropower, and petrochemicals, with long gestation period. Moreover, the strategic courting of Chinese transnational corporations (TNCs) provides the Kazakhstani state with an attractive counterweight to reduce its (traditional) dependence on Russia (Tjia 2022). In a similar vein, Souvannaseng’s (2022) coverage of Laotian hydropower infrastructure reveals the greater attractiveness of China’s reliance on policy banks and the use of bilateral export credit arrangements vis-à-vis orthodox Bretton Woods financing regime based on multilateral loans made through multilateral development banks such as the World Bank and Asian Development Bank (ADB), championed primarily by the US and Japan. 

The Kazakhstani and Laotian experience, while shedding light on recent region-building efforts, raises some questions on the negative externalities that the BRI has (indirectly) brought about. For one, whether these projects could be rolled out eventually as promised hinges on host state institutional quality. Greater transparency and civil service integrity, to name a few, are key features that eagle-eyed observers would want more information on. In a recent study, Liu et al (2023) illustrate that increased economic integration with China has generated varying impacts on Central, South, and Southeast Asia, based on their analysis of longitudinal, cross-country panel data (see also Vidya and Taghizadeh-Hesary 2021). Tangential but important to this discussion is the extent to which Chinese economic presence impacts ethnic ties of the host economies. Ren and Liu (2022) demonstrate that the ethnic Chinese (minority) firms of several Southeast Asian economies, capitalizing on the economic opportunities brought about by the BRI, have engaged with the respective governmental agencies in China by establishing, renewing, or enhancing transnational networks. This form of economic transnationalism, notwithstanding its appeal, injects even more complexity to an already delicate balancing act between transnational engagement and national (ethnic) identity. 

Recent studies on Chinese-financed infrastructure in Indonesia and Malaysia show that certain politicians sought to score points by critiquing incumbents for supposedly adopting too accommodative a stance towards Chinese TNCs (Lim et al 2021; Liu and Lim 2019).  Fiery (and arguably primordial) rhetoric was also evident, which invoked negative sentiment against the ethnic Chinese minorities of both these Southeast Asian economies. While it contributed to regime change in Malaysia, this was not quite the case in Indonesia. The broader argument is that Chinese capital, when loosely managed, is likely to forward the interests of one interest group over another. In extreme cases, elite relations and centre-subnational ties can be reshuffled, in turn sparking far-reaching repercussions on host country politics (Camba 2022).

With the above as a backdrop, this special issue asks the following questions: 

• How, has Asian regionalization fared since the 2000s, and especially since the BRI’s inception? 
• For starters, is the Japan-centric ‘network power’ (Katzenstein and Shiraishi 1997), so critical in bringing various East Asian countries together during the 1970s-1990s, still relevant?
• To what degree, has the BRI reconfigured pre-existing networks as well as stimulated newer ones? Relatedly, how flexible (or rigid) has Asian regionalization become following China’s increasingly pivotal role in the global arena? 
• Does Asia’s experience bear any resemblance to that of the EU, oft-considered the ‘gold standard’ of regional integration? 
• More pointedly, what are the opportunities and constraints facing both the region as well as the respective national economies.

It answers these questions by grounding them along three interlinked themes – trade/production regimes, financial flows, and sociocultural networks. These three themes help to sharpen our conceptualization on how region-building has taken place, in addition to its future directions. The guest editors invite papers structured around these three key themes. Each paper is expected to address at least one theme, with a multidisciplinary perspective most welcomed.  

Note 1: Two main critiques can be identified. A first critique challenges the supposedly stable development hierarchy between Japan and the less-developed economies. Evidence is mounting that firms from the first-tier tiger economies are usurping their Japanese contemporaries in industries ranging from shipbuilding to consumer electronics (see Bernard and Ravenhill 1995; Whittaker et al 2020). A second criticism followed from the first, which takes issue with the model’s failure to recognize the possible existence of impediments to latecomer upgrading. Since the 1990s, several former high growth regional economies (such as Thailand and Malaysia) have failed to upgrade their productive capacity to capture more value from the sales of increasingly complex goods and services. Consequently, they have been locked in a de facto low wage-cum-low productivity competition with adjacent economies boasting even lower wages (Wong and Cheong 2014).

Manuscript Submission Information:
Authors are requested to submit their original and unpublished works to this Special Issue. The Journal has a rigorous peer-reviewing process and at least two referees will review the submitted papers. All submitted papers must be formatted according to the journal's instructions, which can be found at: https://www.springer.com/journal/10308/submission-guidelines

Please submit your manuscript through the Journal’s homepage at https://www.springer.com/journal/10308

To ensure a paper is considered for the Special Issue, reply “yes” when asked during submission whether it is intended for a special issue and select “Special Issue on Asia in Flux: Network Power, New Regionalism, and Global Development” from the drop-down menu.

Important Dates:
Manuscript submission deadline: 1 April 2024
Workshop (physical/hybrid/online) for paper presenters: 1 June 2024
First round reviews and decision: 1 July 2024
Revision Submission due:  1 October 2024
Publication date: December 2024
 

References:
Akamatsu, Kaname. 1962. “A Historical Pattern of Economic Growth in Developing Countries.” The Developing Economies, vol.1, no.1, pp.3–25.
Asian Development Bank. 2020. Asia’s Journey to Prosperity: Policy, Market, and Technology over 50 Years. Manila: Asian Development Bank.
Bernard, Mitchell, and John Ravenhill. 1995. “Beyond Product Cycles and Flying Geese: Regionalization, Hierarchy, and the Industrialization of East Asia.” World Politics, vol.47, no.2, pp.171–209. 
Brautigam, Deborah, Xiaoyang Tang, and Xia Ying. 2018. “What Kinds of Chinese ‘Geese’ Are Flying to Africa? Evidence from Chinese Manufacturing Firms.” Journal of African Economies, vol.27, pp.29–51.
Camba, Alvin. 2022. “How Chinese Firms Approach Investment Risk: Strong Leaders, Cancellation, and Pushback.” Review of International Political Economy, vol.29, no.6, pp.2010–2035.
Hamilton-Hart, Natasha. 2012. “Regional and Multi-Level Governance: East Asian Leadership after the Global Financial Crisis.” Asia Europe Journal, vol.9, pp.237–254.
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Khor, Hoe Ee, Diwa Guinigundo, and Masahiro Kawai (eds). 2022. Trauma to Triumph: Rising from the Ashes of the Asian Financial Crisis. Singapore: World Scientific.
Kojima, Kiyoshi. 2000. “The ‘Flying Geese’ Model of Asian Economic Development: Origin, Theoretical Extensions, and Regional Policy Implications.” Journal of Asian Economics, vol.11, pp.375–401.
Lim G, Li C, Syailendra EA (2021) Why is it so hard to push Chinese railway projects in Southeast Asia? The role of domestic politics in Malaysia and Indonesia. World Development, 138: 105272.
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Liu, Hong, and Guanie Lim. 2019. “The Political Economy of a Rising China in Southeast Asia: Malaysia’s Response to the Belt and Road Initiative.” Journal of Contemporary China, vol.28, no.116, pp.216–231.
Liu, Hong, Chengwei Xu, and Guanie Lim. 2023. “The China Effect on Regional Economic Integration: A Longitudinal Study of Central, South, and Southeast Asia.” Journal of the Asia Pacific Economy, DOI: 10.1080/13547860.2023.2258018. 
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Ren, Na, and Hong Liu. 2022. “Southeast Asian Chinese Engage a Rising China: Business Associations, Institutionalised Transnationalism, and the Networked State.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, vol.48, no.4, pp.873–893.
Souvannaseng, Pon. 2022. “Liquidated: US/Japan-Chinese Rivalry, Financial Crises, and Explaining Shifts in Hydropower Finance Regimes in the Mekong.” Asian Perspective, vol.46, no.1, pp.49–75.
Tjia, Linda Yin-nor. 2022. Kazakhstan’s leverage and economic diversification amid Chinese connectivity dreams, Third World Quarterly, 43:4, 797-822.
Vidya, C T, and Farhad Taghizadeh-Hesary. 2021. “Does Infrastructure Facilitate Trade Connectivity? Evidence from the ASEAN.” Asia Europe Journal, vol.19, no.S1, pp.51–75.
Whittaker, D. H., Sturgeon, T., Okita, T., & Zhu, T. 2020. Compressed Development: Time and Timing in Economic and Social Development. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Wong, Chan-Yuan, and Kee-Cheok Cheong. 2014. “Diffusion of Catching-up Industrialization Strategies: The Dynamics of East Asia's Policy Learning Process.” Journal of Comparative Asian Development, vol.13, no.3, pp.369–404.