Northeast Asia Regionalism

All three volumes under review focus on a set of issues that have become important in the social sciences: the construction and outlook for regions and regionalism. The specific focus on all three is primarily on Northeast Asia. This region is probably the contemporary world’s most vibrant area that comprises China, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan and to a lesser extent other parts of Asia such as Southeast Asia. While each book is intended for different readerships and is framed by rather different theoretical and empirical concerns, together they provide a very good picture of the ways in which the social sciences have come to terms with this specific area and with regionalism more generally. Moreover, the books offer examples of the three major mechanisms that undergird the emergence of regionalism (in the sense of a connected and coherent area): economists have emphasized market-led regionalization, political scientists have posited the importance of institution-led processes and cultural studies scholars have argued for the importance of cultural flows to the development of regions.

Richard Pomfret is an economist based at the University of Adelaide in Australia. His short volume (based on previous published articles) analyzes the emergence of East Asia as an economic region. The overall framing of the volume is descriptive and charts out the major trends and processes involved in the creation of the region. Closely argued and solidly based on empirical data, it shows that whereas before the 2000s there were almost no regional arrangements in place they have proliferated since then in terms of both monetary integration and trade. Pomfret’s main contention is that the European model of integration does not apply to the area. Hence, in Asia institution-led integration was slow to emerge when compared to Europe, North America (NAFTA) or South America (Mercosur). Pomfret’s contentions center on changes to national economies, the links to global value chains and to interlinked production processes. While he offers no sustained political analysis, he links his examination to changed national policies all focused on economic factors that have led to regionalism.

The book’s seven chapters trace out the development of East Asian economic regionalism by positing two significant periods: pre- and post-2000. The reasons for this periodization center on the Asian Crisis of 1997-98 and the importance of the policies allowing market-driven and policy-led processes to take over. As Pomfret shows regionalism in Asia has come about through the emergence of multiple agreements whether they be bilateral or regional. Put briefly, the dynamic was of the development of open regionalism in contrast to many features of regionalism in North America or Europe. More specifically the bilateral and multi-lateral trade agreements in the area included not only reductions to tariff barriers but the speedy elimination of many non-tariff obstacles (basically the facilitation of trade). In addition, according to Pomfret, the deepening of vertically integrated production chains have also led to ever greater integration. 

As the book’s back cover promises, the volume is indeed written in an accessible style for a wide range of readers. Pomfret is always clear in his writing and the solid base in empirical research is a boon. As a non-economist I found it a very good introduction to the subject.

The edited volume by Berry, Liscutin and Mackintosh belongs to the veritable flowering of publications in cultural studies about popular culture and the media in East Asia. As the book’s subtitle suggests, the focus of the various essays is on regional-level flows in cinema productions and music, or anime and manga as they are related to government policies, piracy and labor conditions in joint productions. Readers wanting a more sustained analysis of the cultural industries themselves will be rather disappointed. Apart from one or two essays there is very little in the way of merging cultural studies with such disciplines as economics, business studies or organizational analyses. Despite the volume’s subtitle there is relatively little focus on the production and distribution of cultural and media products.

The book is divided into four parts apart from an introduction by the editors. The introduction – probably the best essay in the volume – places the essays in their wider disciplinary and historical context. Subsequently, the first section offers a series of reflective essays on cultural studies within and about Northeast Asia. These essays echo wider concerns about the relevance of cultural studies and basically comprise a reflection on the field. It includes three contributions: Iwabuchi about the declining relevance of cultural studies because of the dominance of politics and the evils of neo-liberalism; Dutton on the historical development of and the movement of Adorno’s analysis of the cultural industries to the United States; and Harrison on the development of cultural studies about elites in Taiwan. The second part offers a number of case studies where Ahn provides a fascinating analysis the Pusan Film Festival, Tezuka a study of American-Japanese coproduction films, and Yoon on the South Korean anime industry. The third part is devoted to one of the most central fields of cultural studies, crossing borders. It includes essays by Pang on pirating Japanese films in China; Oyama on the distribution of Japanese brands in East-Asia; and Pease on Korean pop music in China. The fourth and final section covers nationalism and transnationalism in Korea and Japan with cases by Liscutin on a Neo-nationalist manga, Morris on the New Korean Cinema, and Mori on cultural hybridities between the two countries. 

Unfortunately, and like many edited collections, the level of the papers is highly uneven and some of the contributions read like conference papers rather than full-fledged articles. It also suffers from the best and the worst of the jargon of cultural studies: thus we are treated to completely incomprehensible sentences or the ritual invocation of the luminaries of the field (Foucault, Bhabha or Butler for example). On the other hand, the analyses are at their best with such insights as the ways in the broad cultural and media flows intersect with generational, class and gender concerns. In addition, many of the readings do much to underscore the continued tensions and anxieties in people’s lives (rather than only among elites). But as stated before, the volume’s biggest problem is that there is little sustained analysis of how the cultural industries actually work (in terms of actors, internal organization, production techniques or business strategies). The volume should be read as such: a collection of essays that may be profitably read on their own.

The volume by Calder and Ye is situated within political science. Calder is based at Johns Hopkins while Ye teaches at Boston University (and is a former student of Calder’s). It is written very much within the tradition of current-day American political science with a very heavy dose of theory, a clear outline of the contributions of the analysis, and a wonderful comparative framing of the analysis. The volume has a dual character as both a tome developing theory – one of institution-building or “organization” as they term it – and one related to policy. As the back cover explains, Northeast Asia is characterized as the one of the most dangerous areas on earth yet despite this situation is still the most rapidly growing region in the world. What interests the authors is how this area has emerged as an identifiable and distinct economic, political and strategic region. Like Pomfret it is in a sense policy oriented and ends by offering thoughts about the prospects for North East Asian cooperation.

The volume’s main argument is that the increasingly intense economic, cultural and social interactions between Japan, China and South Korea are creating a cooperative and to an extent cohesive entity that contrasts with images of the region as the focus of global tensions and rivalries. They convincingly show that Northeast Asia comprising these three countries not only forms the economic and military heart of the continent but that its very high levels of capital formation and technological progress prophesy its continued dominance. As they show, historical tensions in the area are slowly but steadily diminishing: concretely, the strain attending historical memory and the territorial disputes centered on Japan, and military and security issues focused on Taiwan and China. Instead of the set of bilateral ties that were established between the United States and each country in the post-war era (China’s developing later, of course), what has emerged are pluri-lateral policy dialogues and transnational institutions.

The volume comprises four parts and eleven chapters. The first part includes two chapters that place Northeast Asia in global perspective and offer theories of institutional development. The second part focuses on critical junctures where a number of conditions come together to allow elites to make significant decisions regarding regionalism. It contains two chapters offering an analysis of the critical junctures from the Korean War to the 2008 financial crisis. Part three’s two chapters focus on regional development. They deal, respectively with the visions of regional futures formulated by various leaders and intellectuals and an overview of the actual web of regional connectedness (with sections devoted to such topics as transnational epistemic communities, subnational and production networks, or production clusters). The fourth part includes four chapters that focus on national transformation. Readers are provided with chapters on China’s regional policies, Korea and ASEAN, Japan’s role, and the place of the United States in the making of Northeast Asia. The volume ends with a conclusion that sums up the main arguments and offers thoughts about its implications for the future.   

The driving force, as the authors see it is economic moves – centered on investment and trade – that drive social and political reconciliation and political change. Concretely, the most important expression and driver of regionalism are formal organizations or institutions that are established to facilitate trade and production and that allow greater political consultation and coordination. To a slightly lesser degree such institutions also provide avenues for continued social and cultural ties. The core of Calder and Ye’s analysis centers on what they call critical junctures. As such this is by far the most sophisticated of the three volumes under review because it seeks to explain rather than describe developments. By critical juncture Calder and Ye refer to historical decision points marked by a crisis that must be grappled with and that forms the basis for change. In addition during the juncture intense time pressure on decision-makers force them to make decisions that they would not take under normal circumstances. As such, identifying and analyzing the key critical junctures that the region faced is at the core of this volume.

Again while much more theoretical and analytical than Pomfret’s volume this book is nevertheless very well written: it is very solidly based and rich in data as well as case studies.

Two issues seem to undergird the three volumes in the ways that they seek to understand, explain and prescribe for regionalism. The first set of issues centers on the mechanisms for the emergence of Northeast Asia as a region. With some simplification (since there is a certain overlap between them as the volumes suggest) there seem to be three main mechanisms at play and each book underscores one or two of them. Together they suggest that regionalism involves a complex of interconnected ties, flows and ideas that are held together in a way that is internally (but far from perfectly) coherent manner. The first is that of the processes centered on economic regionalism and is most evident in the volumes by Pomfret and Calder and Ye. Here the most important processes are the putting in place of production chains, lowering tariffs, and cultivating trade. Given the historical and political limitations of the region as the two volumes explain it has been trade (rather than monetary integration for example) that has been central here. The second mechanism is policy and institution building and is governmental of course. Here again it is these two book that underscore how various bodies such as ASEAN Plus Three or the East Asian Summit were central to these processes. The third mechanism is most evident in the volume by Berry, Liscutin and Mackintosh but is also found in Calder and Ye’s analysis is that of cultural and social flows. Here the most important processes are the movement of ideas between countries (Japanese popular culture is the most salient example here) or the establishment of informal ties that allow the flow of money and resources (examples here would include pirating).

The second set of issues is that of the commitment of scholars to social change (including, of course, economic and political change). In this respect, the volume on cultural studies is the most explicit one about its agenda for change. It is based solidly within the political commitments of cultural studies scholars in shedding light on the power inequalities of contemporary Northeast Asia. Yet at times the various scholars seem to have a tendency (as many cultural studies people have) to sound a sort of compulsory indignation in regard to anything smacking of the evils of neo-liberalism and neo-imperialism. As a consequence we are given very little in the way of more positive prescriptions for how cultural studies may actually help policy makers. Pomfret’s volume is the most implicit about prescriptions although it does not shy away – like any good economist – from conjecturing about the future development of the region. The volume by Calder and Ye includes explicit prescriptions for policy and may be related to the very situatedness of many American based political scientists in regard to government policies. The sections relevant to policy are thus directly related to the governing bodies of the United States.

Read together, the three volumes offer a complex and complementary view of the processes of the emergence of Northeast Asia as a region. 

Eyal Ben-Ari, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem