The Ambiguous Architecture of Economic Integration in East Asia

IF 1.3
Natasha Hamilton-Hart
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In the current moment of heightened tension between the United States and China, the United States is aiming to eliminate areas of ambiguity and flexibility in its growing array of export controls and other policies intended to hamper the acquisition of advanced technology by Chinese entities and \"de-risk\" exposure to China. This essay examines how informality and ambiguity have facilitated the development of East Asian economic regionalization and what this looks like in an environment of U.S.-China rivalry. The De Facto Economic Regional Architecture East Asia has emerged as a robust economic region over the past three decades, as evidenced by the growth of cross-border investment flows and the rise of intraregional trade. Regional trade and investment flows have been organized to reflect the logic of global value chains, sometimes referred to as global production networks, by which the production of goods is dispersed across national boundaries in an effort to realize efficiencies of scale and specialization.1 The rise in trade of intermediate products created a distinctive condition of complex interdependence: firms and national economies are enmeshed in multiple, crosscutting relationships of mutual [End Page 31] dependence that span not only critical inputs and final markets but also technology, logistics, distribution, digital services, and information flows.2 Early analyses of the emerging structure of regional integration in East Asia noted that the de facto regionalization occurring there, even by the 1990s, was different from the European experience in which integration was essentially a product of formal regionalism.3 Formal regionalism meant cooperative commitments by governments to liberalize trade and investment, harmonize standards, and remove other restrictions on the free flow of commerce and people. Regionalization, in contrast, appeared to occur in advance of formal intergovernmental agreements in East Asia and was, in this sense, informal and market-based rather than state-led. In fact, as was clear by the end of the twentieth century, the new structure of integration via global value chains was fundamentally different from that predicted by traditional trade and investment models based on the full production of finished goods, such as washing machines and automobiles.4 Instead, very specific production functions were disbursed geographically, while transactions along the value chain were governed in diverse ways rather than consisting of a series of arms-length, price-based exchanges.5 The governance of different value chains varies according to the specific attributes of what is being traded and where, but the essential point is that global value chains provide for a degree of informal coordination among participants. The relationships and close coordination among individual market players make possible exchanges and interdependencies that would otherwise be unlikely to clear the market due to information asymmetries, lack of trust, or other market imperfections. Early analyses tended to view these interfirm relationships that smoothed problems of trust through the lens of ethnically distinctive business group structures and networks.6 [End Page 32] The ethnic dimension to these networks, however, does not derive from any kind of culturalist essence but rather through the economics of transaction costs. In the East Asian context, for example, ethnic Chinese business networks in Taiwan and many Southeast Asian economies provide functional substitutes for formal institutions in terms of contract enforcement and other market infrastructure. Similarly, Japanese keiretsu (business groups) and Korean chaebol (sprawling conglomerates) can be seen as coordinating institutions that underpin the willingness of market players to share technology, extend credit, or enter extended contracts that might otherwise be too risky to pursue. Such informal coordinating structures have carried much of the burden of East Asia's de facto regionalization, which would not otherwise have been predicted in the face of government policies that were often restrictive or inhospitable to cross-border commerce. 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引用次数: 0

Abstract

The Ambiguous Architecture of Economic Integration in East Asia Natasha Hamilton-Hart (bio) Regional economic integration in East Asia has been built on an architecture of ambiguity and informality. A foundational informal architecture of cross-border business ties and business-government relationships has facilitated regional commerce for many decades. Ambiguity has contributed to building formal integration through intergovernmental cooperation because commitments are often only possible due to the flexibility ambiguity provides. In the current moment of heightened tension between the United States and China, the United States is aiming to eliminate areas of ambiguity and flexibility in its growing array of export controls and other policies intended to hamper the acquisition of advanced technology by Chinese entities and "de-risk" exposure to China. This essay examines how informality and ambiguity have facilitated the development of East Asian economic regionalization and what this looks like in an environment of U.S.-China rivalry. The De Facto Economic Regional Architecture East Asia has emerged as a robust economic region over the past three decades, as evidenced by the growth of cross-border investment flows and the rise of intraregional trade. Regional trade and investment flows have been organized to reflect the logic of global value chains, sometimes referred to as global production networks, by which the production of goods is dispersed across national boundaries in an effort to realize efficiencies of scale and specialization.1 The rise in trade of intermediate products created a distinctive condition of complex interdependence: firms and national economies are enmeshed in multiple, crosscutting relationships of mutual [End Page 31] dependence that span not only critical inputs and final markets but also technology, logistics, distribution, digital services, and information flows.2 Early analyses of the emerging structure of regional integration in East Asia noted that the de facto regionalization occurring there, even by the 1990s, was different from the European experience in which integration was essentially a product of formal regionalism.3 Formal regionalism meant cooperative commitments by governments to liberalize trade and investment, harmonize standards, and remove other restrictions on the free flow of commerce and people. Regionalization, in contrast, appeared to occur in advance of formal intergovernmental agreements in East Asia and was, in this sense, informal and market-based rather than state-led. In fact, as was clear by the end of the twentieth century, the new structure of integration via global value chains was fundamentally different from that predicted by traditional trade and investment models based on the full production of finished goods, such as washing machines and automobiles.4 Instead, very specific production functions were disbursed geographically, while transactions along the value chain were governed in diverse ways rather than consisting of a series of arms-length, price-based exchanges.5 The governance of different value chains varies according to the specific attributes of what is being traded and where, but the essential point is that global value chains provide for a degree of informal coordination among participants. The relationships and close coordination among individual market players make possible exchanges and interdependencies that would otherwise be unlikely to clear the market due to information asymmetries, lack of trust, or other market imperfections. Early analyses tended to view these interfirm relationships that smoothed problems of trust through the lens of ethnically distinctive business group structures and networks.6 [End Page 32] The ethnic dimension to these networks, however, does not derive from any kind of culturalist essence but rather through the economics of transaction costs. In the East Asian context, for example, ethnic Chinese business networks in Taiwan and many Southeast Asian economies provide functional substitutes for formal institutions in terms of contract enforcement and other market infrastructure. Similarly, Japanese keiretsu (business groups) and Korean chaebol (sprawling conglomerates) can be seen as coordinating institutions that underpin the willingness of market players to share technology, extend credit, or enter extended contracts that might otherwise be too risky to pursue. Such informal coordinating structures have carried much of the burden of East Asia's de facto regionalization, which would not otherwise have been predicted in the face of government policies that were often restrictive or inhospitable to cross-border commerce. Crucially, informal interfirm networks also included...
东亚经济一体化的模糊架构
东亚区域经济一体化是建立在一种模糊性和非正式性的架构之上的。几十年来,跨境商业联系和工商政府关系的非正式基础架构促进了区域商业发展。模糊性有助于通过政府间合作建立正式一体化,因为承诺往往只有在模糊性提供灵活性的情况下才有可能实现。在当前美中关系紧张加剧的时刻,美国正致力于消除其日益增多的出口管制和其他旨在阻碍中国实体获取先进技术并“降低”与中国接触风险的政策中存在的模糊性和灵活性。本文考察了非正式性和模糊性如何促进了东亚经济区域化的发展,以及在中美竞争的环境下这是什么样子。过去三十年来,跨境投资流动的增长和区域内贸易的兴起证明了东亚已成为一个强劲的经济区域。区域贸易和投资流动已经被组织起来,以反映全球价值链的逻辑,有时也被称为全球生产网络,通过这种逻辑,商品的生产分散在国界之外,以实现规模和专业化的效率中间产品贸易的增长创造了复杂相互依赖的独特条件:公司和国家经济陷入相互依赖的多重横切关系中,不仅跨越关键投入和最终市场,还跨越技术、物流、分销、数字服务和信息流对东亚正在出现的区域一体化结构的早期分析指出,即使到1990年代,那里发生的事实上的区域化也不同于欧洲的经验,后者的一体化基本上是正式区域主义的产物正式的地区主义意味着各国政府的合作承诺,以实现贸易和投资自由化,协调标准,并消除对商业和人员自由流动的其他限制。相比之下,东亚的区域化似乎是在正式政府间协定之前发生的,从这个意义上说,区域化是非正式的、以市场为基础的,而不是国家主导的。事实上,正如20世纪末所清楚的那样,通过全球价值链实现一体化的新结构与基于洗衣机和汽车等制成品的全部生产的传统贸易和投资模式所预测的结构有着根本的不同相反,非常具体的生产功能是按地理位置分配的,而价值链上的交易以不同的方式进行管理,而不是由一系列独立的、基于价格的交易组成不同价值链的治理根据交易的具体属性和地点而有所不同,但最重要的一点是,全球价值链提供了参与者之间一定程度的非正式协调。个别市场参与者之间的关系和密切协调使交换和相互依赖成为可能,否则由于信息不对称、缺乏信任或其他市场不完善而不可能清理市场。早期的分析倾向于通过种族独特的商业集团结构和网络来看待这些缓和信任问题的公司间关系。然而,这些网络的种族维度并非来自任何文化主义本质,而是来自交易成本经济学。例如,在东亚背景下,台湾和许多东南亚经济体的华人商业网络在合同执行和其他市场基础设施方面为正式机构提供了功能性替代品。同样,日本的经济团体(keiretsu)和韩国的财阀(chaebol)可以被视为协调机构,它们支持市场参与者分享技术、提供信贷或签订延长合同的意愿,否则这些合同可能风险太大,无法追求。这种非正式的协调结构承担了东亚事实上的区域化的大部分负担,否则,面对经常限制或不欢迎跨境商业的政府政策,这是无法预料到的。至关重要的是,非正式的公司间网络还包括……
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来源期刊
Asia Policy
Asia Policy Arts and Humanities-History
CiteScore
0.80
自引率
0.00%
发文量
55
期刊介绍: Asia Policy is a peer-reviewed scholarly journal presenting policy-relevant academic research on the Asia-Pacific that draws clear and concise conclusions useful to today’s policymakers.
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