Asia Europe Journal最新文献

{"title":"The United Kingdom-Korea-Japan free trade agreement with the reduction in tariffs and non-tariff measures on trade and welfare","authors":"Chae-Deug Yi","doi":"10.1007/s10308-025-00722-7","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10308-025-00722-7","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>This study examined the effects of the UK–Korea–Japan free trade agreement (FTA) with the removal of import tariffs and non-tariff measures (NTMs) on real GDP, exports, imports, and welfare using a computable general equilibrium model. The simulation results showed that just using tariff elimination without NTMs leads to underestimation of the effects of the FTA. The trilateral UK–Korea–Japan FTA will be more beneficial than the bilateral UK–Korea and UK–Japan FTAs and will increase GDPs and exports in the UK, Korea, and Japan more over time. In contrast, China, the USA, and the EU will decrease their exports to the UK, Korea, and Japan. Although both the UK and Korea will see large trade creation effects on imports from Japan, China, the USA, and the EU will decrease their imports. The UK–Korea–Japan FTA will also bring much larger welfare gains to the UK, Korea, and Japan than the two bilateral FTAs. Thus, the UK–Korea–Japan FTA will provide more economic gains over periods than the current UK–Korea and UK–Japan FTAs.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":45680,"journal":{"name":"Asia Europe Journal","volume":"23 1","pages":"117 - 150"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2025-03-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143778143","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Chinese views of ‘Global Britain’: evidence from the government, media, and scholars","authors":"Biao Zhang,&nbsp;Ruike Xu","doi":"10.1007/s10308-025-00721-8","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10308-025-00721-8","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Under the slogan ‘Global Britain’, the UK has pursued a range of foreign policy roles. While existing studies focus on the UK’s self-conception of these roles—including a faithful (US) ally, a force for good, a European partner, a Commonwealth leader, a great power, and a global trading state—few have examined other countries’ perceptions in detail. This article examines reactions to these roles of the Chinese government, media, and scholars by drawing on role theory. It reveals two key findings. First, the Chinese government completely rejects the UK’s roles as a faithful ally and a force for good, overlooks the roles of a Commonwealth leader and a European partner, and supports its roles as a global trading state and a great power. Second, while Chinese media and scholars share the government’s rejection of the faithful ally and force for good roles, they somewhat disagree with the government over the rest of these roles. These findings, which highlight the complexity of Chinese role expectations, contribute to studies of British foreign policy, role theory, and China-UK relations.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":45680,"journal":{"name":"Asia Europe Journal","volume":"23 1","pages":"99 - 116"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2025-03-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143778142","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Managing the COVID-19 pandemic in varied frameworks of trust, transparency, and governance capacity: evidence from China, the UK, Hong Kong, and Taiwan","authors":"Dionysios Stivas,&nbsp;Alistair Cole","doi":"10.1007/s10308-025-00719-2","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10308-025-00719-2","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>By illuminating the mode of health crisis management in the four distinct jurisdictions of China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the UK, this article considers how varying trust-transparency mixes provide a context for understanding the public governance of the COVID-19 pandemic. The article builds on publicly available surveys, governmental documents, and observations of the assessed administrations’ response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The study covers the period between January 2020 and April 2022. We conclude that though trust is an important element for controlling the virus, transparency is the precondition for a longer-term resilient and sustainable policy response. Trust-transparency mixes matter because they feed through into governance capacity. While transparency is the prerequisite for a longer-term robust and sustainable policy response, trust is essential for managing the virus in the short term. Governance capacity needs to be understood as a contingent, context-specific quality, in the sense of a legitimate steering mechanism.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":45680,"journal":{"name":"Asia Europe Journal","volume":"23 1","pages":"81 - 98"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2025-02-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143778141","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"East Central Europe’s exposure to China: ephemeral sources of susceptibility","authors":"Kamala Valiyeva","doi":"10.1007/s10308-025-00718-3","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10308-025-00718-3","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>China’s presence in ECE is characterized by its fragmented structure and continued divergences between societal perceptions and political stances toward Beijing, thereby rendering the exposure to its influence ephemeral. The ECE-China engagements transcend the conventional framework of material-economic considerations, veering into the domain of ideational influences, wherein it predominantly manifests through elite-level identity dynamics and the intricacies of rhetorical politics. Within this premise, the paper employs analytical eclecticism to operationalize theories on normative power and symbolic domination in synthesis with the concepts of liminality and elite capture to explain ECE’s exposure to China. With an emphasis on the historical ideational paradigms and institutional-political dynamics, the paper delineates two pivotal factors that were instrumental in elucidating the contours of regional vulnerability. First, it foregrounds the historical geopolitical liminality of ECE, dissecting its contemporary expression in the strategic rivalry between the development models propagated by the EU and China. This juxtaposition is starkly characterized by a cleavage between Beijing’s pragmatic-driven framework embodied in the 16/14 + 1 platform and ECE’s existence within a values-based paradigm upheld by Brussels. Within this dichotomy of fundamentally divergent development paradigms, ECE nations undergoing an illiberal turn or lacking in resilient state capacity yet striving to assert their geopolitical subjectivity have increasingly displayed an eastward pivot in their foreign relations. Secondly, the paper addresses the interplay between post-communist institutional development and elite formation and their correlation with susceptibility to China’s influence, emphasizing the elite capture phenomenon, predominantly evident among the more authoritarian-leaning countries of the region.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":45680,"journal":{"name":"Asia Europe Journal","volume":"23 1","pages":"57 - 79"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2025-02-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10308-025-00718-3.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143778140","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"On the relationship between corruption and political ideology: the case of South Korea","authors":"Hyun Jong Kim,&nbsp;Sol Lim,&nbsp;Tae-Hwan Kim,&nbsp;Yunmi Kim","doi":"10.1007/s10308-025-00720-9","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10308-025-00720-9","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>This article empirically investigates the relative effectiveness of political regimes liberal versus conservative in combating corruption in South Korea. Two corruption indices, the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) by Transparency International and the Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) by the World Bank, are employed to measure corruption levels. Through mean difference analysis and regression analysis, some strong and consistent empirical evidence emerges, suggesting that the liberal regime might have proven more effective in combating corruption in South Korea than its conservative counterpart, assuming that the perceived levels of corruption, as measured by both CPI and WGI, serve as reasonable approximations of the actual level of corruption.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":45680,"journal":{"name":"Asia Europe Journal","volume":"23 1","pages":"23 - 55"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2025-02-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143778137","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The EU-Japan economic partnership agreement in Japanese print media: a “cars-for-cheese deal” or “the black ships of European cheese”?","authors":"Tine Walravens,&nbsp;Ivar Padrón-Hernández","doi":"10.1007/s10308-025-00715-6","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10308-025-00715-6","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>The EU-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement (EJEPA) entered into force on February 1st, 2019. The agreement was quickly coined the “cars-for-cheese deal”: Agri-food seemed to be the largest winner on the European side while Japan stood to gain most from automotive exports. Up until the final negotiations, however, agri-food was a major stumbling block. Through a qualitative content analysis of EJEPA coverage in five Japanese newspapers with different political and industry profiles, this article examines media treatment of food as a controversial part of the EJEPA. While narratives differed depending on political and industry leanings, we find that the perceived threat from the EJEPA regarding food was often placed within a larger social imagery of a new global order and disadvantageous trade deals, through a conflation with the recently established Trans-Pacific Partnership and its widely reported impact on agriculture. Lastly, beyond a strongly defensive or even victimized narrative in some specialized media, mainstream newspapers also divert attention toward the potential opportunities the EJEPA brings to Japanese exporters and manufacturers.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":45680,"journal":{"name":"Asia Europe Journal","volume":"23 1","pages":"1 - 22"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2025-02-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143778136","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Millets for sustainable development in India: a social cost benefit analysis from a policy perspective","authors":"Sukhpal Singh,&nbsp;K. V. Ramani,&nbsp;Rasananda Panda","doi":"10.1007/s10308-024-00713-0","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10308-024-00713-0","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Sustainable development goals (SDGs) like zero hunger, no poverty, good health and well-being, reduced inequalities, climate action, and responsible consumption and production also figure in the agenda of G20 which is about poverty alleviation and food security through combatting global hunger and malnutrition, and cooperation in research on climate-resilient and nutritious crops such as millets. During the International Year of millets (2023), India, which had declared 2018 as the ‘National Year of Millets’, has taken many initiatives to promote millets, as a part of the G20 presidency. In the context of climate change, millets have gained substantial attention for their unique adaptability in harsh conditions like semi-arid lands and drought-prone environments. Millets, also called nutri-cereals in India, mainly comprise pearl millet (<i>bajra</i>), sorghum (<i>jowar</i>) and finger millet (<i>ragi</i>), and contribute about 5% to India’s cereals production. India is the largest producer of millets globally, accounting for 41% of global and 80% of Asian production. Millets have been a part of daily diets in many regions of India prior to the Green Revolution, but many farmers lost interest in millet crop following the Green Revolution, possibly due to higher yield and profitability of rice. However, the literature examining the value chains and social cost–benefit analysis of millets vis-à-vis conventional crops is scanty. This paper examines the value chain economics of the three major millets (pearl millet, sorghum and finger millet) which account for 85% of the total production of millets in India from a social cost–benefit analysis (SCBA) perspective and examines if millets can be recommended as a nutritional supplement to rice. It examines the major millets on macro- and micronutrient aspects of nutrition. The paper argues for policy support for expand millet production, strengthen its value chain, create public awareness about the health benefits of millets and to undertake activities to promote millets as nutritional supplement to rice in India.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":45680,"journal":{"name":"Asia Europe Journal","volume":"22 4","pages":"463 - 479"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2024-12-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142845089","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Examining the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) as a collaborative infrastructure for transcontinental policymaking: an ICIO-LP analysis","authors":"Suvajit Banerjee,&nbsp;Surendar Singh","doi":"10.1007/s10308-024-00712-1","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10308-024-00712-1","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>The India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) can play a pivotal role in various economic and geostrategic spheres by facilitating trade integration between Asia and Europe. The study portrays the mechanism through which the IMEC participating economies can achieve their respective policy goals. The study is focused on a dual research objective. Firstly, it attempts to develop an inter-country input–output (ICIO) and linear programming (LP) impact analysis framework to address the potential of trade integration across the IMEC participating members phase-wise, initially within the Asian countries and later expanded to some European countries. For a comparison between north–south and south-south trade, the study conducts separate simulation modeling exercises based on the entire IMEC and the Eastern Corridor IMEC respectively. Secondly, the study intends to present some first-hand alternative policy choices for IMEC negotiators and trade enthusiasts both from economic and environmental perspectives. The findings demonstrate that as the IMEC network expands, trade diversion away from other parts of the world decreases, leading to the creation of trade opportunities shared with a larger number of trading partners. This results in a minor reduction in national income growth for the European member economies, while significantly improving the economic prospects for the IMEC Asian members. The study also indicates that the emphasis on environmental priorities is impeding the economic objectives, particularly among Asian IMEC members, resulting in a policy trade-off. The restructuring of energy systems to lower CO₂ emissions is diminishing national income growth to nearly half of the figures achievable when economic policy goals take precedence.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":45680,"journal":{"name":"Asia Europe Journal","volume":"22 4","pages":"481 - 506"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2024-12-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142845090","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Sustainable lending strategies: a framework for enhancing climate resilience in industrial loan portfolios","authors":"Neha Chhabra Roy","doi":"10.1007/s10308-024-00709-w","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10308-024-00709-w","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>This paper underscores the critical significance of climate-related risks within the banking and industrial sectors, emphasizing the need for a climate-resilient response system and strategic loan portfolio planning. The study introduces an efficient methodology for identifying key Climate-Linked Risks (CLRs) across impacted sectors, capturing their diverse impacts, quantifying them, and subsequently designing optimal loan portfolios. A comprehensive review of literature and primary responses from CLR experts, coupled with secondary data sources, forms the basis of our analysis. Initially, CLR impacts were categorized into push and pull indicators based on empirical weighted averages. Subsequently, fuzzy logic theory was employed to quantify CLR in form of composite index across industries. Finally, the study proposes portfolio planning for banks using mean variance portfolio. The proposed control approach assesses sectoral severity, prioritizes sectors, identifies root causes, and recommends cost-effective strategies, enhancing the overall resilience of the banking ecosystem.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":45680,"journal":{"name":"Asia Europe Journal","volume":"22 4","pages":"423 - 462"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2024-11-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142844856","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"British economic strategy and regional institutions in Asia, 2016–2024","authors":"Tim Summers,&nbsp;Chen Li,&nbsp;Chunzi Miao","doi":"10.1007/s10308-024-00711-2","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s10308-024-00711-2","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>This paper examines the British approach to Asia and its regional institutions from the Brexit vote in 2016 to the British general election of July 2024. The paper analyses official government statements and debates among political elites about Britain’s foreign policy posture in the region, from the broad ‘Indo-Pacific tilt’ and the Belt and Road Initiative to engagement with specific regional institutions such as ASEAN, BRI, AIIB, CPTPP and bilateral trade and investment agreements. It argues that approaches to regional institutions in and across Asia are driven by a combination of a dominant policy view that there is a need to engage with Asia which is becoming economically and strategically more important in a changing world, alongside a desire to decentre China in British strategic approaches to the region (partly in response to US-China strategic rivalry). However, given China’s centrality to regional economic growth in Asia, this approach creates contradictions which are rarely addressed in British policy debates. This paper will contribute not only to understanding British foreign policy, but also shed light on the evolving “new regionalism” and power dynamics across the Indo/Asia–Pacific, and how actors external to the region view and engage with the development of regional institutions in Asia.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":45680,"journal":{"name":"Asia Europe Journal","volume":"22 4","pages":"403 - 421"},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2024-11-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10308-024-00711-2.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142844855","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}