Regional Connectivity in Southeast and East Asia Paper Example

1. Motivation and Introduction of the research topic

East Asian countries have been endeavoring because of economic cooperation as well as multilateral cooperation. The attempts to enhance the cooperation among these countries have been increased since they have started to share the common awareness of the economic crises after the 1997-1998 Asian financial crises. Notwithstanding there have been countless actions such as summit meetings and discussions, the multilateral cooperation in East Asia is presently being skeptical. There tends to be in rivalry and collision caused by the conflict of opinions and interests, and this hinders the progress of cooperation in this region.

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Concretely, the international situation in East Asia has degenerated into an arena of the struggle among major world powers within and outside. China and Japan are holding each other in check especially due to the territorial dispute between these countries internally; also China and the United States are locked in an ongoing trade war externally. In this state, South Korea is being sandwiched between stronger powers and facing difficulties pursuing multilateral cooperation.

Nonetheless, the Korean government has been trying to alter the current situation through the improvement of inter-Korea relation. South Korean President proposed setting up an 'East Asian Railroad Community' that includes six countries, South and North Korea, China, Japan, Russia, Mongolia, and the United States last August. He addressed that this new economic community would connect Korea's railroads to those of other Northeast Asian nations. He also compared the case that the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) created by six European countries helped pave the way for the European Union (EU) (Bhattacharyay, 2009). Likewise, The East Asian Railroad Community is being expected to become the main artery of mutual prosperity and peace and an initiative for building multilateral economic and security cooperation in East Asia, through strengthening the connectivity within the regional community.

However, EU is not the sole regional community achieving multilateral cooperation including economic cooperation through enhancing the connectivity in the world. ASEAN is the one moving ahead likewise with this progress. The Master Plan on ASEAN Connectivity was adopted by ASEAN leaders 2010, and it became a cornerstone for strengthening the intraregional connectivity. Furthermore, ASEAN is continuing to reinforce the economic cooperation through the establishment of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) in 2015 after that. SEAN can be proudly said to be a paradigm to East Asia in this regard.

The ASEAN connectivity, playing an essential role in the economic cooperation within ASEAN, encompasses the physical, institutional, and people-to-people linkages that are the foundational supportive means to achieving the economic, political-security and socio-cultural pillars of an integrated ASEAN Community. Notably, the reinforcement of the physical connectivity that Korean government also currently value the most will contribute to building up a regional value chain through improving the infrastructure critical to transport, communications and mobility of both human and material resources. This will lead to the utmost regional cooperation and the economic growth in the long run.

Also, looking at the relationship between Southeast Asia and East Asia, the importance of ASEAN to East Asian countries also has been increased consistently. Regarding foreign policies and international strategies of each East Asian country, it is not difficult to instance specific cases for this tendency. Notably, the Korean government announced a new policy named 'New Southern Policy' in 2017. This policy denotes that Korea will take more effort to focus on improving its relationship with ASEAN and its nations. ASEAN will become as important as four powers to Korea such as China, Japan, the US, and Russia regarding political, security and economic relations. When it comes to the private sector, enterprises in three East Asian countries regard ASEAN as the most important business partner and competitive market. It also can be easily understood by relevant statistics depicting trade volume, direct and portfolio investment, and the number of visitors between countries in each region and expected that connections between two Asian regions would be more strengthened (Lee., 2018).

To recapitulate briefly, the expected study of mine will primarily deal with the impact of the enhancement of the connectivity on the economic cooperation in two regional communities, Southeast Asia and East Asia. The ASEAN, built up the economic cooperation system earlier and taking steps to strengthen it currently and East Asia, be about to build the cooperation system hereafter will be compared and analyzed through the further research. I am desirous of studying the ASEAN connectivity and the ASEAN Economic Community within the framework of both Asian studies and Economics and the current and ongoing situations of them in respective Southeast and East Asia. I would like to apply a process and strengths of Southeast Asian economic cooperation to East Asia and contribute to the reciprocally beneficial partnership between Southeast and East Asia.

2. Approaches and Methodologies for the Research

The analysis to investigate the impact of the connectivity on the economic cooperation will be conducted in a multidirectional way and have to be started from the clear definition and measurement of the connectivity. Presently, there is no standardized indicator or quantitative information for depicting characteristics or progress of the connectivity. The precedent studies on the connectivity have defined it with various ways and standards. Hence, I would like to devise the indicator to reflect the connectivity as quantitative data through the literature review and further the impact analysis of the connectivity on the economic cooperation.

For my further research, the previous study and thesis of mine will be useful. My master's thesis was written on the topic of economic integration in ASEAN and its impact on the intraregional trade among six Southeast Asian countries, where enough time-series data on the trade and other macroeconomic indicators are available. For investigating the concrete effects, I divided the phases of ASEAN economic integration into three stages by the establishments of the AFTA and ASEAN Economic Community, respectively. Then I compared the intra-ASEAN and extra-ASEAN trade volume of each ASEAN country and its 186 trading partners by using dummy variables (Lee., 2018).

I utilized diverse quantitative analyzing methods, more specifically, Pooled OLS, Panel Fixed Effect model and Difference-In-Differences (hereafter, DID) method for my analysis. Particularly, DID method was used for understanding the effect of notable actions for enhancing economic integration in my thesis. For my further research, I will make adequate quantitative analysis and use econometric models matching with all data of the different forms and the characteristics in the same manner. Specifically, counterfactual impact evaluation methods, commonly known as policy evaluation methods also can be considered as possible statistical analyzing tools for in-depth research.

Besides, through my master's courses, thankfully I could learn about related statistics and interpretations of them, for depicting the ASEAN economy. I was truly immersed in comprehensive issues on economic growth, sharing development experiences, trade, foreign direct investment, industrialization, financial linkages, financial crises and economic integration in ASEAN and all of these factors can be considered as possible components for the further study from a standpoint in economics.

Having an acquaintance with these sorts of methodologies for analysis and my previous studies on both statistics and economics will be combined to facilitate generating indicators for explaining the connectivity and investigating the impact on the economic cooperation in Southeast Asia and East Asia.

Nevertheless, these quantitative research methods will be insufficient for explaining the cause and effects and the related phenomenon. Thus I am desirous of branching out into the multidisciplinary approach and the combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods by working on the literature reviews and field research. To understand the meaning and implications given by the overall ASEAN connectivity, research on the actual condition in individual ASEAN nations will be conducted (Ba, 2009). I would like to scrutinize whether the perception of the economic cooperation in the real world being accord with the statistical results on this issue or not. Through the convergence of the quantitative and qualitative research, the comprehensive understanding and precise estimation of the effect of the connectivity will be enabled.

3. Expected Implications and Contributions

Several implications can be expected from this research described above.

First of all, a suggestion to the measures for promoting the economic cooperation between Southeast Asia and East Asia can be derived through the research. The factors that have effects on strengthening or weakening the economic cooperation and the similarities and differences in the process of cooperative actions in both regions also will be drawn by the research. These understandings will allow devising means for the not only economic cooperation but development in Southeast and East Asia.

Secondly, the clearer characterization and quantification of the ASEAN connectivity will be available through this research. The multidirectional literature reviews can better the understanding of the connectivity, and the quantitative study will derive the estimation of the impact of the connectivity on the economic cooperation in each region. The major role of the connectivity for strengthening the economic cooperation will be discovered more objectively in the statistics and quantitative results.

Last but not least, the research can be contributed to the comprehensive cooperation being represented by ASEAN+3 beyond the frame of regional divisions into southeast and east. Not only economic relationship but connections in every sector are continuously being enhanced and deepened between Southeast and East Asia. Even there exist conflicts of interests or ideological confrontations among various nations, no one cannot deny the significance of ASEAN+3 relations (may become 4 in the foreseeable future, including one more Korea). Many kinds of statistics and numerical values reflecting economic indicators also objectively show that the economic relationship between Southeast and East Asia has been significantly developed for the past few decades. As previously stated, organizing the inclusive economic partnership or community both for Southeast and East Asia shall be pushed ahead in this context.

To summarize, this research will contribute to arriving at deriving the reinforcement plan for economic cooperation between Southeast and East Asia through the understanding to the role of the ASEAN connectivity and the impact analysis on the economic cooperation. Furthermore, it will help-seeking ways to pursue economic coo...