American Geographical Society

Economic Regionalization and Pacific Asia

Author(s): Alexander B. Murphy
Source: Geographical Review, Vol. 85, No. 2 (Apr., 1995), pp. 127-140
Published by: American Geographical Society
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/216058
Accessed: 10-01-2017 15:01 UTC
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted
digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about
JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
http://about.jstor.org/terms

American Geographical Society is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to
Geographical Review

This content downloaded from 147.91.1.45 on Tue, 10 Jan 2017 15:01:44 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

The Geographical Review

VOLUME 85 April 1995 NUMBER 2

ECONOMIC REGIONALIZATION AND PACIFIC ASIA*

ALEXANDER B. MURPHY

ABSTRACT. The expansion of the European Union and the adoption of

American Free Trade Agreement have prompted growing speculation
prospects of close economic and political cooperation in Pacific Asia. A
nation of historical, cultural, demographic, political, and economic fact
region shows great obstacles to the establishment of a European-style
bloc. Instead, economic and cultural ties have emerged that presage a
type of regionalism in Pacific Asia. Recognition of the interconnectio
discontinuities is important to understand the economic and political
of a region that will play a prominent role in the global order of the tw

century. Key words: Asia, economic geography, economic integration, polit

phy, regionalism.

ecent efforts to analyze the geographical underpinnings o

national economic order have increasingly focused on
world regions: western Europe, North America, and Pacifi

regions are treated as the centers of gravity of the global ec

the power to dictate its future course. Pacific Asia is the

thought of as a world economic force, and the term Pacif
widely accepted. Instead, many analyses either focus on J

sider East Asia and Southeast Asia separately. With the growi

nections among Japan, the newly industrialized countries

Kong, South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore), the members of

tion for Economic Cooperation and Development (Singapor

Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Brunei), and Chi
graphical scale must be broadened when addressing quest

nomic regionalization. It is not yet clear how many of the cou

eastern part of the Eurasian landmass should be included in s
takings, but by most reckonings all of the above-mentioned
at the core of emerging economic developments in the regio

* National Science Foundation grant SBR-9157667 supported research for this artic
Dominique Saillard, and Steven Huter provided research assistance. Nancy Leeper d
and tables. Carolyn Cartier made helpful comments on a draft of the manuscript.

DR. MURPHY is an associate professor of geography at the University of O

Oregon 97403.
Copyright ? 1995 by the American Geographical Society of New York

This content downloaded from 147.91.1.45 on Tue, 10 Jan 2017 15:01:44 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

128

THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

FIG. 1-Pacific Asia.

The need to look beyond Japan comes at a time when western Euro
has taken important steps toward establishing a more integrated polit
economy as the European Union and when the North American countr
are making initiatives toward a similar goal with the North American F
Trade Agreement. Under the circumstances, it is not surprising that t

interconnections emerging in Pacific Asia are interpreted as a mo

This content downloaded from 147.91.1.45 on Tue, 10 Jan 2017 15:01:44 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

PACIFIC ASIA

129

toward the establishment of another economic bloc (Kim 19

vision is being fueled by predictions that the industrialized cou

headed for a great three-way competition among western Europ
America, and Pacific Asia for dominance of the global econom

1992; Thurow 1992). According to this scenario, Germany, t

States, and Japan will be the focal points around which integ
ward-looking economic spheres will emerge. For this to hap
ever, Pacific Asia will have to consider itself an integrated tr
and define its interests accordingly.
Many observers doubt that Pacific Asia is following this cour
loway 1990). Given the currency of tripolar geoeconomic vis

ever, it is important to gain a better understanding of the prosp

exclusionary form of economic integration in Pacific Asia. Stud
ining trends in investment and trade in the region do this, but t
a need for broad-based considerations of the factors that could
promote the emergence of a "Fortress Pacific Asia." This article

crucial cultural, historical, demographic, political, and econ

ments that are likely to affect the establishment of a formalized

integrated economic bloc in Pacific Asia. The analytical point of
is the European experience, because western Europe has clearly
greatest strides toward such a bloc in modern times. Making re

Europe is not meant to suggest that the European experienc

lessons that can be directly transposed to other contexts. In

European experience is acknowledged as a possible source

important lessons about the types of forces that can affect i

initiatives. In light of recent political and economic developm
European experiment with integration itself is in some doubt. Y
progress toward further European political-economic integra

it is unlikely that the linkages which have flourished during the

decades will be severed. Hence the European experience can b

tive for attempts to understand the phenomenon of interna

nomic integration in the late twentieth century.

The rise of the European Union cannot be ascribed solely to e

(Lorenz 1992). Economics, of course, were anything but irrel

extent of intra-European trade in the 1950s and the strong
complementarities that existed among the founding memb
European Community were key ingredients in the formalize
tion initiatives that followed. Yet explanations of the rise of th
Union must consider other crucial factors that facilitated co

These included the historical and cultural continuities that characterized

the region; the similarities in political regime type found among the
prospective members; the existence of a densely populated, well-linked,
highly industrialized area at the core of western Europe; and the widespread commitment in the 1950s to the idea that Europe had to construct

This content downloaded from 147.91.1.45 on Tue, 10 Jan 2017 15:01:44 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

130

THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

an international framework that would avoid another catastr

pean conflict and that would allow the countries of the regio

in an international economic and political order dominat

superpowers (Urwin 1991; Cole and Cole 1993).
The importance of these matters in almost any account of

pean experience suggests the relevance of history and ge

economic regionalization. No one set of prerequisites for in
indicated by the European experience. Circumstances diffe
to place, and those differences will affect the relative imp
meaning of specific developments. Yet there is a clear need
the historical, cultural, demographic, political, and economic
which integration initiatives unfold. Analyzing Pacific Asian
in these terms reveals substantial obstacles to the emergence

pean-style economic bloc in the region, much less an exclu

ward-looking economic monolith. This conclusion, in turn, su

need to see Pacific Asian integration in different terms and
question scenarios that posit the emergence of a global econom
phy characterized by three more or less closed economic syst
HISTORICAL INFLUENCES

All major world regions comprise areas with widely divergent histories,
but the resulting discontinuities are greater in some cases than in others. In
western Europe historical discontinuities are deep enough to raise serious
questions about the plausibility of integration. Yet visions of European unity
date back to the Roman Empire and have since been pursued and partially
realized by Charlemagne, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, Napoleon, and
the founders of the European Economic Community. Moreover, although

Europe was divided into competing empires throughout much of its

history, their territorial parameters constantly shifted, so no clear histori-

cal dividing line exists between two or more great cultural-historical

realms in western Europe. Finally, as the originator rather than the recipient of modern colonialism, Europe did not experience division by outside

powers into regions with different imperial backgrounds. Hence the

possibilities that a unified western European sphere would emerge were

not foreclosed.

Historical discontinuities in Pacific Asia are much greater than they

are in western Europe. Before the arrival of Westerners there existed a
"Chinese world order," in which the rulers of Japan, Korea, and various
southeast Asian states paid tribute to the emperor of the Middle Kingdom. In the wake of European colonialism, however, European countries,
mainly the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Spain, France, and Portugal, exerted territorial control over parts of the region. Each colonial
power introduced its political and social institutions, which in turn
fostered different interests and priorities (Ginsburg 1958). Moreover,

This content downloaded from 147.91.1.45 on Tue, 10 Jan 2017 15:01:44 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

PACIFIC ASIA

131

Pacific Asia lacks the kind of deeply rooted historical-cultura

that has kept dreams of integration alive in other major reg
notably in the Arab world (Drysdale and Blake 1985). Aside from
period of Japanese hegemony during World War II, no serious r
integration initiatives have been undertaken since the time of t
Middle Kingdom, and the political and religious ties of that peri
extended into Indonesia and the Philippines. Hence there was
counteract the local and national particularisms that develop
region (Bollard and Mayes 1992, 199-200).
An additional historical obstacle to Pacific Asian integratio
legacy of Japanese hegemony in the region. In almost any im
scenario, Japan would play a leading role in an economically

Pacific Asian bloc, a discomforting arrangement for many count

region. Even though memories of World War II are beginnin

strong feelings of hostility toward Japan are still found in Asi
that are exacerbated by the hesitancy of the Japanese to use hist

in their schools that demonstrate the nature and extent of

aggression (Nanto 1990, 98). Elsewhere in the world age-old h
have been largely set aside-most notably between France and

Yet this type of reconciliation has happened primarily when th

have more or less equal economic and political status. The ext
economic disparities between Japan and the other countries in t
could well work against such a reconciliation in the Pacific As
CULTURAL CONSIDERATIONS

By itself culture can tell very little about the prospects for regional
integration. Nevertheless, basic continuities in language and religion can
facilitate cooperation. This situation has existed in Europe, where Christianity and Indo-European tongues dominate, and broad cultural continuities are the foundation on which visions of unity in the Arab world
have been built. In the case of Pacific Asia, strong cultural continuities are

less clearly in evidence. The majority of the countries are Buddhist in

religious tradition; different forms of Islam predominate in Malaysia,
Indonesia, and Brunei; the majority of people in the Philippines are

Christian. Because of the active involvement of the so-called overseas

Chinese throughout much of Southeast Asia, Confucianism as a religiousideological system plays a role in the economic sphere beyond the tradi-

tional Buddhist areas, but its influence in the political sphere is more
ambiguous (Rozman 1991).
The language element is even more complicated than the religious
one. The main languages spoken in Pacific Asia belong to four distinc
linguistic families: Malayo-Polynesian (Austronesian), Sino-Tibetan, Ko
rean, and Japanese. English has emerged as the dominant language o
international politics and trade, but its use derives from pragmatism

This content downloaded from 147.91.1.45 on Tue, 10 Jan 2017 15:01:44 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

132

THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

rather than any indigenous cultural continuity. Behind this com

linguistic pattern is a plethora of distinct, often interming

groups, each with its own particular customs and attitudes. In

such as Malaysia, ethnic diversity is already a chief issue in

policy making (Jesudason 1990); it would certainly be an is
international level. The diversity of the region does not pre
possibility of formalized integration, but it does not ease th
Indeed, no other area with comparable diversity has even ex

possibility of establishing an economic-political bloc in modern

The overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia represent the most si
crosscutting cultural force in the region. Their influence on
structures and relationships in Southeast Asia is extensive (Gun
Hamilton 1991). Their activities are rarely captured in official re
they represent an important cultural pole around which an
initiative might evolve (Mackie 1992). Their networks and ac
only bind together elements of the economies of Southeast Asi
but also reach into China itself. However, their potential signif
regionwide integration is blunted by their geographical concen

Southeast Asia. Thus any regional integration scheme involv

and South Korea would still confront significant cultural discon

Because the role of the overseas Chinese in formal political and
institutions is far less significant than their economic activi
suggest, the influence of this group on government-led integrat
tives is necessarily diminished.
DEMOGRAPHIC CIRCUMSTANCES

Pacific Asia is a very large, territorially disaggregated region. The

settlement structure itself is discontinuous, with population clusters concentrated in lowland areas that are separated by mountains and seas from
one another (Fig. 2). This discontinuous settlement pattern can encourage
local particularisms that work against regionwide integration. In some
areas of Pacific Asia political developments have helped to overcome the

friction of distance, for example, as in the case of the Association of

Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) (Hussey 1991). Yet there is no functional equivalent of the international European demographic-economic
core that runs from southeastern England through the Low Countries,
northern France, and western Germany to northern Italy. As a result,

connectivity patterns in Pacific Asia are focused as much on the outside

world as they are on the region, and it is easier to think about them in

national rather than international terms.

Is an international demographic core crucial for international integra-

tion? In the modern era communication and transportation networks

bring together widely dispersed peoples in unprecedented ways. Nevertheless, demographic patterns and associated networks of connectivity

This content downloaded from 147.91.1.45 on Tue, 10 Jan 2017 15:01:44 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

PACIFIC ASIA

133

I... /

FIG. 2-Population density in Pacific Asia. Source: After New international atlas 198

in Pacific Asia cannot be ignored. In Pacific Asia these network

organized around a central core and are not characterized b

levels of interaction among and between the component countr

burg 1988). Instead, they are heavily biased toward Japan. If re
integration is to be successful, that bias will need to be overcom
to some degree. In the absence of an obvious international demo

This content downloaded from 147.91.1.45 on Tue, 10 Jan 2017 15:01:44 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

134

THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

economic core around which a restructured network of interaction can be

built, it is unclear how this can easily be done.

POLITICAL FACTORS

European integration developed among countries that shared substantially similar political systems and political ideologies. Despite significant differences within the European Union in governmental form,
function, and effectiveness, all countries in the European Union espouse
a basic commitment to the same political ideals, and primary power is
vested in elected representatives. In Pacific Asia similar continuities are
less apparent. Most of the governments are democratic in form, but not

necessarily in practice. In Indonesia and Thailand the military plays a

significant role in government and reserves a substantial number of seats

in the national legislatures. Taiwan has been essentially a single-party

state since its founding, and extensive powers are concentrated in the

executive in South Korea. Moreover, China remains under communist

control, and Brunei is ruled by a centralized absolute authority. There is

thus little political commonality on which an integrated Pacific Asia

could be constructed.

The plethora of regime types is reflected in widely divergent fiscal and

trade policies throughout the region. These divergences present obstacles
to any effort to achieve a cohesive regional bloc (Schott 1991, 14). The case
can be overstated: one of the interesting developments during the past

several years has been the willingness of members of Pacific Asian

countries to participate in annual conferences on trade and investment
sponsored by Japan's Ministry of International Trade and Industry. However, participants include countries from outside the region, and the
conferences have not produced any startling breakthroughs.
Beyond national differences, Pacific Asia lacks the kind of widely
shared sense of external threat that helped to spur integration in other
cases, most notably in Europe. The decade of the 1950s was a time when
the Soviet Union was solidifying its control over eastern and east-central
Europe. The heightened sense of threat that followed was a significant
impetus to postwar efforts at European integration (Urwin 1991). By
contrast, in the Pacific Asian context no similarly significant and widespread sense of outside threat currently exists. There is some concern
about the subversion of traditional Asian practices by Western media,
institutions, and fashions, but perceptions of external threats to the region
are too diverse and amorphous to present an obvious challenge to inter-

regional particularisms.
ECONOMIC ARRANGEMENTS

It is in the economic realm that the foundations for integration are

usually sought, and in that realm trade, labor flows, and investment are

This content downloaded from 147.91.1.45 on Tue, 10 Jan 2017 15:01:44 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

PACIFIC ASIA

135

usually the primary foci of attention. Trade has strong economic

mentarities within Pacific Asia that encourage intraregional com
with most of the ASEAN countries in a position to export raw ma

to the NICs and Japan. Trade complementarity is weaker amo

industrialized countries of the region, and the complementarit
exists between ASEAN countries and their Pacific Asian neighbo

not lend itself to a relationship of equality. The continuation of m

reforms in China could somewhat change the situation, but cu

Pacific Asia lacks a foundation for economic integration similar
present in Europe during the 1950s and 1960s, when French agr
and light manufacturing provided a good complement to German h
industry (Williams 1991).
References to the potential emergence of an integrated economi
in Pacific Asia are supported not so much by analogies to econ
complementarities as they are by data showing substantial growth
dollar value of trade among Pacific Asian countries. There has
been considerable growth, especially during the 1980s, when i
regional trade rose from some $190 billion in 1980 to almost $450

in 1989 (Schott 1991,7). At the same time, when absolute increases in

within Pacific Asia are compared with trade between that regi

other parts of the world, the case for Asian regionalism is weaken
This point is well illustrated by regional trade data for North Am

Europe, and Pacific Asia for 1974 and 1992 (Table I). In absolute
intraregional trade in Pacific Asia increased by more than 670

between 1974 and 1992. During those eighteen years, Pacific Asian
with Europe rose by a similar amount, and the percentage of grow
exports from the region to North America was only marginally sm
Hence the percentage of total trade of the Pacific Asian countr
stayed within the region did not change significantly. At the sam
in the European and North American cases the percentage of trade
Pacific Asia increased during the period. The only region where co

traded more with themselves than with the outside areas was E
which had a modest growth in intraregional trade, from arou

percent of total trade in 1974 to around 70 percent in 1992. The fi

thus provide little evidence of a division of the world into three c
ing trading blocs, and they provide no support for an increasingly
contained Pacific Asian trading bloc.
These trends are consistent with other analyses of trade in the

Data from the International Monetary Fund showed that intrar

trade in Pacific Asia during the 1980s rose from 33 percent to 37 p

of total trade (Frankel 1991, 7). However, with an allowance for th

growth in overall output and trade during the period, "no mov

toward intraregional bias in the evolving pattern of trade" was app

(Frankel 1991, 7), because the higher-than-average growth in

This content downloaded from 147.91.1.45 on Tue, 10 Jan 2017 15:01:44 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

136

THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

TABLE I-EXPORTS BY WORLD REGION (%)

EXPORTS TO

Pacific Asia Europe North America

EXPORTS FROM 1974 1992 1974 1992 1974 1992

Pacific Asia 40.7 41.9 15.6 17.8 26.8 25.7

Europe 4.4 6.0 65.4 71.3 7.9 7.4

North America 19.9 22.4 24.5 21.5 31.3 33.4

Sources: Direction of Trade Statistics Yearbook

of China 1986, 1992.

TABLE II-EXTERNAL FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT BY REGION

(% OF TOTAL FDI)
EUROPE NORTH AMERICA PACIFIC ASIA

EXPORTS FROM 1980 1991 1980 1991 1980 1991

Japan 12.2 19.5 26.8 44.0 26.9 15.2

United

States

44.8

49.9

20.9

15.2

6.8

10.7

Germany 48.9 54.7 24.3 25.8 3.2 4.0

Sources: Survey of Current Business 1982, 125;

Nations 1993, 216-218; U.S. Department of Com

among the Asian countries gave them

omy, which under any circumstan

increased share of global trade. Indee

growth, the bias toward intraregion
the end of the 1980s than it was at
1991; Schott 1991).

Another economic obstacle to the

considerable disparity in standards
tistics at the country level, the per
of the poorest countries in the reg
than 2 percent of that of the leadin
(World Bank 1992). Moreover, half o
per capita GNP that is less than 1
European case, by contrast, the p
gal-have per capita GNPs that are
Germany, and all but two other cou

within 30 percent of that of German

The strongest case for evolving

investment and financial trends that

Japanese investment in the region r
the 1980s, and the yen is growing in

and Park 1991). Indeed, Japanese c

This content downloaded from 147.91.1.45 on Tue, 10 Jan 2017 15:01:44 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

PACIFIC ASIA

137

nomic expansion throughout much of Pacific Asia (Tokunag

even the investment and finance data do not depict a Pa

economic bloc developing at the expense of the rest of the worl

on foreign direct investment (FDI) by region for Japan, the Un
and Germany for 1980 and 1990 reveal that the Japanese perce

Pacific Asia actually declined during the interval (Table II). B

Germany's FDI in Europe rose, as did the FDI of both Germa

United States in Pacific Asia.

These findings are in keeping with other analyses of FDI. On the basis
of Japanese Ministry of Finance figures between 1985 and 1988, Japan's

FDI to East and Southeast Asia increased fourfold during the interval,

and similar or even greater percentage increases occurred in Japan's FDI

to North America and the European Union (Schott 1991,12). The percent-

age increase in the Pacific Asian case was so high because the 1985 FDI
base was small; there was more actual Japanese investment in Europe
during that period-$21.1 billion-than there was in East and Southeast
Asia-$19.8 billion. Japan's cumulative investment in Pacific Asia was
only 22.3 percent of cumulative Japanese FDI in 1988, which put Japan's
level of FDI in its neighbors far below Germany's investment in other

European countries. In 1987, 43 percent of Germany's external investments went to other European Community and European Free Trade
Association countries (Dicken 1992, 74), whereas only 32 percent went to

the United States.

Recent evidence suggests an expansion of intraregional investment by

countries such as Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and South Korea (Buh
1993). This trend is partially overshadowed, however, by the much larger
Japanese foreign investments-investments that show little sign of shifting disproportionately to Pacific Asia. Overall Japanese FDI declined in
the early 1990s, but the decline showed up as much in Japan's Pacific
Asian investments as it did in its investments in Europe and North
America. Taking the Asian situation as a whole, changes in the FDI pictur
seem to reflect macroeconomic shifts rather than the emergence of

Pacific Asian economic bloc.

In the financial sector, the trend has been toward liberalization of

financial markets, which has allowed Japanese capital and financial institutions to enter other Pacific Asian countries. In the process the role of
Japan as a financial center for the region has been enhanced, and with
that enhancement has come a growing role for the yen. Asian banks have
increased their holdings of yen over the past decade (Tavlas and Yuzuru

1991), and Japan's currency is being used with greater frequency to

invoice trade and financial transactions (Frankel 1991, 16). Nevertheless,

the dominance of the yen is far from complete. The vast majority of

invoices are still denominated in dollars, and the yen share in official bank

holdings remained below 30 percent in Asia throughout the 1980s. Al-

This content downloaded from 147.91.1.45 on Tue, 10 Jan 2017 15:01:44 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

138

THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

though interest rates in East and Southeast Asia are affected b

Tokyo, with the sole exception of Taiwan the Tokyo effect is m
in Pacific Asia than is the Frankfurt effect in Europe (Frankel
Some important financial continuities have developed in Pacif
they are not necessarily of sufficient magnitude to overcome
nomic, political, and historical discontinuities.
ANALYSIS AND CONCLUSION

The impediments to the emergence of a close-knit regional economic

bloc in Pacific Asia are clearly significant. To make this point is not to
suggest that serious regional cooperation schemes are absent or meaningless. Important cooperation initiatives have been made during the past
two decades (Kim 1992, 81-82). ASEAN has recently announced that it

will become a free trade area by 2005, and Japan and the NICs are

increasingly opening their markets to Pacific Asian products (Bollard and

Mayes 1992). Such efforts may be given further impetus if, as many
predict, the Chinese economy continues to open and expand. Under these

circumstances China could emerge as a counterweight to Japan, which

would ease concerns about Japanese economic hegemony and would
make available goods and services that would complement those produced elsewhere in the region. Thus China is in many ways the key

unknown in the future Pacific Asian economic picture.

The role of China in the region is more seriously clouded than many

economic analyses would suggest. The reported total gross domestic

product of the country is still lower than that of Spain, and much of the
country's recent growth has been fueled by external investment in the
south coastal region (Chen and Ho 1994). If China is to emerge as a major
economic force in the region, an indigenous economic dynamism must
take root. The obstacles that must be overcome for this to happen range
from the crisis in legitimacy that political institutions in China are currently facing to an enormous array of environmental problems associated
with rapid development. Analyses that focus on population numbers and
manufacturing statistics alone tend to ignore these factors, but there are
no good examples of economic takeoff in which stable political institutions with a high degree of legitimacy have been absent.
Even with China more active, no strong incentive exists for Pacific

Asia to look inward. Instead, the region is likely to follow the recent

practice of including at least North America and Oceania in main international economic initiatives (Bergsten and Noland 1993). In the case of

the Pacific Economic Cooperation Council (PECC) and its affiliated or-

ganizations, for example, Australia, New Zealand, the United States, and

Canada stand alongside the Pacific Asian countries. The geographical

scope of PECC is an acknowledgment of the fundamental interconnec-

tions that exist between the economies of Pacific Asia and those of other

This content downloaded from 147.91.1.45 on Tue, 10 Jan 2017 15:01:44 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

PACIFIC ASIA

139

Pacific Rim states. To the extent that PECC continues to play a

role in discussions of regional cooperation-and it is likely to

chances that Pacific Asia will evolve into an exclusive economic bloc are
diminished.

None of this projection is meant to suggest that important connection

are not emerging among and between parts of Pacific Asia. To the co
trary, there are many indications that the Pacific Asian countries are i
some respects becoming more closely linked. The overseas Chinese ar
growing economic presence in the region, and the level of econom

interpenetration is expanding in the aftermath of the investment wave o

the 1980s. Moreover, concerns about North American and European

protectionism have given rise to a growing sense of common interest in

the region. For such concerns to translate into a close-knit, inward-look
ing economic bloc, the enormous cultural, social, and political discon

nuities I have identified would have to be overcome. Given the extent of

those discontinuities, a style of integration in Pacific Asia reminiscent of

the formation of the European Community should not be the assumed
outcome.

The alternative is to think about integration in Pacific Asia in

ent light. The key role of the overseas Chinese throughout muc
region, when considered alongside the undercurrents of concer
Westernization of the region, points to an informal style of inte
Pacific Asia. The economies of the region may well become mor
intertwined, but they are not likely to do so either at the expe
rest of the world or through the impetus of a set of formal eco
litical institutions. Instead, private and corporate actors may
most important economic links, and formal intergovernmental
tion may be focused on trade-facilitating initiatives to encoura
of social and cultural cooperation (Evans 1994). None of this pro
certain, but the matters discussed in this article suggest the im
of questioning whether patterns of integration followed in one r
necessarily be duplicated in another. To answer this question re
history and geography be taken seriously.
CITATIONS

Bergsten, C. E, and M. Noland, eds. 1993. Pacific dynamism and the international econom
Washington, D.C.: Institute for International Economics.
Bollard, A., and D. Mayes. 1992. Regionalism and the Pacific Rim. Journal of Common Mar
30:195-209.

Buhl, I. E. 1993. Foreign direct investment throughout the world: survey and recent trends. Deut
Bank Research Bulletin 7 January.

Chen, E. K. Y., and A. Ho. 1994. Southern China growth triangle: an overview. Growth triangles
Asia: a new approach to regional economic cooperation, eds. M. Thant, M. Tang, and H. Kakaz
29-72. Hong Kong: Oxford University Press for the Asian Development Bank.
Cole, J., and E Cole. 1993. The geography of the European Community. New York: Routledge

Dicken, P. 1992. Global shift: the internationalization of economic activity. 2d ed. New Y
Guilford Press.

Direction of trade statistics yearbook. 1981. Washington, D.C.: International Monetary Fund.

This content downloaded from 147.91.1.45 on Tue, 10 Jan 2017 15:01:44 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

140

THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

1992. Washington, D.C.: International Monetary Fund.

Drysdale, A., and G. H. Blake. 1985. The Middle East and North Africa: a political g
York: Oxford University Press.

Evans, G. 1994. Regionalism and cooperation in the Asia Pacific: the role of Asia Pa
cooperation governments. The future of the Pacific Rim: scenarios for regional coo
B. K. Bundy, S. D. Burs, and K. V. Wichel, 77-93. Westport, Conn.: Praeger.
Frankel, J. A. 1991. Is a yen bloc forming in Pacific Asia? Finance and the world e
AMEX bank review prize essays in memory of Robert Marjolin, ed. R. O'Brien,
U.K.: Oxford University Press.
Garten, J. E. 1992. A cold peace: America, Japan, Germany, and the struggle for su
York: Times Books.

Ginsburg, N. 1988. Geography and the Pacific century. Asian Geographer 7:1-11.
Ginsburg, N., ed. 1958. The pattern of Asia. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall.

Gungwu, W. 1991. China and the Chinese overseas. Singapore: Times Academic Press.
Hamilton, G., ed. 1991. Business networks and economic development in East and Southeast Asi

Hong Kong: Centre of Asian Studies, University of Hong Kong.

Holloway, N. 1990. Reluctant converts: Asian governments resist logic of a yen bloc. Far Easter
Economic Review 150(41):72-73.
Hussey, A. 1991. Regional development and cooperation through ASEAN. Geographical Review
81:87-98.

Jesudason, J. V. 1990. Ethnicity and the economy: the state, Chinese business, and multinationals
in Malaysia. Singapore: Oxford University Press.
Kim, D.-C. 1992. Open regionalism in the Pacific: a world of trading blocs? American Economic
Review 82(2):79-83.

Lorenz, D. 1992. Economic geography and the political economy of regionalization: the example of
Western Europe. American Economic Review 82(2):84-87.
Mackie, J. A. C. 1992. Overseas Chinese entrepreneurship. Asian-Pacific Economic Literature 6(1):4164.

Nanto, D. K. 1990. Asian responses to the growth of trading blocs. The growth of regional trading
blocs in the global economy, eds. R. S. Belous and R. S. Hartley, 93-101. Washington, D.C.:
National Planning Association.
New international atlas. 1989. Chicago: Rand McNally.
Park, Y. C., and W.-A. Park. 1991. Changing Japanese trade patterns and the East Asian NICs. Trade
with Japan: has the door opened wider?, ed. P. Krugman, 85-115. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press.

Petri, P. 1991. Japanese trade in transition: hypotheses and recent evidence. Trade with Japan: has
the door opened wider? ed. P. Krugman, 51-82. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Rozman, G. 1991. Comparisons of modern Confucian values in China and Japan. The East Asian
region: Confucian heritage and its modern adaptation, ed. G. Rozman, 157-203. Princeton, N.J.:

Princeton University Press.

Schott, J. J. 1991. Trading blocs and the world trading system. The World Economy 14(1):1-17.
Statistical yearbook of the Republic of China. 1986. Beijing: Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics.
. 1992. Beijing: Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics.
Survey of Current Business. 1982. 62(8).
. 1992. 72(8).

Tavlas, G., and 0. Yuzuru, 0. 1991. The Japanese yen as an international currency. IMF Workin

Paper, WP/91/2. Washington, D.C.: International Monetary Fund, January.

Thurow, L. 1992. Head to head: the coming economic battle among Japan, Europe, and America.
New York: William Morrow.

Tokunaga, S., ed. 1992. Japan's foreign investment and Asian economic interdependence: produc-

tion, trade, and financial systems. Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press.

United Nations. 1993. World investment directory: developing countries, vol. III. New York.
Urwin, D. W. 1991. The community of Europe: a history of European integration since 1945.
London: Longman.

U.S. Department of Commerce. 1993. Foreign direct investment in the United States: an update
review and analysis of current developments. Washington, D.C.
Williams, A. M. 1991. The European Community: the contradictions of integration. Oxford, U.K.:
Blackwell.

World Bank. 1992. World Bank tables. Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press.

This content downloaded from 147.91.1.45 on Tue, 10 Jan 2017 15:01:44 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms