Partisanship and South Korea’s Trade Policy : New Soul Searching between Neo-developmentalism and Neo-liberalism

South Korea’s mercantilist trade policy traces back to its developmental period that started in the early 1960s and led to the successful story of export-oriented industrialization, often dubbed the “miracle on the Han River” in the 1970s. This study argues that it was a good example of developmental mercantilism. However, the political economic conditions, both external and internal, that underpinned South Korea’s traditional trade policy paradigm came under heavy pressure at the end of the 1990s. Among other things, the outbreak of the Asian financial crisis of 1997-98 shattered the illusion of South Korea’s unstoppable economic growth. South Korea\u27s departure from its traditional, top-down trade policy centered on export promotion and import protection can be best illustrated by its active pursuit of FTAs.特集　政権交代と外交政

Same Bed, Different Dreams: Prospects and Challenges for ASEAN+X Forums

The aim of this study is to explore the prospects and challenges for ASEAN+X forums: ASEAN+1, +3 and +8 (or the East Asia Summit). On the one hand, many preferential economic arrangements that involve East Asian countries aim to secure wider foreign policy goals rather than purely economic goals, prominent examples of which include environment, energy, water, technology, human rights, terrorism, and the like, let alone traditional security issues. On the other hand, the likelihood of a more exclusive region in East Asia is slim at best, as member countries are sleeping in the same bed with different dreams (tongchuan yimeng), leaving the institutional contours of East Asian regionalism in flux. This study argues that the rivalry between China and Japan and the ambivalence of the U.S. have led ASEAN+X forums to mainly focus on membership issues rather than to deal with substantive regional issues. It concludes that now a tangle of regional institutions competes for attention and resources, and as long as the ASEAN+1 and +8 framework (and more recently, the TPP and the FTAAP) continues to coexist with ASEAN+3, the same bed, different dreams phenomenon will only worsen to the point that the East Asian regionalism will get more polarized before it gets integrated

Embracing Free Trade Agreements, Korean Style: From Developmental Mercantilism to Developmental Liberalism

This study analyzes how and to what extent South Korea has embedded developmental liberalism into its free trade agreement (FTA) initiative, departing from its traditional focus on developmental mercantilism. In the wake of the global economic crisis of 2008-09 and the subsequent expansion of government interventionism across the world, the developmental state model has attracted renewed scholarly attention. It offers a useful conceptual framework to examine how a particular set of arrangements between the competitive and uncompetitive sectors in South Korea has shifted from developmental mercantilism to developmental liberalism. South Koreas FTA initiative constitutes a notable policy shift to liberalism, departing from a mercantilist approach with a policy mix of import protection and export promotion. It has been shaped by a top-down political initiative rather than a bottom-up demand from business groups and the general public. Despite South Koreas liberal but state-centric nature, its FTAs are closely embedded in its social fabric.This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea Grant funded by the Korean Government (NRF-2009-332-B00022)

South Koreas Renewable Energy Policy: Coming Together or Drifting Apart?

South Koreas incumbent Moon Jae-in administration announced its ambitious policy goals of increasing renewable energy and cultivating the related domestic industry. The 20% target for renewable energys share by 2030 marks a clear departure from the conservative position of previous administrations. The proposed policy tools—including large-scale project-based aid, favorable loan terms, the RPS system with weighted REC, and the Korean-style FIT model—involve some elements of prohibited and actionable subsides under the ASCM. This study concludes that the direction of South Koreas energy policy is right, but it needs to be depoliticized and its speed readjusted.This work was supported by the research program (20171595) operated by the Future Energy Policy Institute at KyungHee University and by the grant funded by the Ministry of Education and the National Research Foundation of the Republic of Korea (NRF-2017S1A3A2067636)

Is China Responsible for Its Maritime Militia's Internationally Wrongful Acts? The Attribution of the Conduct of a Parastatal Entity to the State

China's maritime militia groups have attracted much scholarly attention in recent years. Systematically funded and trained by the Chinese authorities, the militia groups help advance China's maritime claims but risk both intended and unintended physical clashes at sea. Based on the 2001 Articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts, this study explores the possibility of establishing and recognizing China's state responsibility in relation to the internationally wrongful conduct of its maritime militia. China's maritime militia groups blur the line between fishing boats and naval forces. In essence, they are empowered to perform the critical function of the Chinese government as provided by Chinese internal laws. As shown by emerging evidence, China's maritime militia groups are also instructed, directed, and/or controlled by the Chinese state organs including military authority and party leadership, both central and local. This study finds that the conduct of Chinese maritime militia constitutes the breach of China's international obligations in terms of (1) due regard for other states, (2) maritime safety, (3) marine environment protection and preservation, and/or (4) the overfishing ban.Y

Varieties of East Asian Developmentalist Trade Policy: The Trade Liberalization-Industrial Policy Nexus in Thailand and South Korea

This study explores the varieties of East Asian developmentalist trade policy by analyzing Thailands and South Koreas pursuit of free trade agreements (FTAs). Thailand and South Korea offer a nice laboratory to test a neoliberal vs. developmental perspective. After Prime Minister Thaksin took office in 2001, Thailand became a pacesetter in East Asias pursuit of FTAs with its policy nexus of developmentalism and liberalism. However, the lack of institutionalization of trade policy-making process soon led Thaksins CEO-style leadership and pro-business policy bias to cronyism and corruption. In contrast to Thailands abrupt move from developmental liberalism to sectoral cronyism, South Korea has successfully institutionalized its transition from developmental mercantilism to developmental liberalism by strengthening the key trade agency—i.e., the Office of the Minister for Trade, which successfully embedded its industrial policy goals in liberal trade initiatives

When Text Mining Meets WTOs Trade Policy Review: The Cases of South Korea, Japan, and China

Among the key institutional pillars of the World Trade Organization (WTO), the Dispute Settlement Mechanism (DSM) has attracted the lions share of scholarly attention in contemporary research relating to the trade organization. Yet this study notes that the other institutional ballast of the WTO, namely the Trade Policy Review Mechanism (TPRM), has remained the least studied, despite its significance as a safeguard against protectionism. The main reason for the lack of attention by trade scholars is the semantic complexity of review reports. In an effort to navigate through the complex, subtle, and often ambivalent text, this study uses information extraction (IE) techniques for both a horizontal and vertical analysis of TPR reports. A total of 18 TPR reports on the three representative trading states in East Asia—South Korea, China, and Japan—have been analyzed by the Rapid Automation Keyword Extraction (RAKE) and TextRank algorithms. The findings of this study show important policy patterns and their changes