• The Southeast Asian review
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.95-129
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• 2017

This study surveys and reviews political change, economic performance, and regional cooperation that were carried out in 2016 by Southeast Asian countries and ASEAN. This paper reports that what has followed the inauguration of new governments in Myanmar, the Philippines, Vietnam, and Laos fails to live up to the expectation and optimism that arose in the aftermath of elections and party congresses that took place in the first half of the year. In other countries such as Malaysia, Thailand, and Cambodia, where authoritarian regimes are faced with strong oppositions, the prospects for democratic change worsened to a substantial degree, as schisms and internal strives complicated the opposition camp as a result of instigation and intervention by the authoritarian leaders and their followers. In stable political systems, both democratic and authoritarian, no significant changes that may entail serious political implications were noticed. In 2016, the national economy of almost each and every country continued its slow but steady recovery that had started in 2014 and grew by 5% on the average. For 2017 onward, however, the earlier optimism that it would grow at least as fast dimmed down as uncertainty about the world economy looms larger due to the unexpected win by Donald Trump as U.S. president and the expected 'hard landing' of the Chinese economy around 2018. ASEAN declared the launch of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) only one day before the New Year, but its track record looked already bad and unpromising by the end of 2016. ASEAN leaders were tied up by their domestic politics and affairs too tightly to take time off to work seriously to observe the schedule as laid out in the AEC Blueprint 2025. Korea's relationship with Southeast Asian countries and ASEAN was "as good as it gets" in 2016 as ever but could become subject to tough review in the near future, if the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is found out to have been implicated in the ongoing Choi Sun Sil scandal and if the opposition wins the next presidential election to be held by this year.

• Journal of Korea Port Economic Association
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.1-16
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• 2017

The total container throughput of ASEAN is expected to increase continuously with economic development. However, ASEAN port infrastructure is insufficient to handle the increasing trade volume. According to the World Economic Forum, ASEAN ports except Singapore and Malaysia are ranked in low. Participation in ASEAN port development projects can lead an increase in trade efficiency with S. Korea by improving the port infrastructure of ASEAN countries. In addition, the S. Korean port-related industry can be energized through entering ASEAN port development projects. This study, which measures the efficiency of ASEAN ports, can be used as a basic guideline for the development and the planning of the ports. This study used Data Envelopment Analysis(DEA) and Shannon's Entropy model together to measure ASEAN ports' efficiency. After measuring each DEA (CCR, I-BCC, O-BCC, SBM) weight, the efficiency of ASEAN ports is measured as reflecting each DEA weight. As a result, the ports of Singapore and Malaysia, the major ports in the world, have the highest efficiency. Further, Vietnamese ports need to raise efficiency along with increasing container throughput. Leam Chabang (Thailand), Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam), and Tanjung Priok (Indonesia) exhibit a negative correlation between container throughput and efficiency; therefore, the ports need to improve so as to maintain competitiveness. Lastly, Cambodia, Myanmar, and Brunei, which do not have active economic development, need to improve their ports for economic development.

• The Southeast Asian review
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.193-219
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• 2017

The year 2016 in Cambodia witnessed the regression of Cambodian democracy. Political oppression and manipulation executed by the ruling Cambodian People's Party destroyed democracy and civil society. The patronage politics operating on the age-old patron-client relations was invigorated as the financial demands for populist policies amounted. The economy continued its growth in 2016. Yet serious problems embedded in its very structure began to surface as the situation in and outside became less promising. Concerning international relations, the year 2016 marked conspicuous pro-China policies, which may cause unexpected friction with neighboring countries in the future.

• International Commerce and Information Review
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.459-490
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• 2012

The performance of FTA has a close relationship with the application of FTA by exporting companies. However, most existing literatures focus on the study of policies and economic results of FTA. Moreover, these researches based on a presupposition that exporting companies could make good use of FTA. Actually, these assumptions are clearly contrary to the reality of FTA application of exporting companies in Korea and the results are significantly differ from the performance of FTA. Based on the investigation of utilization of FTA, applied by export companies in Korea, this study tries to find out the most efficient strategies of the application of FTA. And the objective of this study is to propose some practical suggestions for export companies based on the case an alysis which will help them to improve performances of Korea-ASEAN FTA application. As the prior investigation of CEO's characters, application of FTA, and the implement of FTA, we got the fact that among lots of marketing strategies, Korea-ASEAN FTA is used extensively by large export companies. However, most of small and medium-sized export enterprises would like to choose conventional tariff, such as Lower tariffs and zero tariff as the main marketing strategies. In other words, because of lacking of human resources and infrastructure, the application of Korea-ASEAN FTA strategy is hard to achieve.

• The Southeast Asian review
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.83-120
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• 2018

For Singapore, 2017 was an uneasy year. The presidential election was fraught with controversy since the revised Presidential Election Act allowed only one candidate to be eligible for the election. The bitter feud between Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and his siblings shocked many Singaporeans. Succession planning for the next top leadership is still veiled in obscurity. The anti-globalization trend and the increasing pressure to raise the tax have become major challenges for Singapore's economy to overcome. China's continuous diplomatic pressure has called into the question Singapore's pragmatic foreign policy. Although its relations with China were back to normal, Singapore, the ASEAN chair in 2018, is still facing intractable problems in safeguarding ASEAN centrality in the growing US-China rivalry. In the meantime, Singapore has pursued its diversity and equality, heading toward a more matured multi-racial and multi-cultural society in 2017. The first female president, Halimah Yacob, served as a symbolic epitome of Singapore's emphasis on diversity and harmony among different ethnic groups and minorities. This great milestone, however, has largely been questioned by Singaporeans, as it seemed to be a political gesture that only utilized Halimah's double minority in the level of ideologies. The election of the Malay president has led Singaporeans to think about the real equity and equality among minorities, while strongly motivated to move toward a more inclusive society. In 2018, Singaporean leaders will try to resolve many challenging problems by reaffirming leadership succession planning, which is expected to lead Singapore to pursue a more integrated society.

• SUVANNABHUMI
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.31-77
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• 2011

식민지하 동남아 천년왕국 운동에 대한 오늘날의 해석들은 그 주체인 농민들을 식민주의를 개념화하고 저항하는 동기와 조건 그리고 상징을 제공하는 토착 지식의 전수자로 간주한다. 종말론과 저항에 대한 관심의 대부분은 농민연구나 지역연구 학자들로부터 유래하며, 이들은 봉기에 대한 과거의 묘사들이 토착의 정신세계를 간과했거나 국가이념을 저항세력들의 결집원리로 과대 포장한 것에 주의를 기울인다. 천년왕국 봉기에 관한 글들에서 제공하는 해석들은 동남아 신념 체계에 관한 독립적인 관점을 제공할 뿐만 아니라, 인식론적 측면에서 식민지국가들을 이와 같은 전통에서 단절시키고 있다. 영국 식민지하에서 최대의 농민반란인 서야쌍 봉기(1930-1932)는 오늘날 이와 같은 천년왕국 운동의 정수를 보여주는 사례로 간주된다. 학자들은 수천 명의 농민들로 하여금 버마인의 권위를 되찾고, 불교를 회복시키며, 식민통치로 인해 낳은 사회-경제적 부조리를 일소시킬 그들의 왕으로 믿게 만든 한 농부의 흥미로운 이야기를 묘사하고 있다. 일련의 반란이 미신에 의해 추동되었다고 간주한 식민지 관찰자들과는 달리 이후의 역사가들은 그 반란이 불교를 재건하고 태평성대로 인도할 미래부처인 미륵불의 현신에 대한 믿음의 표현이라고 해석했다. 이러한 학자들에게 서야쌍 봉기는 어떻게 동남아 사람들의 감수성이 식민지의 사회-경제적 압력 속에서도 지속되었으며, 상좌불교의 예언이 토착의 문화적 토양에 얼마나 깊이 내재해 있는지를 말해주는 사례였다. 경험적 관점에서 본 글은 서야쌍 봉기의 근원을 재해석함으로써 천년왕국 봉기에 관한 글들이 대부분 식민지적 문서화 작업과 종교를 과장되고 세속화된 화술로 믿게 하려고 지역연구자들의 산물임을 밝히고 있다. 개념적 관점에서 본고는 버마에서 일어난 천년왕국 운동의 역사적 구성에 대한 식민주의의 역할을 보다 면밀히 관찰하였다. 또한 식민지법, 학문, 그리고 식민지하 버마 농촌에서 발생한 종교적 저항에 대한 우리들의 이해를 상호 연결하는 인식론적 관계를 탐구했다. 그리하여 본고는 천년왕국 해석이 이 시기에 공존했던 다른 유형의 불교정치적 형태를 어떻게 왜곡했는가를 밝히고 있다.

• The Southeast Asian review
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.145-171
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• 2018

Laos' 2017 is a year of political "stagnation" and economic "change". In the political arena, despite the achievements such as the improvement of the corruption perception index (CPI), it is necessary to watch the progress of the reform. Diplomatically, the influence of China is expected to increase further. In particular, since November 2017, Xi Jinping's visit to Laos is expected to strengthen the framework of cooperation between the economic corridor and Lanchang-Mekong Cooperation Meeting. And Laos continued to have friendly relations with other neighboring countries, the ASEAN countries. However, the issue of the Laos-Cambodian border issue following the general election in Cambodia may recur. The economic sector maintained a high growth rate due to capital inflows from the construction of large infrastructures and the favorable tourism industry, but structural problems such as deficits in the fiscal and current account should be resolved. Korea and Laos discussed the comprehensive cooperation between the two countries through the Mekong Senior Officials' Meeting in March 2017 and the Ministerial Meeting of the Korean-Lao Foreign Minister in September 2017. Laos is Korea's eighth ODA aid (grant), and ODA will become an important diplomatic cooperation channel between the two countries in the future. In the economic relationship, the trade sector is on a declining trend, but investment and human exchanges are steadily increasing.

• The Journal of Industrial Distribution & Business
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.13-21
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• 2010

Since Korea establish diplomatic ties with China in 1992, korea and China have had rapid progress in most of field as politic, economy, society and culture through basing on cultural commonality and geographical adjacency. Especially, China is the biggest trading partner to korea, and also Korea is third-biggest trading country to China. They become strategic cooperating relation in 2008. Currently, in terms of international trade relation, WTO/DDA negotiation is proceeding in difficulty, but FTA has been growing and extending in the world, and the two country, china and korea, have been competitively trying wide and active FTA negotiation promotion. After Financial crisis in 1997, according to the requirement of local economic cooperation, China has shown the interest to several countries since the conclusion of FTA treaty with ASEAN in 2005. China also makes the active afford to conclude FTA with Korea. Last May 28th, this was mentioned in the meeting between president Lee and Premier Wen Jiabao, so it is anticipated that the negotiation for FTA will be started in the near future. There are many political suggestions and concerns in terms of way of negotiation korea would choose. Some economist said that "'Continuous FTA aimed at long-term protocol should be promoted between korea and China and negotiated includingly'" However, this research claims that commodity exchange, service, and investment areas should be included and it has to be comprehensive package settlement style in negotiation. This research has found out the characteristics of China's negotiation and implications through the China's existed FTA negotiation examples. Currently, China has taken Continuous or a phase-negotiation method to ASEAN, Pakistan, Chile and some other developing country and to advanced countries like New Zealand or Singapore, comprehensive package settlement method is used in FTA negotiation. In consider of the FTA negotiation between Korea and China, Korea has some problems in the commodity change area in agriculture maket's opening. While, for china, the issues would happen in service trade area, especially when encountering finance and communication industries are opened, China's economy could be exposed to some risk. In result, Korea should expand its negotiation range from commodity trade to service trade, in order to exchange both issues, then the negotiation will be concluded more easily. In other word, for FTA, korea should follow comprehensive package settlement way that is similar to New zealand and Singapore case. Through this kind of method, Korea can expect effect of creating trade, conversion of it and preoccupancy of service field in china's market against the advanced countries like Usa, Europe and Japan. Also, to have a successful FTA negotiation, korea should find out china's policy for FTA negotiation. With this information, korea will be able to suggest the way to make a profit. Systematic analysis and comparison about previous negotiation cases of china are needed before the negotiation begin.