• East Asian Economic Review
• /
• 제26권1호
• /
• pp.27-48
• /
• 2022

In the past decade, Korea and Japan have increasingly exhibited different strategic priorities in trade in face of China's rising global economic prowess and worsening US-China trade conflict. Japan's trade policy decisions have worked to reinforce its economic and security ties with the US as a means to counter China. Japan has used both bilateral and multilateral means to secure its ties with the US against China. In contrast, Korea's trade policy positions have been one of 'strategic ambiguity'. Korea has been more conciliatory towards China, reluctant to take actions that would counter China's interest. Korea has mainly resorted to bilateral channels to maintain favorable relations with both China and the US. Korea's reluctance to clearly ally with the US against China has been observed across different administrations with opposing political orientations. This paper examines Korea and Japan's diverging strategic priorities in trade through the 2017 World Trade Organization Ministerial Conference; the 2017 US imposition of Section 232 on steel; the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Korea-US FTA renegotiation and the Korea-China FTA Phase Two Negotiation; and the 2019 Japan-US Trade Agreement.

• East Asian Economic Review
• /
• 제24권4호
• /
• pp.349-388
• /
• 2020

The US-China trade war forced a reluctant semiconductor industry into someone else's fight, a very different position from its leading role in the 1980s trade conflict with Japan. This paper describes how the political economy of the global semiconductor industry has evolved since the 1980s. That includes both a shift in the business model behind how semiconductors go from conception to a finished product as well as the geographic reorientation toward Asia of demand and manufactured supply. It uses that lens to explain how, during the modern conflict with China, US policymakers turned to a legally complex set of export restrictions targeting the semiconductor supply chain in the attempt to safeguard critical infrastructure in the telecommunications sector. The potentially far-reaching tactics included weaponization of exports by relatively small but highly specialized American software service and equipment providers in order to constrain Huawei, a Fortune Global 500 company. It describes potential costs of such policies, some of their unintended consequences, and whether policymakers might push them further in the attempt to constrain other Chinese firms.

• 한국경제지리학회지
• /
• 제24권3호
• /
• pp.243-258
• /
• 2021

본 연구는 미·중 무역 전쟁과 일대일로가 촉발할 세계무역의 변화를 부가가치 기준 무역 통계를 이용하고, 사회연결망 기법을 활용하여 분석하였다. 분석 결과, 첫째, 일대일로 무역 환경은 제조 허브로서의 중국의 위상을 견고히 하고, 유럽 서비스 산업의 위상을 강화한다. 둘째, 1995년부터 2011년까지 GVC 네트워크 내에서 영향력이 큰 산업인 미국의 R&D 산업과 도소매업 및 독일의 자동차 산업은 미·중 무역 분쟁과 일대일로 무역 환경이 반영된 2049년까지도 그 위상이 안정적으로 유지된다. 셋째, 커뮤니티 수의 증가를 통해 일대일로가 GVC 네트워크의 분화를 심화시킨다는 것을 확인할 수 있다. 끝으로 중국의 전자 산업, 독일의 자동차 산업, 미국의 R&D 산업의 커뮤니티 진화 형태에서 주목할 만한 특성이 발견되는데 이는 각국 서비스 산업의 역량과 밀접하게 연관된다.

• East Asian Economic Review
• /
• 제26권1호
• /
• pp.49-91
• /
• 2022

Recent years have witnessed renewed interest in Africa and public diplomacy has emerged as the vital tool being used to cultivate these relations. China has been leading in pursuing stronger economic partnership with Africa while middle powers such as Korea are also intensifying engagement with the continent. While previous studies have analyzed the implications of China's activities in Africa on advanced powers, none has examined them from the paradigm of middle powers. This study fills this gap by assessing China's activities in Africa, their economic engagement and implications for Korea's interest in Africa. The analysis is qualitative based on secondary data from various sources and literature. The study shows that China's public diplomacy strategy involves a high degree of innovation and has evolved to encompass new tools and audiences. China has institutionalized a cooperative model that permeates many aspects of governance institutions in Africa, enabling it to strengthen their relations. This could also be helping China to adjust faster leadership transitions in Africa. Whereas the US is still the most influential country in Africa, China is influential in economic policies and has outstripped the US in infrastructure diplomacy. This could be because African policy makers align more with China's economic model than the US' mainstream economics. Chinese aid to Africa has been diversified to social sectors that are more responsive to the needs of Africa. Trade and investment relations between China and Africa have deepened, but so does trade imbalance since 2010. China mainly imports natural resources and raw materials from Africa. But this product portfolio is not different from Korea and the US. China's energetic insertion in Africa using various strategies has significant implications for countries with ambitions in Africa. Korea can achieve its ambitions in Africa by focusing resources in areas it can leverage its core strengths-such as education and vocational training, environmental policy and development cooperation.

• Journal of Contemporary Eastern Asia
• /
• 제20권2호
• /
• pp.197-209
• /
• 2021

This article deals with the asymmetrical relations between Australia and China and explores their interdependence, tensions, and societal outlooks. Both countries are dependent on one another for trade to different degrees but attempt to diversify their supply chains. While there is no united position on China in Australia, there has been a bipartisan support for the counter-interference legislation there. The newly established security pact of the United States (US), the United Kingdom (UK) and Australia - 'AUKUS' - has brought a new dimension into these tensions and will most likely lead to an arms race. The author explores how a so-called middle power such as Australia balances the related economic and strategic interests and priorities. Although Australia has been vulnerable in its asymmetric relationship with China, it has shown that it is not a passive and helpless actor when facing an economic coercion. The interdependence has become a moderating factor in this strategic stand-off. Additionally, Australia demonstrates its tendency to reinforce its traditional reliance on its previous more powerful allies, the UK and the US.

• 분석과 대안
• /
• 제2권2호
• /
• pp.111-141
• /
• 2018

By the middle of 2018 there are signs of China's entry into a new period of development, characterized by a change in the old model: "market reforms-inner-party democratization - moderate foreign policy" to another: "market reforms - Xi Jinping personality cult - offensive foreign policy." This model contains the risks of arising of the contradiction between economic freedom and political-ideological rigidity which can lead to destabilization of the political life. However, in the current positive economic dynamics, these risks may come out, rather, in the medium and long term. Today, the political situation in China remains stable - despite growing dissatisfaction in scientific expert and educational circles due to increased control over the intellectual sphere by the authorities. The need for a new redistribution of power between central and provincial authorities could potentially disrupt political stability in the medium term, but, at the moment, is not a critical negative factor. The economic situation is positive-stable. Forecasts indicate a possible increase in China's GDP in 2018 at 6.5%. At the same time, there are negative expectations in connection with the Sino-US and potentially Sino-European "trade war". In the Chinese foreign policy, as a response to Western pressure, China increasingly uses the Russian direction of its diplomacy in the expanded version of Russia + SCO. The nuance here is seen in China's adjusted approach to the SCO: first of all, not as a mechanism for cooperation with Russia, but as an organization that allows using Russia's potential for pressure on the US in the Sino-US strategic rivalry. In the second half of 2018, the Chinese economy will continue to develop steadily, albeit with unresolved traditional problems (debts of provinces and state-owned enterprises, ineffective state sector, risks on the financial and real estate market). In politics, discontent with the cult of Xi will accumulate, but without real threats to its power. Weakening in economic opposition between China and the United States is possible due to Beijing's search for compromises on tariffs, intellectual property, trade deficit. To find such trade-offs, Xi will use the so-called. "Personal diplomacy" of direct contacts with Trump.

• International Journal of Advanced Culture Technology
• /
• 제11권2호
• /
• pp.82-108
• /
• 2023

As tension escalates between the US and China, scenarios for maintaining peace in Northeast Asia imply that secondary powers will perceive increasing incentives to reappraise their respective international roles. This analysis proposes that an analysis of France's Cold War role in Europe and the world under President Charles de Gaulle provides insights into conflict management in an increasingly multipolar international political environment. Their respective interests in preventing a so-called new Cold War emerging between the US and China include avoiding its excessive economic costs, if only because China is a massive trade partner. This study engages in theoretical framework-informed process tracing of de Gaulle's role. It explicates the assumptions that functionally underpinned de Gaulle's policy of soft balancing between the US and China. The analysis explores de Gaulle's contribution to the decay of the Cold War. It illuminates de Gaulle's contribution to a regional international environment that made West German Chancellor Willy Brandt's Ostpolitik strategy more feasible politically. This study applies these findings in the formulation of strategy recommendations focusing on Japan. Valid inferences regarding the predominant motivations driving American and Chinese international interaction are necessary for this task. To the extent to which the US and China have entered into a conflict spiral, Japan's hedging towards Washington is further incentivized. Tokyo would necessarily need to convince the Chinese that Japan is no longer Washington's unsinkable aircraft carrier off its coast. Tokyo, like de Gaulle's France, would maintain close relations with Washington, but it would need to project to its interlocutors its commitment to its own strategic autonomy. Tokyo's emphasis on closer relations with liberal democratic Indo-Pacific actors would potentially fit well with a commitment to strategic autonomy to defend the global liberal order.

• Strategy21
• /
• 통권37호
• /
• pp.104-143
• /
• 2015

China's new grand strategy, the "One Belt, One Road Initiative" (also Belt Road Initiative, or BRI) has two primary components: Chinese President Xi Jinping announced the "Silk Road Economic Belt" in September 2013 during a visit to Kazakhstan, and the "21^st Century Maritime Silk Route Economic Belt" in a speech to the Indonesian parliament the following month. The BRI is intended to supply China with energy and new markets, and also to integrate the countries of Central Asia, the Association of Southeast Asia Nations (ASEAN), and the Indian Ocean Region - though not Northeast Asia - into the "Chinese Dream". The project will be supported by the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), due to open in 2016 with 57 founding members from all around the world, and China has already promised US$ 50 billion in seed funding. China's vision includes networks of energy pipelines, railways, sea port facilities and logistics hubs; these will have obvious commercial benefits, but also huge geopolitical significance. China seems to have two distinct aims: externally, to restore its historical sphere of influence; and internally, to cope with income inequalities by creating middle-class jobs through enhanced trade and the broader development of its economy. In South Korea, opinion on the BRI is sharply polarized. Economic and industrial interests, including Korea Railroad Corporation (KORAIL), support South Korean involvement in the BRI and closer economic interactions with China. They see how the BRI fits nicely with President Park Geun-hye's Eurasia Initiative, and anticipate significant commercial benefits for South Korea from better connections to energy-rich Russia and the consumer markets of Europe and Central Asia. They welcome the prospect of reduced trade barriers between China and South Korea, and of improved transport infrastructure, and perceive the political risks as manageable. But some ardently pro-US pundits worry that the political risks of the BRI are too high. They cast doubt on the feasibility of implementing the BRI, and warn that although it has been portrayed primarily in economic terms, it actually reveals a crucial Chinese geopolitical strategy. They are fearful of China's growing regional dominance, and worried that the BRI is ultimately a means to supplant the prevailing US-led regional security structure and restore the Middle Kingdom order, with China as the only power that matters in the region. According to this view, once China has complete control of the regional logistics hubs and sea ports, this will severely limit the autonomy of China's neighbors, including South Korea, who will have to toe the Chinese line, both economically and politically, or risk their own peace and prosperity.

• 분석과 대안
• /
• 제5권1호
• /
• pp.25-57
• /
• 2021

미국과 중국의 전략적 경쟁이 격화되면서 중국을 비롯하여 전세계적으로 경제 제재가 더욱 빈번하게 사용되고 있다. 미국의 동맹국이면서도 중국을 최대 교역국으로 두고 있는 한국은 중국의 사드(THAAD) 배치에 대한 보복에서 보듯이 향후에도 경제 제재에 맞닥뜨릴 가능성이 높다. 이러한 배경에서 본 논문은 비공식성을 중심으로 중국의 경제 제재를 분석한다. 중국은 경제 제재를 거의 인정하지 않는다. 대부분의 경우, 중국은 한국의 사드 배치 사례처럼 거대한 시장을 가진 구매자로서의 지위를 적극 활용하여 비공식적으로 경제 제재를 시행한다. 핵심이익과 관련되어 있거나 유리한 무역구조를 활용할 수 없어 실질적인 제재 효과를 발휘할 수 없는 경우, 그리고 상호 분쟁이 고조되어 비공식성을 유지할 수 없을 때에만, 공식적인 대응을 한다. 중국의 비공식적 경제 제재에 취약한 한국은 무역구조를 개선하는 것과 함께 비공식성을 비롯한 중국의 경제 제재가 갖는 특성을 심도 있게 분석하면서 다양한 전략과 방안을 통해 이에 대비해야 할 것이다.

• 분석과 대안
• /
• 제7권3호
• /
• pp.27-59
• /
• 2023

이 연구는 현재 논란이 되고 있는 '신냉전'에 대해 비판적으로 비교하기 위한 시론의 역할을 하는 것을 목적으로 한다. '신냉전' 담론이 미디어와 학계에 주요 이슈로 등장하여 현실 정치적 힘으로 작용하게 된 것은 세 번의 계기를 통해서였다. 중국의 '일대일로' 프로젝트가 출범하고 러시아의 크림병합으로 '우크라이나 위기'가 발생하면서 '신냉전' 담론이 형성되기 시작하여, 트럼프정부의 미중 무역분쟁을 통해 '신냉전' 관련 논쟁이 본격적으로 전면화 된 데 이어, 바이든 정부의 '민주주의 대 권위주의'의 프레임과 푸틴의 우크라이나 침공으로 인해 '신냉전' 논쟁은 현재 심화되고 있다. 현재 논란이 되고 있는 '신냉전'이 역사적으로 공인된 '20세기의 냉전(Cold War)과 동일하거나 연속선상에 있다는 합의'가 부재하다. '신냉전'이라는 용어는 이론적인 검증과 체계화는 물론이고 아직 분석적 개념의 지위를 획득하지 못한 시사적인 용어에 가깝고, 관련 논쟁 또한 주장이나 담론discourse 수준에 머물고 있다. '신냉전' 관련 담론들을 지지 및 동의하는 주장과 이에 대한 비판적 입장을 비교하여, 과거의 냉전과 어떠한 유사성과 차별성이 있는지 분석할 것이다. 이러한 비교 분석을 통해 현재 진행되는 '신냉전' 담론이 오늘날 세계질서의 전환적 현상을 설명하는 데 적실성 있는 개념이 아니라는 것을 논증하고자 한다.