Vol. 3 September 15, 2017

There Goes the Neighborhood:
Increasing Tensions
in Cooperative Northeast Asia

1Vol. 3 September 15, 2017

Table of Contents

Foreword ........................................................................................................... 3
PART 1MIGRATION IN NORTHEAST ASIA .................................................................. 6
Navigating Marriage Migration from Russia
to the People’s Republic of China
Elena Barabantseva .................................................................................................. 7
Impact of International Migration on Regional Population Growth in JapanDai Erbiao ............................................................................................................ 12
Korean Networks in the Russian Far East: Openness, Accessibility and AdaptivenessNaoki Amano ........................................................................................................ 21

PART 2PROSPECTS FOR A REGIONAL ARCHITECTURE IN NORTHEAST ASIA . 26
The Absence of Institutionalization and Increasing Ideational Complexities in Northeast
Asia Today
Yasuhiro Izumikawa............................................................................................... 27
The Politics of Economic Integration and Institutional Architecture
Seungjoo Lee ........................................................................................................ 30
The Disinterested Colossus: The Balance of Interests and U.S. Foreign Policy During the
Unipolar Era

Evan N. Resnick .................................................................................................... 31

China’s Challenge in Subsuming Hong Kong and Taiwan:
Observations on Their Reunification Logic and Methods

Hisako Shimono .................................................................................................... 38

List of Contributors ........................................................................................ 48

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Vol. 3 September 15, 2017

Foreword
The first international symposium of NoA-SRC (NIHU Area Studies Project for
Northeast Asia, Slavic-Eurasian Research Center) was held on December 17-18, 2016 at
the Kitakyushu International Conference Center in Fukuoka. By focusing on thegeopolitics, bilateral relations, power structures and the transnational movement ofpeople, the symposium examined the possibilities and challenges forcommunity-building in Northeast Asia where tensions are rising among China, Russia,
North Korea, South Korea, Japan and the United States. The detail of the two-day
symposium is as follows.
Day 1 (December 17):
Opening Remarks
Keynote Speech: Yong-Chool Ha (University of Washington)

Session 1: Positioning Asia and Kyushu in Shifting Global Geopolitics
Speakers: T. J. Pempel (University of California, Berkeley)Paul Evans (University of British Columbia)
Hiroyuki Okamoto (Kyushu Economic Research Center)
Commentators: Beom-Shik Shin (Seoul National University)
Sergey Sevastyanov (Far Eastern Federal University)
Moderator: Akihiro Iwashita (Kyushu University & Hokkaido University)
Session 2: Integration, Population and Gender in Northeast & Southeast
Asia
Speakers: Elena Barabantseva (University of Manchester)Hisako Shimono (University of Kitakyushu)
Erbiao Dai (Asian Growth Research Institute)
Commentator: Reiko Ogawa (Kyushu University)
Moderator: Keiko Tamura-Tsuji (University of Kitakyushu)
Day 2 (December 18):
Session 3: Sino-Russian Dynamics: The Fault-line of Northeast Asian
Competitive Cooperation
Speakers: Chisako Masuo (Kyushu University),
Marcin Kaczmarski (University of Warsaw)
Norio Horie (Toyama University)
Yang Cheng (East China Normal University)3Vol. 3 September 15, 2017

Moderator & Commentator: David Wolff (Hokkaido University)
Session 4: Migration Policy and the Movement of Peoples in the Russian
Far East
Speakers: Natalia Ryzhova (Far Eastern Federal University)
Igor Saveliev (Nagoya University)
Naoki Amano (Yamagata University)
Moderator & Commentator: Hiroki Oka (Tohoku University)
Session 5: Theorizing Northeast Asia: Power, Interests and Ideology
Speakers: Evan Resnick (Nanyang Technological University)
Seungjoo Lee (Chung-Ang University)
Yasuhiro Izumikawa (Chuo University)
Moderator & Commentator: Akitoshi Miyashita (Tokyo International University)
This online report Northeast Asia Today (Vol. 3) includes those presentations that
discussed migration, population change and a prospective regional order in Northeast
Asia. The purpose of this online report is to make some of the insights from thesymposium available in an easy to access format. What follows, therefore, aresummaries of the presenters’ main ideas rather than complete academic papers. Other
parts of the symposium sessions have been published elsewhere. The keynote lecture by
Yong-Chool, Ha and Session 1 have been published as Slavic Eurasia Papers Series No.
8: Iwashita Akihiro and Jonathan Bull eds., Positioning Asia and Kyushu in Shifting
Global Politics (Sapporo: Slavic-Eurasian Research Center, 2017).
Northeast Asia Today (Vol. 3) consists of two parts. In Part 1 “Migration in
Northeast Asia,” first, Elena Barabantseva examines the media representations of, andemerging regulatory mechanism governing, cross-border and international marriage
between Chinese and Russians in the PRC. Second, Dai Erbiao analyzes the impact ofinternational migration on regional population growth in Japan mainly by using thestatistical data of the Japan Immigration Association. Third, Naoki Amano pays
attention to the historical role and “adaptiveness” of Korean migrants and argues that
the Korean migrants and their network can help Northeast Asian nations fostertransborder cooperation. These discussions should deepen understanding about thehistorical background and the current trends in the transborder movement of people inNortheast Asia where immigration is under relatively rigid control by governments.

4Vol. 3 September 15, 2017

In Part 2 “Prospects for a Regional Architecture in Northeast Asia,” Yasuhiro
Izumikawa examines the reason why Northeast Asia lacks institutions. He insists that
ideational/normative commonalities are not a necessary condition for a successful
institution. Instead, he pays attention to two normative trends in East Asia which are
an increasing mixture of bilateralism and multilateralism, and the future of democratic
norms. Second, Seungjoo Lee analyses the redesign of regional architecture in thisregion. Particularly he focuses on three emerging features: multilayering, complexity,and diversification. Third, Evan Resnick explores the impact of the U.S. President
Donald Trump on foreign policy and the implications for the international order inNortheast Asia. Finally, Hisako Shimono examines changes in China’s reunification
logic and its attitude toward issues in both Hong Kong and Taiwan. She also pays
attention to China’s economic support to develop relations with Hong Kong and Taiwan
and its difficulties in dealing with local societies. The above arguments will facilitate
the existing discussions on the prospects for a regional security and economicarchitecture in Northeast Asia, and also provide us with significant factors to calculate
the two superpowers’ behavior.

August 23, 2017
Mihoko Kato
National Institutes for the Humanities /Slavic-Eurasian Research Center,
Hokkaido University5Vol. 3 September 15, 2017

PART 1MIGRATION IN NORTHEAST ASIA

6

Vol. 3 September 15, 2017

Navigating Marriage Migration from Russia
to the People’s Republic of China
Elena Barabantseva(University of Manchester)
Cross-border and international marriages reappeared in the People’s Republic ofChina (PRC) in the mid-1990s against the backdrop of the country’s growing economic
openness, mobility, and emergence of new zones of contact between Chinese andforeigners. Despite deep cultural and linguistic disparities between China and Russia,
the reinvention of bilateral relations in the post-Soviet period and relaxation ofentry-exit policies encouraged educational exchanges, border trade, and business
relations between the two countries. These contacts sometimes led to romantic andintimate encounters. With the increasing occurrence of cross-border intimate relations,the question of marriage registration emerged in a new light. In this talk I presented myanalysis of the media representations of and emerging regulatory mechanism governing
Chinese-Russian marriages in the PRC.
In recent years the topic of marriage with foreigners has become prominent in the
Chinese public domain. For example, on June 8, 2016, the East Asia Tribune, anallegedly Singapore-based online English news site specialising in independentjournalism and reportage, published a news item announcing that the Supreme People’s
Court of China passed legislation that will ban Chinese women from marrying
non-Chinese men from the beginning of 2018 while not extending this ruling to Chinesemen. In the course of one day the news item was dismissed as a hoax, only after it
generated thousands of responses and comments on WeChat, the most popular social
network platform in China. The news item touched on widely shared concerns in the
Chinese media. Considered in relation to another unbelievable but true public campaign,
the ban on interracial marriages for Chinese women couldn’t feel any more real. On
April 15, 2016, ‘Dangerous Love’ (危险的爱情) poster campaign appeared in theresidential areas of inner Beijing to commemorate the inaugural National Security
Education Day on April 14. The posters warned of the perils of a romantic relationshipbetween Western male English teachers and Chinese girls. The visual story told how a7Vol. 3 September 15, 2017

Western spy in disguise as a language teacher used a Chinese female civil servant to get
access to undisclosed materials landing the couple a term in prison. The juxtaposition of
the Singaporean hoax news and the real propaganda posters exposes the range offeelings running through Chinese society provoking a host of emotional responses.
These two events highlight popular concerns occurring along the national
discourses of marriage migration to and from China. The anxiety over the ‘lack’ of
Chinese women as a result of the decades-long family planning, emigration of Chinese
women for marriage in the West, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, and pursuit of professional
careers, manifested in the concern over ‘left over women’ is the other side of how
marriages with foreigners are framed in the official and popular discourses. Theinterplay of these themes highlights the centrality of management of family lives andforeign presence to the PRC’s national security imperatives. It is within this context ofmediatised collective public feelings that I situated my analysis of Chinese-Russian
marriages.
In the early 2000s the Chinese state media started publishing materials about agrowing number of happy Russian-Chinese families in the North-East of China. Thesematerials varied from short TV reportages to printed news items, and TV dramas.
Among the growing popularity and familiarity of the topic, the village of Sihecun in the
North-Eastern province of Heilongjiang hit the headlines as a ‘Russian Brides village’
when a series of publications between 2008 and 2011 reported that 22 villagers cameback to China after working in Russia with Russian wives. During a research visit to thevillage in August 2016, however, the village representatives spoke vaguely of suchcouples and couldn't recall any Russian women living there at the time. Instead, theauthorities highlighted that the village served as a film set for the 26-episode drama‘Northeast Love Story’ (Dongbei Aiqing Gushi) which was broadcasted on Chinese TV.
Playing up the proximity of the two states, long historical, and political relations, theChinese media products emphasised the growing popularity of Chinese-Russian
marriages in China.
After the Russian-Ukrainian conflict over Crimea and the war in Eastern Ukraine
broke out in 2014, the media coverage of Russian-Chinese, and later Ukrainian-Chinese
marriages became more prominent and bold. The new aspect of the coverage was that8

Vol. 3 September 15, 2017

the economic crisis and instability hitting Russia and Ukraine became a precursor for a
growing number of women from these countries seeking to marry Chinese men. For
example, one headline in 2012 expressed that more Russian women want to marry
Chinese men, another in 2014 announced that ‘Russian Women want to become
Chinese daughters-in-law’, and yet another one compared the ‘advantages’ of Russian
girlfriends to Ukrainian. One story which became particularly popular in December
2014 (against the backdrop of the escalating Russian-Ukrainian conflict and growing
accusations of the West against Russian military presence in Eastern Ukraine) detailed ahappy marriage of a self-made Chinese businessman in Ukraine who made many
Chinese netizens jealous of his beautiful Ukrainian wife in December 2014. In responseto the post, one commentator announced that— ‘if you let Chinese people out in theworld, the world will truly see the power of the Chinese people!’ ‘I am going to the
Ukrainian Embassy this afternoon to get my visa’.
It is difficult to garner the official position of two states on the issue ofRussian-Chinese marriages, yet their implicit involvement is noticeable. The
Russian-Chinese bilateral relations took on a new level of development when in May
2015 Xi Jinping visited Moscow formally marking the merger of two state initiatives,
China’s new Silk Road Economic Belt and Eurasian Union. Several weeks after Xi
Jinping’s visit to Moscow a curious advert circulated in the Russian printed media
advertising ‘the ideal formula’ of mixed Russian-Chinese marriages, and Russian media
started commenting on the ‘unexpected’ aspect of ‘Putin’s turn to Asia’. Originallyplaced in Rossiyskaya Gazeta (the official mouthpiece of Russia’s main party United
Russia) with the alleged support from China’s Ministry of Education the advert offered
the formula of an ideal international couple: Russian wife + Chinese husband =‘ideal
couple’. It summarised the qualities of the Russian wife as good-looking, educated,
independent, hard-working, and giving her husband freedom. According to the advert,
the Chinese husband is a caring and serious family man, who leads a healthy life-style,and is a good handyman.
Favourable media representations of the Russian women as suitable wives for
Chinese husbands are further informed by the powerful idea of the racial hierarchy andits role in shaping cultural perceptions of the ethnic Other in China. Although ethnic

9Vol. 3 September 15, 2017

categorisation is a product of Chinese communist policies, it developed from the fusionof the Western colonial practices, Chinese imperial conceptions of the world, and latersocialist ideals. The historically neighbouring status and shifting geographical borders
are reflected in Chinese ethnic composition which includes Russian as a recognised
ethnic group in China’s multi-ethnic society. Russia as one of the former colonial
powers which ‘humiliated’ China along with Western powers in the 19th century, isviewed as China’s equal in terms of cultural influence, yet superior in its historical andpolitical roles, as the birthplace of the first socialist state, and its military andtechnological achievements. Russian women, on par with the majority Han, arecommonly presented as educated, modern and civilised. But the most venerated aspectsof Russians in China are their European features, and white skin which translate to the
popular depictions of blond, white-skinned, blue-eyed beauties as common
representations of Russian women in China.
International marriages in China are governed across three intersecting areas of
the PRC’s legislative activity and state policies: marriage and family sphere, migrationand mobility to China, and population governance. The spheres of family life andmigration became areas of several state regulations since the early 2000s. The 2001
amendment of the marriage law and 2003 marriage registration regulations (Hunyin
Dengji Tiaoli) facilitated divorce proceedings. In 2004 the new measure for the
Administration of Examination and Approval of Aliens’ Permanent Residence in China(2004) specified the procedure for marriage registration with a foreigner including
Taiwanese, Hong Kongese, and Macanese ‘compatriots’. The 2013 Entry and Exit
Administration Law provides the latest regulatory framework for dealing with the ‘threeillegalities’ problem pertaining to unauthorised work, entry, and residence in China.
Although the new law makes provisions for permanent residency for long-term foreign
residents in China, the conditions set out are almost impossible to satisfy. In addition toproviding a valid marriage certificate, a health certificate and meeting the requirement
to have been married for 5 years, and been a resident in China for at least 5 years (withat least 9 months of residence each year), the foreign spouse of a Chinese citizen mustalso provide a “notarized certificate of source of income [with] an amount of savings[that] must at least cover ten years’ living costs” and a “notarized house-leasing10Vol. 3 September 15, 2017

certificate or certificate of property ownership” (Liu, 2011: 64). What is moresignificant, the ‘family visit’ visa granted to foreign spouses of Chinese citizens does
not grant its holder a right to work in China. The governance of marriage migration in
the PRC is predicated on separation of domestic and public spheres, reserving atemporary residence status for foreign spouses in China. This has engendered an
informal labor market of foreign spouses who, in the case of Russian wives, could only
work informally as language instructors, child carers, or engage in cross-border tradewith Russia.
China’s shifting economic and political roles as a global power reconfigures state
relations and person-to-person relations alike. The topic of Russian-Chinese marriages
hitting the national news, internet chat rooms, entertainment programmes, andpropaganda campaigns signals that societal and cultural changes are under way in China.
The status of Russia as a traditional great power translates into a positive image ofRussian-Chinese marriages as progressive and beneficial to China’s development. Yet,social and economic roles envisaged for Russian spouses in the emerging legal andadministrative frameworks place them firmly in reproductive and caring spheres in
Chinese society.
References
Liu Guofu, Chinese Immigration Law (Fanham: Ashgate, 2011).

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Vol. 3 September 15, 2017

Impact of International Migration on Regional Population
Growth in JapanDai Erbiao(Asian Growth Research Institute, Kitakyushu)
1. Introduction
With the rise of concerns towards immigration policy, it is important to correctly
evaluate the impact of international migration to Japan, which increased significantly
after the mid-1980s. This paper tries to clarify the effect of international migration on
regional population growth in Japan, and analyzes the underlying factors of regional
foreign population growth. It is organized into six sections. Section 2 introduces recent
trends in international migration to Japan. Section 3 describes the features of the foreign
population's regional distribution in Japan. Section 4 examines the contribution of theforeign population on regional population growth in three major Metropolitan Areas(3MAs) and other areas. Section 5 analyzes the underlying factors of foreign population
growth in Japan’s 47 prefectures. Section 6 discusses future prospects of internationalmigration to Japan.
2. Recent trends in international migration to Japan
After the “Plaza Accord” in 1985, with the dramatic appreciation of the yen, riseof labor wages, rapid increase of outward Japanese FDI, and structural labor shortage
for some “3K” (“3D”) industry sectors, the demand for various foreign laborers
increased significantly. Meanwhile, as the world’s second largest economy with ahigh-income level, Japan became an attractive destination for international migrant
workers. Under such a background, from 1980 the population of foreign residents hadrisen until 2008, when the Japanese economy was heavily hit by the world financial
crisis, which started from the United States (Table 1).

12Vol. 3 September 15, 2017

Table 1. The population growth of foreign residents in Japan(Source) Japan Immigration Association (various years)

Before the mid-1980s, the vast majority (more than 90%) of foreign residents inJapan were colonial immigrants, who mainly came from the Korean peninsula andTaiwan before 1945, and their descendants. They have special permanent residence
status and are usually called as “Old Comers,” while the foreign migrants who came to
Japan after the mid-1980s are called “New Comers”. With the rise of Japan’s foreign
population, there appeared two significant changes in the characteristics of foreign
residents in Japan.
One is the decline of the old comers’ share in total foreign population, droppingfrom more than 90% before 1980 to less than 20% after 2008, and the continued rise of
the share of new comers (Table 2). Another is the significant change in the compositionof foreign residents’ place of origin (country/region). In recent years, China has
emerged to be the largest sending country, followed by South Korea/North Korea,
Brazil, the Philippines, Peru and the United States. In addition, foreign migrants inJapan are from nearly 200 countries, indicating a rising diversity in the structure ofsending country.

13Vol. 3 September 15, 2017

Table 2. Foreign population in Japan by residence status (person)(Source) Japan Immigration Association (various years)

3. Foreign population's regional distribution in Japan
Table 3 shows the regional distribution of foreign residents in Japan before theworld financial crisis by their residence status, which is re-organized into five categories,
including “Skilled Labor”, “Student”, “Unskilled labor”, “PR and family relatives”, and“others.” The following features can be confirmed from this table.
(1)The three major Metropolitan Areas (3 MAs) are the main destinations/resident
places for foreigners of all categories. Among the five categories, skilled labor has
the highest proportion (78.4%) in the 3MAs, while unskilled labor has the lowest
proportion (55.9 %).

14

Vol. 3 September 15, 2017(2)differences among the holders of various residence status. Foreigners with theresidence status of “Engineer,” “Specialist in Humanities/International Service,”“Investors/Business Manager,” “Legal and Accounting Services,” “Journalist,”and “Artist” are mostly concentrated in the 3MAs (78.7% - 100%), especially inand around Tokyo.

Table 3. The regional distribution of foreign residents in Japan by residence
status (2007)

Total Foreign Residents
Skilled Labor
Legal/Accounting Services
Journalist
Engineer
Investor/Business Manager
Intracompany Transferee
Specialist in Humanities/International Services
ArtistSkilled Labor
Professor
Religious Activities
Medical Services
Researcher
Entertainer
Instructor
Students
Cultural Activities
College Student
Precollege Student
Unskilled labor
Trainee
Designated Activities
Long-Term Resident
PR and familly relative
Dependent
Permanent Resident
Special Permanent Resident
Spouse or Child of Japanese National
Spouse or Child of Permanent Resident
other

Japan
(person）
2,152,973
193,785145
279
44,684
7,916
16,111
61,763448
21,261
8,436
4,732
174
2,276
15,728
9,832
173,604
3,014
132,460
38,130461,178
88,086
104,488268,604
1,240,498
98,167439,757
430,229
256,980
15,36583,908

3 MAs

(%)
70.3
78.4
100.0
98.2
88.9
87.7
85.6
83.0
81.9
78.7
65.2
63.8
59.8
57.9
51.9
47.9
72.8
68.2
71.1
79.0
55.9
43.3
48.1
63.1
73.7
79.6
70.3
80.6
65.2
78.0
75.1

Tokyo Area

Nagoya Area

Osaka Area

Other Area

(%)
35.6
58.4
97.2
93.2
74.1
74.2
68.5
61.3
63.6
55.5
34.5
35.7
43.7
43.3
30.4
24.7
50.3
42.9
47.6
60.4
19.7
12.1
16.5
23.5
34.4
60.3
38.5
21.4
38.9
44.4
56.0

(%)
15.4
8.5
0.7
1.4
7.6
3.6
8.8
7.5
7.4
13.4
9.1
8.5
5.2
5.1
12.5
6.6
6.1
7.0
6.6
4.4
25.6
20.9
21.6
28.7
14.2
8.4
18.1
10.9
15.0
16.1
12.2

(%)
19.3
11.5
2.1
3.6
7.2
10.0
8.2
14.2
10.9
9.7
21.6
19.6
10.9
9.6
9.0
16.6
16.4
18.3
17.0
14.2
10.6
10.3
10.0
11.0
25.0
10.9
13.7
48.3
11.3
17.5
6.8

(%)
29.7
21.6
0.0
1.8
11.1
12.3
14.4
17.0
18.1
21.3
34.8
36.2
40.2
42.1
48.1
52.1
27.2
31.8
28.9
21.0
44.1
56.7
51.9
36.9
26.3
20.4
29.7
19.4
34.8
22.0
24.9

(Source) Japan Immigration Association (2008)15

Vol. 3 September 15, 2017

4. The contribution of foreign population to regional population growth inJapan
During periods with very small scale international migration, the growth ofregional population in Japan was mainly determined by two factors: natural growth ofJapanese nationals and social growth (net inter-regional migration) of Japanesenationals. In recent years, however, while the natural growth rates of Japanese nationals
for almost all regions are close to zero, the social growth rate (net inter-regionalmigration rate) of Japanese nationals for the three major metropolitan areas and otherareas have also decreased significantly since the mid-1970s, partially due to thenarrowing of the inter-regional income/wage disparity. Under such a situation, even asmall increase in international immigration has a considerable impact on regional
population growth in Japan.
How big are the contributions of foreign residents to the population growth of thefour areas in Japan? From Table 4, we can find the answers as follows.
(1)If we divide the period 1980-2010 into three sub-periods, it is clear that thecontribution degree of foreign population growth to the overall population growthof Japan has been increasing, rising from 3.3 % in 1980-1990, 12.8 % in
1990-2000, to 29.8% in 2000-2010.
(2)The contribution degree of foreign population growth to the overall population
growth of each area is quite different. During the period 2000-2010, thecontribution degree for “other regions,” which is experiencing a population
decline, is as high as 106.9 %. Meanwhile, the contribution degree for Tokyo Area
(8.2 %), Nagoya Area (20.4%), and Osaka Area (-26.4 %) is much smaller.
Mainly due to the death and naturalization of the old comers, the foreign
population based on nationality in the Osaka area decreased in this recent decade.
This is why the contribution degree of foreign population growth in Osaka area isnegative.

16

Vol. 3 September 15, 2017

Table 4. Contribution of foreign population to the growth of total population by
area in Japan (%)(Source) Calculated by the author based on Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications(various years); Japan Immigration Association (various years)

5. Underlying factor of regional foreign population growth
5.1 ModelThis section examines the effects of some socio-economic factors on regional
foreign population growth in three periods before the world financial crisis (1980-90,
1990-2000, and 2000-08) by using the following regression model.
GFPjt＝C＋β1FPjt0＋β2GRPjt＋β3ERJOAjt＋β4LWAGEjt＋εjt(1)

Where,
GFPjt: growth of foreign population in prefecture j of period t; j: 1-47
FPjt0: the number of foreign population in prefecture j at the beginning of period t (thefirst year). This variable (factor) is expected to have a positive effect on the increase of
the regional foreign population.
GRPjt: Gross Regional Product of prefecture j in the middle year of period t. Thisvariable, reflecting the position of prefecture j in the national economy, is expected tohave a positive effect on the growth of the regional foreign population.
ERJOAjt: average value of the effective opening to application ratio during the period t.
This variable is expected to have positive effect on the growth of the regional foreign17Vol. 3 September 15, 2017

population.
LWAGEjt: the average employee wage of prefecture j in the middle year of period t.
This variable is expected to have a positive effect on the growth of regional foreign
population, too.
C: constant term; εjt : error term.
The following findings can be confirmed from the regression analysis.
(1) The effects of four explanatory variables on the growth of the regional foreign
population are different for each period.
(2) For the period of 1980-1990, GRPjt (Gross Regional Product) had a significantly
positive effect, reflecting the high concentration of new foreign immigrants inTokyo during this period. Meanwhile, in contrast to expectation, the variable FPjt0(number of foreign population at the beginning of the period) had a negative andstatistically significant effect, reflecting the negative influence of naturalization/
death of the old comers, who mainly came from the Korean peninsula and Taiwan
before 1945.
(3) For the period of 1990-2000, while GRPjt (Gross Regional Product) and FPjt0(number of foreign population at the beginning of the period) had significantly
positive and negative effects, respectively, ERJOAjt (effective opening toapplication ratio) also showed significantly positive effects, indicating the rising
importance of job opportunities after the crash of the bubble in the 1990s.
(4) For the latest period of 2000-2008, while GRPjt and ERJOAjt maintained thesignificantly positive effects, the effect of FPjt0 turned out to be not statisticallysignificant, reflecting the offset of two different effects: the increasing positiveeffects of “chain migration” of new comers and the negative effect of old comers’
naturalization/ death. In addition, reflecting the increasing trend of foreign
population in “other regions” of lower wage levels, the effect of LWAGEjt turned
out to be negative but not statistically significant, from positive but notstatistically significant in the previous periods.

18Vol. 3 September 15, 2017

6. Prospects for the future
Although there are a lot of uncertain factors affecting the future trends ofinternational migration to Japan and the regional distribution of foreign residents, pastexperience and the results of this paper suggest the following trends in the future.
Firstly, in order to respond to the ongoing population decline, Japan will continue
to promote the reform of immigration policy for receiving more international migrants
who are needed for Japan’s sustainable development. Given the effect of such acontinued open door policy, the effect of chain migration, and the still significant
income disparity between Japan and the surrounding countries, it is expected thatinternational migration to Japan will continue to increase. On the other hand, it should
be noted that there has been a narrowing trend in the income disparity between Japanand the surrounding countries. If the downturn of the Japanese economy continues,
the growth of foreign residents in Japan will gradually slow down. Thus, the quantityand quality of future migrants to Japan, particularly the highly skilled people, will begreatly influenced by Japan’s economic performance.
Secondly, with the development of international production-trade networks within
the East Asia region, the share of migrants from East Asian countries (particularly China
and a few ASEAN countries) in Japan’s total foreign population will continue to rise.
Thirdly, due to the migration chain effect and agglomeration effects, the current
distribution of the foreign population in Japan, which is heavily concentrated in the
3MA, will not change quickly. In the future, however, except some categories of skilled
persons who usually work/live in global cities like Tokyo, more foreign migrants will
be distributed in the “other regions,” particularly the Kyushu region, which has a uniquelocation (close to China and Korea) and some important regionally central cities like
Fukuoka and Kitakyushu. The possible significant increase of the foreign population in“other regions” will be a great opportunity for regional development as well as a big
challenge which the three metropolitan areas had experienced previously. How to attract
more skilled migrants who can quickly adjust to the Japanese cultural environment withless social friction should be one of the most important policy issues for Kyushu andother non-Major Metropolitan Areas.

19Vol. 3 September 15, 2017

Note
Since there are no official statistics on the foreign-born population in Japan, statistical
data on foreign resident based on nationality are used for the analysis in this paper.
References
Dai E., (2013) “Chinese Migrants in Japan of the 21st Century,” Qiu, ed. Annual Reporton Overseas Chinese Study (Beijing: Social Sciences Academic Press, 2013), pp.
77-113. (in Chinese)
Goering, J.M. (1989), “The 'explosiveness' of chain migration: research and policy
issues. Introduction and overview,” International Migration Review 23, no. 4 (1989), pp.
797-812.
Japanese Business Federation “How should an economic society act: Response to adecrease in population” (in Japanese)[http://www.keidanren.or.jp/japanese/policy/2008/073.pdf]
Japan Immigration Association (various years), Statistics for Foreign Residents inJapan. (in Japanese)
Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) Project Team for a Japanese-style Immigration Nation,
LDP national strategy division (2008), “A proposal for Japanese style immigration
policy,” June 12, 2008 (in Japanese)[http://www.kouenkai.org/ist/pdff/iminseisaku080612.pdf]
Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, Statistics Bureau (various years),
Japan Statistical Yearbook. (in Japanese) [http://www.stat.go.jp/data/nenkan/]
Ministry of Justice, Basic Plan for Immigration Control, 5th Edition. (in Japanese)[http://www.immi-moj.go.jp/seisaku/2015_kihonkeikaku_honbun_pamphlet_japanese.pdf]

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Korean Networks in the Russian Far East: Openness,
Accessibility and AdaptivenessNaoki Amano(Yamagata University)
At the end of 1990s, a famous historian, Haruki Wada, advocated building “acommon house in Northeast Asia.” He claimed peoples in Northeast Asia need tocooperate with each other and create a regional community in this area. In his opinion,
Koreans should play a prominent role in this cooperation. This is because the Korean
peninsula geopolitically lies in the center of Northeast Asia, and many Korean migrants
are widely settled in each country. Korean migrants (or Korean diaspora) have set up
ethnic networks throughout Northeast Asia. 1 I agree with his opinion that the Korean
networks would help create and promote regional cooperation in this area.
Mooam Hyun, the author of the book titled Korean Networks, points out that
openness and accessibility are chief characteristics of the Korean networks. In addition
to these two characteristics, I would like to add the adaptiveness of Korean migrants.
Korean migrants do not isolate themselves form other residents in the receiving
countries. Historically they settled within the receiving countries as farmers andcoexisted with local residents. However, they do not totally assimilate themselves to thehost nations. They maintain their Korean identity and their customs. While the presenceof Korean migrants is great enough to have an influence on the culture of the receiving
countries, they adopt the language and cultures of the receiving countries. So, theiridentity remains complex. In other words, they are good at adapting to other cultures,and the openness of the Korean networks encourages its accessibility. According toHyun, the accessibility of the Korean networks has promoted collaboration with othernations for different goals. This accessibility can help Northeast Asian nations cooperatewith each other in various fields. 2
I think that the openness, accessibility and adaptiveness of the Korean networks
are key elements for future regional cooperation in Northeast Asia. In this presentation,
1

Haruki Wada, A common house in Northeast Asia (Tokyo: Heibon-sha, 2003), pp.
101-138. (in Japanese)2

Mooam Hyun, Korean Networks: The History and Spaces of the Diaspora and its
Media (Sapporo: Hokkaido University Press, 2013), pp. 10-16. (in Japanese)21Vol. 3 September 15, 2017

I will present a historical case of the Korean networks in the Russian Far East in the
beginning of the 1920s. The history of the Russian Far East in the beginning of the
1920s was the history of the civil war after the Russian Revolution. The empire of Japan
participated in the war, so the Korean migrants in the Russian Far East were involved
not only in the civil war, but also in the Korean independence movement from Japan,
which was flourishing in Northeast Asia. The majority of existing works on this theme
have focused on the independence movement. It is true that the movement was a major
issue for a lot of Korean migrants in the Russian Far East. However, not all migrants
were involved in independence movements. Many Korean settlers lived as Russian
citizens. They were independent of the movement, though they might wish for the
independence of their nation at the bottom of their heart.
I will focus on the diversity of the Korean migrants’ life during the civil war andthe independence movement in the Russian Far East. I believe that will show the
openness, accessibility and adaptiveness of the Korean Networks.
Korean migrants first appeared in the Russian Far East in 1863. They
concentrated in the Primorskaia oblast, whose center is Vladivostok. After 50 years,
about 57,000 Korean migrants lived in the Primorskaia oblast. Thirty-three percent ofthem were naturalized in Russia. Some naturalized Koreans, or Russian Koreans, weredrafted into the Russian army during World War I. The war increased the demand forlabor, and the immigration of Koreans to the Russian Far East continued to grow during
the war. The Russian Revolution also accelerated the flow of Korean migrants, becausea firm ruler did not control the region, and migrants were able to cross the border easily.
In 1923, when the civil war was over, Koreans in the Primorskaia oblast numbered
106,817, or 17 percent of the total population. Over 30% of them were naturalized. 3
It is a well-known fact that many Koreans took part in the partisan warfare
against Japan during the civil war. Their actions, of course, were encouraged by the
Samil [March First] Independence Movement in Korea in 1919. The news was reported
in the Primorskaia oblast by seasonal workers from Korea and Russian local
newspapers. Meetings and demonstrations were held at various cities. The Primorskaia
oblast became one of the main arenas for the Korean independence movement, and thejoint warfare with Russian partisans against Japan offered a good opportunity forrealizing their dream.
3

Haruki Wada, “Koreans in the Soviet Far East, 1917-1937,” in Dae-Sook Suh, ed.,Koreans in the Soviet Union (Honolulu: University of Hawaii, 1987), pp. 25-33.

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During the war, much attention was paid to the high morale of Korean partisans.
Some Russian partisan leaders recognized that the Korean partisans performed theirduties more faithfully than the Russians, and suggested that the Korean fighters be
models for the Russian fighters. This led many local Russian workers and peasants toimprove the miserable conditions of Korean migrants. For example, in June 1919, theFirst Congress of Toilers of the Ol’ginskii District, which belonged to the Primorskaia
oblast, unanimously proclaimed that Koreans were equal citizens in all points, including
the right to cultivate land. 4
The majority of the Korean partisans were newcomers to the Primorskaia oblast.
Some partisans who were not naturalized came to the Russian Far East to fight for their
independence. Others were children of the naturalized oldcomers. They were also
naturalized, and some of them were mobilized in the Russian army during World War I.
Such naturalized Korean migrants lived as peasants in the Primorskaia oblast. Quite afew Korean peasants were landless, 5 meaning that the Korean migrants in the Russian
Far East carried their movements not only to achieve independence, but also to improvetheir living conditions in their new home, the Russian Far East.
The naturalized oldcomers and their children settled Russian lands, and studied
Russian language and cultures. Their ethnic identity was not just Korean. Suchcharacteristics were different from Chinese or Japanese migrants to the Russian Far East.
Chinese migrants worked as merchants or seasonal workers. They kept their Chinese
identity and close ties with China. 6 The majority of Japanese migrants were alsomerchants in cities and did not assimilate to the receiving country. It is noteworthy thatin 1918-1919, the number of Japanese merchants increased dramatically, especially in
Vladivostok, where the number doubled. This is because the Japanese merchants did
business mainly with Japanese expeditionary forces, which intervened in the civil war.
So, the Japanese merchants left the Russian Far East when Japanese forces

Teruyuki Hara, “The Korean Movement in the Russian Primorskaia oblast,
1905-1922,” in Suh, ed., Koreans in the Soviet Union, p. 14.

4

Hyo-Chong Yu, “Siberian war and Koreans in Russia,” Japanese Society for the
Study of Russian History, ed., 200 Years History of Japan and Russia: The History of
Exchanges with Russia (Tokyo: Sairyu-sha, 1993), pp. 143-151. (in Japanese)
5

Igor R. Saveliev, Migration and Nation: Chinese, Korean and Japanese Diaspora in
the Russian Far East, 1860-1917 (Tokyo: Ochanomizu-shobo, 2005), pp. 219-233. (in6Japanese)23Vol. 3 September 15, 2017

evacuated in 1922. 7
Improving their lives in Russia was as important as independence, or might havebeen more important for the settled and naturalized Korean migrants. The Russian
Revolution, the civil war, and the partisan warfare had a serious impact on the daily
lives of the Korean diaspora, which made their living conditions even more miserable.
You can find a typical example in education. A normal school in Nikolisk-Ussurisk
could not afford to buy experimental instruments for science classes. The director asked
the local Korean community to give financial support. However, the community was
also not rich enough to help the school because the civil war threatened the existence ofthe community. The director had to ask the local city office for help. 8
Such conditions could break the ethnic ties of Koreans in the Russian Far East.
In August 1921, some Korean partisans came to Nikolisk-Ussurisk to ask some local
Korean peasants for food. The peasants refused to provide help and arrested thepartisans.9 This case shows that discontent with the partisans was fostered among the
local Korean peasants, because war affected their daily lives.
However, it is notable that the civil war and the intervention of Japanese forces
gave the Korean peasants an opportunity to improve their lives. Japanese forces
demanded rice, so rice prices acutely rose in the Russian Far East market. This led to anincrease in the flow of Korean migrants into the Russian Far East. That is because morerice farmers were demanded, and only Koreans had a background in rice production.
The area of rice fields in the Primorskaia oblast after the Japanese intervention was
thirty times larger than that before the intervention. The rice boom ended with thewithdrawal of Japanese forces in 1922, but rice culture took root in the Russian Far East.
The Korean farmers continued to cultivate rice after the USSR established power overthe Russian Far East thanks to higher prices of rice than that of wheat. 10
This shows the continuity of the lifestyle of the Korean migrants. In spite of thegreat political change and the serious damage from the war, Korean migrants had taken
Teruyuki Hara, “WWI, the Russian Revolution and the Intervention: from theviewpoint of Japanese Diaspora in Russia,” in Makoto Iokibe et al., eds., The history ofJapan-Russia Relations : Challenging parallel history (Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press,2015), pp. 173-177. (in Japanese)78Корейцы на российском Дальнем Востоке (вт. пол. XIX – нач. XX вв.): Документыи материалы в 2-х книгах / Под ред. Н.А. Троицкая. Книга 2. Владивосток, 2004. С.
166.
9Там же. С. 240.
10

Там же. С. 230-240; Wada, “Koreans in the Soviet Far East…,” p. 35.

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deep root in the Russian Far East. They adapted to the receiving country, the landalready became their home, and they had to survive there. The Korean independence
movement was carried out not only in the Russian Far East, but also in Siberia,
Shanghai, Manchuria, and so on. That is, it was carried outside the Korean peninsula.
Of course, the movement is hard to carry out in their homeland due to the suppression
by the empire of Japan. However, such de-centralized movement was possible thanks to
the openness, accessibility and adaptiveness of the networks of Korean migrants.
It is true that the main goal of the movement was to build their independent
nation-state, but it was not limited to the ethnic movement. There was a possibility thatthe movement could have led to transnational cooperation in Northeast Asia. 11 Some
Japanese historians point out that there were transborder trade networks in medieval
Northeast Asia. The activity of ethnic minorities enabled the networks to work well.
The minorities, such as the Ainu, Nivkh and so on, learned the languages and cultures ofChina or Japan, and the minorities functioned as bridges between these powers.
Historians called them marginal people. 12 The networks of marginal people enabletransborder cooperation to develop. I think that Korean migrants can act as marginal
people, and their networks can help foster transborder cooperation in 21st-century
Northeast Asia.

11

Hyun, Korean Networks, p. 4.

Murai Shosuke, People Crossing Borders (Tokyo: Yamakwa-shuppan, 2006). (inJapanese)

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PART 2PROSPECTS FOR A REGIONAL ARCHITECTURE INNORTHEAST ASIA

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Vol. 3 September 15, 2017

The Absence of Institutionalization and Increasing Ideational
Complexities in Northeast Asia Today
Yasuhiro Izumikawa(Chuo University)
In 1993, Aaron Friedberg wrote an article on East Asia titled “Ripe for Rivalry?
Prospects for Peace in a Multipolar East Asia,” in which he argued that the absence ofregional institutions in East Asia would be one of the causes for future intensification of
conflicts there. 1 Since then, regional institutions have proliferated in East Asia, and it is
no longer possible to argue that the region lacks institutions. While this may makeFriedberg’s argument outdated, it still captures the reality of a part of the region:
Northeast Asia. Compared with the dense layer of institutions in Southeast Asia,
Northeast Asia still lacks viable sub-regional institutions. Various attempts have been
made to explain why this is the case.
The conventional wisdom often invoked to answer the aforementioned question isthat successful regional institutionalization requires ideational/normative commonalities
among member states, and that they are absent in Northeast Asia. In Europe, theEuropean Union is founded upon the principle of democracy, and its member states are
Christian. 2 In Southeast Asia, where the Association of Southeast Asian Nations(ASEAN) plays a prominent role both in its sub-regional politics and external relations
with outside powers, member states share what Amitav Acharya regards as aregion-specific norm that emphasizes the principle of non-intervention. 3 Comparedwith these models, Northeast Asia is a sub-region where common ideational/normative
commonalities hardly exist, even if North Korea, the striking outlier in many aspects, is
excluded. There, Japan and South Korea (and Taiwan, though not a “state” per se) aredemocratic, whereas China is not, with Russia becoming increasingly undemocratic.
Religiously, Russia and South Korea are mainly Christian, Japan is predominantly
1

Aaron L. Friedberg, “Ripe for Rivalry: Prospects for Peace in a Multipolar Asia,” International
Security 18, no. 3 (Winter 1993/94), pp. 5-33.

2

Thomas Risse-Kappen, “Collective Identity in a Democratic Community: The Case of NATO,” inPeter J. Katzenstein, ed., The Culture of National Security: Norms and Identity in World Politics(New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), pp. 357-399.

3

Amitav Acharya, Whose Ideas Matter? Agency and Power in Asian Regionalism (Ithaca, NY:
Cornell University Press, 2009).

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Buddhist, and China, although communist ideology officially overrides any religion, has
Taoist and other religious traditions. Although some point to Confucianism as theunderlying cultural heritage in the sub-region (except Russia), its influence overpeople’s lifestyles greatly vary across states.
The development of a collective identity in Northeast Asia may be made evenmore difficult because historical memory reinforces the division among states. Brad
Glosserman and Scott Snyder, for instance, argue that different identities shaped by thememories of Japan’s pre-WWII imperialism make genuine cooperation highly unlikely
between South Korea and Japan, despite the fact that they are both democratic,
economically interdependent U.S. allies. 4 The issue of historical memory also plays out
between China and Japan. In fact, when the issue of historical memory related to WWII
becomes salient, it enables China to drive a wedge between Japan on the one hand andSouth Korea (plus the United States) on the other.
While the absence of region-wide ideational/normative commonalities may seem
to preclude the advent of a successful northeast Asian institution, this may not really be
the case. First, a close look at the examples of the EU or ASEAN shows that ideational
factors are not a prerequisite. One cross-national survey of the so-called European
identity shows that it is not as strong as often believed. 5 In the case of ASEAN,
members are equally or even more diverse in ideational aspects than those in Northeast
Asia, and what drives their determination to stick together stems more from theirpolitical calculus that they can bargain more effectively with outside powers when they
act together. These suggest that ideational/normative commonalities are not a necessary
condition for a successful institution.
When thinking about a future possibility of developing a Northeast Asian
institution, in this author’s view, there are two interesting normative trends that need tobe considered. One is an increasing mixture of bilateralism and multilateralism in East
Asia. In the realm of security policies, bilateralism had been by far the predominantcharacteristics in the region, mainly because the regional security dynamics had beenstrongly shaped by bilateral alliances. While bilateral alliances remain a significant
factor, trilateralism and multilateralism have become more relevant than they used to be.

4

Brad Glosserman and Scott A. Snyder, The Japan-South Korea Identity Clash: East Asian
Security and the United States (New York: Columbia University Press, 2015).

5

Tamotsu Aoki et al, Higashi Ajia Kyodotai to Nihon no Shinro (Tokyo: NHK Shuppan, 2005), pp.
263-266.

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As a result, East Asia today is increasingly characterized by the mixture of bilateral,trilateral and multilateral institutions, or what Victor Cha dubs the “complex patchwork”
of institutions. 6
The second is the future of democratic norms in East Asia. In a soon-to-be
published article in the Journal of Democracy, Yascha Mounk and his coauthor showthat public support for democracy has significantly dropped in developed nations,challenging the conventional wisdom that liberal democracy, once established with
sufficient wealth accumulated, does not slide back into authoritarianism. 7 While thedebate on the retreat of democracy is ongoing, the perception that democracies are on
the retreat has garnered strength, particularly after the two phenomenal events in 2016,
namely, the Brexit and the victory of Donald Trump in the 2016 U.S. presidential
election. 8 Assuming that this democracy in retreat thesis is real, it may enhance theinfluence of non-democracies in Northeast Asia, such as China and Russia, while
putting democratic states on the defensive. Or, Northeast Asia may prove an exception,
as democracies such as South Korea and Taiwan are newly democratized entities inwhich people are not yet overly complacent about democracy. It is hard to argue whichof the two pathways may be more likely to materialize without solid empirical analysis,
and it is even more difficult to analyze what may happen to democratic norms that in
East Asia may stabilize or de-stabilize the region.

6

Victor D. Cha, “Complex Patchwork: U.S. Alliances as Part of Asia’s Regional Architecture,”
Asia Policy no. 11 (January 2011), pp. 27-50.

7Yascha Mounk and Roberto Stefan Foa, “The Signs of Democratic Deconsolidation,” Journal of
Democracy, cited in Amanda Taub, “How Stable Are Democracies? “Warning Signs Are FlashingRed,” The New York Times, November 29, 2016, available at
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/29/world/americas/western-liberal-democracy.html?ref=europe&_
r=0 (accessed on December 1, 2016).

8

Also see Larry Diamond and Marc F. Plattner, eds., Democracy in Decline? (Baltimore, MD: The
Johns Hopkins University Press, 2015).

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Vol. 3 September 15, 2017

The Politics of Economic Integration and Institutional
Architecture
Seungjoo Lee(Chung-Ang University)
Economic integration has steadily increased in East Asia. Between 1990 and 2012,
intra-regional trade among the ASEAN+3 nations increased from US$562 billion to
US$4,436 billion. This represented 38 percent of the region’s total trade in 2010, up
from 28.6 percent in 1990. In 2011, the share of trade in intermediate goods in East Asia
was 56.9 percent, while only 28.2 percent of trade was in final goods.
However, East Asia has so far been unable to turn its ever-increasing economic
interdependence into institutionalized cooperation, giving East Asian regionalism thenickname ‘soft regionalism’. But the rise of China may give more context to East Asia’s
current wave of economic integration. The next question is how and why East Asian
countries will redesign the regional institutional architecture.
Dual transition, symbolized by the rise of China and the relative decline of theUnited States and Japan, prompted East Asian countries to re-negotiate the regionalarchitecture in the 21st century. Three features – multilayering, complexity, anddiversification – emerged in the re-design process of the regional architecture. First, there-design of the regional architecture is multilayered in that the United States and China
form the first tier with China/Japan and Korea/ASEAN at the second and the third tier,respectively. Second, the pattern of interaction among East Asian countries has becomecomplex as they attempt to link various issues together. Third, in contrast to the cold
war period, East Asian countries’ policy choices have diverged in dealing with theUnited States and China.
The re-design of the regional architecture also influenced individual countries’
strategic choices in East Asia. First, East Asian countries have demonstrated that they
have tightly linked economy and security in negotiating the regional order. Second, East
Asian countries have also diverged from each other in terms of institutional choices.

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The Disinterested Colossus: The Balance of Interests and U.S.
Foreign Policy during the Unipolar Era
Evan N. Resnick(Nanyang Technological University)
One of the most prominent themes in Donald J. Trump’s victorious campaign for
the U.S. presidency was that America “doesn’t win anymore” in foreign policy. As earlyas April 2015, months before Trump even formally entered the race for the Republican
nomination, in a speech before the Republican Leadership Summit in Nashua, New
Hampshire, he remarked, “We don’t win anymore, whether its ISIS or whether its China
with our trade agreements.” On another occasion, over a year later, in what CBS news
referred to as an “epic rant about winning,” Trump thundered at a rally in Woodlands,
Texas, “We don’t win on anything. We don’t win on trade. We don’t win with themilitary.” He assured the audience that if he were to replace the failing incumbent
president, Barack Obama, the United States would “start winning again,” to the pointthat “people are gonna get sick of it.”
1. America doesn’t win anymore
Notwithstanding Trump’s blinding ignorance about even the most basic facts anddetails pertaining to global affairs, his harsh verdict on America’s recent track record instatecraft cannot be easily dismissed. Even the most fervent supporters of the Obama
Administration would be hard-pressed to deny that the U.S. has been knocked back on
its heels of late by a range of adversaries. In East Asia, China has pushed its expansive
maritime claims in the South China Sea and East China Sea with growing assertiveness,slowly expanding its military control over various disputed islands and shoals whilebullying rival claimants that include the longstanding American military allies of Japanand the Philippines. In so doing, Beijing has spurned White House exhortations to settle
these disputes via peaceful, multilateral negotiations in accordance with the “rules–
based order.” Meanwhile, North Korea has intensified its quest to develop nuclear
weapons and long-range ballistic missiles, thumbing its nose at the administration’s
policy of “strategic patience” towards Pyongyang by conducting no fewer than four
nuclear tests since Obama’s accession to the presidency in 2009.
In Europe, Obama’s ostentatious “reset” of U.S. relations with the Russian31Vol. 3 September 15, 2017Federation has yielded bitter fruit. Since returning to the Russian presidency in 2012,
President Vladimir Putin Russia has consolidated his repressive grip over the Russian
population, brazenly annexed the Crimean Peninsula, sponsored armed separatists inEastern Ukraine, and authorized Russian bombers to enter the airspace of America’s
North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies. Farther afield, in 2015 Putin also launched astrategic bombing campaign in Syria that has not only targeted U.S.-backed moderate
rebel groups but has also recklessly exacerbated civilian casualties in that alreadyhorrifyingly brutal civil war. Most recently, the U.S. intelligence community accused
the Kremlin of hacking and disseminating via Wikileaks the emails of the Democratic
National Committee and campaign staff of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary
Clinton, in a deliberate effort to ensure Clinton’s electoral defeat by Trump, who
exhibited a strong affinity for Putin during the campaign.
The situation has been no less dismal for the Obama Administration in the Middle
East. Syrian President Bashar Assad, who has butchered hundreds of thousands of his
own people and unleashed a tidal wave of millions of refugees, still clings to power
despite Obama’s repeated calls for his removal. Assad’s embattled regime has alsofrequently employed chemical weapons during the conflict in violation of President
Obama’s now-infamous 2012 declaration of a “red line” against the use of such banned
munitions, as well as the subsequent 2013 United Nations Security Council Resolution
which required the Syrian government to eliminate its chemical weapons arsenal. In
addition, the Islamic State and Taliban remain undefeated in their vicious insurgent
campaigns despite Obama’s deployment of tens of thousands of additional U.S. troops
to Afghanistan and thousands of special forces to Iraq. Moreover, the U.S.-led bombing
campaign in Libya in 2011 helped topple the repressive regime of Moammar Khaddafi,
but left in its wake an anarchic failed state that has become a breeding ground forvarious jihadist terrorist organizations.
Even the Obama Administration’s signal accomplishments in international affairs
have been lambasted by critics as hallmarks not of patient and tenacious diplomacy, but
rank appeasement. For example, the landmark nuclear deal concluded in 2015 with Iran,which President-elect Trump has promised to abrogate, has been assailed on multiple
grounds by critics. They claim that the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)
signed by Iran and the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council
plus Germany mandates a weak verification regime, contains sunset provisions thatwould enable Tehran to begin reconstituting its nuclear program after a decade, and32

Vol. 3 September 15, 2017

ignores Iran’s unabated proliferation of ballistic missiles and sponsorship of terrorism.
Domestic critics have also condemned the administration’s reestablishment of normal
diplomatic relations with Cuba—which Trump has similarly pledged toreverse—because the White House failed to make the initiative contingent on the Castro
government’s improvement of its abysmal human rights record.
It would be grossly unfair and misleading, however, to single out the present
occupant of the Oval Office for a poor foreign policy batting average. Obama’s
shortcomings in that domain pale when placed alongside those of his Republican
predecessor George W. Bush. Bush not only failed to prevent the most catastrophic
foreign attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor on September 11, 2001, but he also
launched the calamitous U.S. war in Iraq. Bush additionally deserves the lion’s share of
the blame for the Taliban’s resurgence in Afghanistan and the major strides made byboth North Korea and Iran towards developing a nuclear arsenal. By comparison,
although Bush’s predecessor Bill Clinton managed to avoid catastrophes on the scale ofa 9/11 or Iraq, there is little to admire in his two-terms helming the ship of state. Clinton
ordered a humiliating military withdrawal from Somalia, stood pat as genocide engulfed
Rwanda, and responded fecklessly to an increasingly deadly series of Al Qaeda terrorist
attacks against U.S. targets abroad.
2. Unipolarity: Mostly a blessing, but partly a curse
America’s unenviable foreign policy scorecard since the end of the Cold War is
not necessarily attributable to ineptitude on the part of the individuals who haveoccupied the Oval Office during that period. Rather, for the most part, it is theparadoxical product of the United States’ extraordinarily enviable position as a unipolar
power. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 eliminated the United States’ sole peercompetitor, transforming a bipolar international system into a unipolar one.
Since the demise of the USSR, the United States has possessed the mosttechnologically advanced and best trained military on the planet, as well as the largest
and most dynamic economy. Although the People’s Republic of China is widely viewed
as the state most likely to emerge as a great power challenger to the United States, thegap in power and wealth between the two remains yawning in key respects.
Militarily, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, in2015 total Chinese defense spending (approximately $191 billion) amounted to only
about one-third that of the United States ($569 billion). Economically, although China

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possesses the second largest economy in the world in aggregate terms, according to theInternational Monetary Fund, its $8,100 per capita income in 2015 ranked a lowly
seventy-third, just above Gabon and just below Venezuela. Contrastingly, per capita
income in the U.S. was $56,000 placing it in sixth place globally. Moreover, as detailed
in a recent article by Michael Beckley, the United States enjoys formal or de facto
military alliances with no fewer than sixty countries, representing seventy-five percent
of global economic output. Washington also engages in substantial defense cooperation
with dozens more. By comparison, as Chinese strategist Yan Xuetong has noted, China
is not formally allied to any other country.
On the whole, unipolarity has been a tremendous blessing for the United States.
By definition, a unipole faces no external threat capable of conquering and occupying or
dismembering it because the only actors capable of doing so, namely, rival great powers,
do not exist. Instead, the unipole’s chief antagonists are mere regional powers, such as
China or Russia, small “rogue states” such as Iran and North Korea, and even lessworrisome non-state terrorist and insurgent groups the likes of Al Qaeda, ISIS, and the
Taliban. In the absence of peer competitors on the scale of the Cold War-era Soviet
Union, Nazi and Wilhelmine Germany, or Imperial Japan, for the past two and a half
decades, the United States has been more secure than any great power since the dawn of
the Westphalian order in the mid-seventeenth century. Even by comparison with otherconceivable unipoles, the United States enjoys an exceptionally high degree of security
by virtue of its auspicious geographic location, as it is separated from its puny
adversaries by massive ocean moats.
A crucial aspect of unipolarity that has been neglected by scholars of the concept,
however, is that because the unipole is so strong and secure, its interest in prevailing in
disputes with foreign nemeses will be slight. Since a unipole is confronted exclusively
by small-scale, non-existential threats to its security, its leaders should rationally refrainfrom fully mobilizing the state’s immense military and economic resources, andexpending enormous amounts of political capital, for the purpose of decisively
defeating them. This inclination will be reinforced as the number of small-scale foes
with some axe to grind against the unipole grows. Conversely, though, by virtue of theunipole’s overwhelming power, it inexorably poses a mortal threat to its much weaker
foreign adversaries. As a result, in sharp contrast to the former, the latter will be highly
motivated to prevail in disputes with the hegemon, placing few, if any, restrictions on
the full mobilization of their own (inferior) power resources for as long as necessary, to34

Vol. 3 September 15, 2017ensure their survival. Thus, the hidden curse of unipolarity is that the luxury of a grossly
favorable balance of power inevitably produces a grossly unfavorable balance ofinterests or resolve.
The salience of the balance of interests in shaping the outcomes of deterrence,
coercion, and war should hardly be surprising to policymakers in Washington. Despite
possessing overwhelming military superiority, the United States failed to deter theJapanese surprise attack at Pearl Harbor in 1941, failed to coerce Iraq into reversing its
annexation of Kuwait in 1990-1, and failed to militarily defeat communist North
Vietnam and the Vietcong guerrillas in South Vietnam during the Vietnam War. Of
course, America has not always found itself on the short end of the balance of interests.
Most notably, Benjamin Franklin’s stark warning that the American revolutionaries
would “hang together or hang separately,” helps explain how the ragtag rebels ofthirteen disparate colonies in North America won their independence from Great Britain,
the imperial superpower of the late eighteenth century.
3. Partial successes, costly stalemates, and outright failures
The post-Cold War juxtaposition of a balance of power lopsidedly favorable to
the United States with a balance of interests just as asymmetrically favorable to its
enemies explains Washington’s persistent inability to achieve clear-cut foreign policy
successes. Its manifold influence attempts have mostly fallen into one of three
categories. First, several initiatives count as, at best, partial or fragile successes. These
include the humanitarian interventions which stopped inter-ethnic bloodshed in Bosnia(1995) and Kosovo (1999) but did not produce lasting political solutions to thoseconflicts, and the Agreed Framework nuclear pact with North Korea, which froze
Pyongyang’s plutonium reprocessing program for nearly a decade (1994-2002). Second,the United States has ensnared itself in costly stalemates against insurgents in
Afghanistan (2001-present) and Iraq (2003-2011, 2014-present). To date, these “small”
but inconclusive wars have exacted a terrible toll in both blood and treasure, totallingover 6,800 U.S. combat fatalities and $4.8 trillion, respectively, according to Brown
University’s Watson Institute. Third, several U.S. national security policies have been
outright failures, a depressing list that includes the Clinton Administration’s failure tostop the genocide in Rwanda in 1994 and its feeble efforts to counter Osama Bin
Laden’s Al Qaeda terrorist network in the years leading up to 9/11/2001, the efforts by
the Bush and Obama Administrations to coerce North Korea into dismantling its nuclear35

Vol. 3 September 15, 2017

weapons program, and Obama’s 2011 regime-change war in Libya.
4. Implications
Trump may be broadly correct to point out the lack of “wins” in recent U.S.
national security policy, but the president-elect and most of the pundits, analysts, andex-practitioners that constitute the country’s more genteel foreign policy establishment
have all failed to acknowledge the broader context that lies behind this judgment. The
United States is so powerful and secure that none of its conflicts of interest with its
various foreign antagonists matter enough for America’s leaders to invest too heavily inachieving the outcome they prefer. Looked at another way, this lackluster batting
average is actually consoling in one crucial respect: since none of the conflicts thatembroil the United States encroach on its vital interests, it is extremely unlikely to fallvictim to the pathology of “imperial overstretch” that has felled several great powers inhistory. Overstretch occurs when a great power becomes so obsessed with defending its
manifold external commitments and interests that its defense spending runs out ofcontrol, thereby subverting its long-term economic competitiveness. On this score,according to statistics furnished by the United States Office of Management and Budget,whereas U.S. defense spending as a percentage of GDP at the height of World War II
peaked at nearly 40 percent and fluctuated during the Cold War between just under 5percent and 15 percent, at no point during the post-Cold War era has it surpassed 5
percent. In short, the unipolar United States is virtually immune from a Soviet-styleeconomic implosion.
In certain respects, though, the unipole’s predominant position in the international
system complicates its ability to take adequate precautions against rising great power
challengers. First, the prevalence of multiple small-scale threats to the unipole’s
wide-ranging (if shallow) interests abroad will frustrate its capacity to focus attention
and resources on containing burgeoning great power rivals. To wit, the Obama
Administration has been repeatedly distracted from its farsighted “rebalance” policy
towards Asia—which is aimed at enhancing the United States’ military, diplomatic, andeconomic profile in the region in order to offset China’s rise—because of the more
immediately pressing need to combat ISIS, Al Qaeda, and the Taliban in the Middle
East.
Second and relatedly, the most vexatious phase in a power transition between the
declining unipole and a rising challenger is the earliest one, in which the latter begins to36

Vol. 3 September 15, 2017disrupt the status quo order by expanding its geopolitical control over its immediateneighbors, but has not yet encroached on the former’s vital interests. For instance,
although China is undeniably in the process of revising the post-World War II territorial
status quo in East Asia, to date its expansionism in both the South and East China seas
has taken the form of incremental “salami tactics” in disputed, uninhabited island chains
relatively close to its shores that are of marginal geopolitical value to the United States.
This has made it extremely difficult for Washington to both deter further Chinese
expansion and compel China to reverse its advances.
Third, the unipole poses a distinct problem for those small and medium powers
with which it is allied. On the one hand, the unipole possesses enormous capabilities
with which to make robust defense commitments to its military allies. For those statesin the international system that live in dangerous neighborhoods, a security guarantee
from the hegemonic power represents the ultimate trump card in guaranteeing theirsecurity at low cost. On the other hand, though, since the vital interests of the unipole
will not be engaged in any conceivable contingency involving those allies, thecredibility of its commitments will be viewed as dubious by both its allies and the foes
against which they are pitted. Anxious allies will thereby press the unipole to deepen its
commitment to their defense. For example, during the long-running negotiations leading
up to the signing of the JCPOA, both the Israeli and Saudi governments applied
extensive public and private diplomatic pressure on the Obama Administration to launch
airstrikes against Iranian nuclear facilities. Most notably and controversially, Israel’s
hardline Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu used the occasion of a joint address to the
U.S. Congress in early 2015 to inveigh against the impending deal being negotiated by
the Obama Administration. Netanyahu pleaded, “We must all stand together to stop
Iran’s march of conquest, subjugation, and terror.”
For all the anxieties, fears, and uncertainties pertaining to the imminent handoverof the White House keys to Donald Trump, it is important to recognize that President
Trump will be subjected to the same unipolar temptations as the three foreign policy“losers” that preceded him. On the one hand, he will be tempted to exploit America’s
overwhelming military power to meddle in peripheral regional conflicts, while on theother hand, he will lack the necessary resolve to pay the high price of imposing decisiveand lasting military solutions upon them. The prospects for thoroughgoing foreign
policy victories, as well as those for cataclysmic defeats, will only avail themselves
when new great powers enter the fray and U.S. national security is once again at issue.

37Vol. 3 September 15, 2017

China’s Challenge in Subsuming Hong Kong and Taiwan:
Observations on Their Reunification Logic and Methods
Hisako Shimono(University of Kitakyushu)
1. Introduction
The People’s Republic of China (PRC) (China) considers it essential to complete
national reunification by recovering Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, which Western
powers and Japan had seized from China in the 19th century. Deng Xiaoping, who
initiated economic reform and created an open door policy to modernize China,
expressed strong interest in taking back these territories. He was a tough negotiator in aseries of Sino-British negotiations on Hong Kong, finally achieving an agreement with
Britain. Regarding Taiwan, he stopped saying “liberalization of Taiwan” and showed arelatively soft approach of “peaceful reunification.” As a result, China recovered Hong
Kong in 1997 and Macau in 1999. Therefore, the remaining issue is the reunification of
Taiwan. Although Deng’s successors shared a “one China” policy and a goal of national
reunification, achieving that goal seems distant due to a changing international
environment, technological advancements, and social changes in both Hong Kong andTaiwan.
However, both China-Hong Kong economic relations and cross-strait economic
relations have rapidly expanded in this century. The economies of these regions arehighly dependent on the Chinese economy, yet it is also clear that local sentiments inthese regions are not necessarily cooperative with China. In the 2010s, many young
people in Hong Kong and Taiwan participated in political movements to stand against
rapid expansion of Chinese influence over their societies. From Beijing’s perspective,these movements were both arrogant and ungrateful because China had supported theeconomies of both Hong Kong and Taiwan through business, trade, and tourism.
In this context, international society is carefully watching how Beijing handles
local worries regarding the expansion of China’s presence in both Hong Kong andTaiwan. Although this question is not necessarily new, it cannot yet be answered
because the situations in these regions are still developing and changing. Thus, thisstudy examines China’s justification for reunification, considers its attitude toward
issues in both Hong Kong and Taiwan, and clarifies the major approaches that China

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has taken to reunify these regions as territories. First, I will briefly explain the historicalbackground of and changes in the reunification logic. Second, I will discuss
asymmetrical economic interdependence between Hong Kong-mainland and between
China and Taiwan, respectively. Third, I will explore China’s approaches to developing
relations with local societies—namely, economic support and institutionalization of
economic and political frameworks. I will conclude that, although economic supportand institutionalization have effectively developed relations with Hong Kong andTaiwan, these methods are facing a stalemate, especially in dealing with local societies.
2. Historical background and changing reunification logic
China’s firm stance on territorial issues has a historic basis. From Beijing’s
perspective, Hong Kong and Taiwan are Chinese territories, which the Great Powers
seized from China with overwhelming force. Thus, these regions were symbols of
humiliating experiences in modern Chinese history. 1 To complicate the matter further,although Taiwan became part of the Republic of China in 1945, it again became asymbol of a divided China because of the civil war. Without recovering these territories,
China cannot be the complete state that it once was.
Under a communist regime, China has placed the issues of Hong Kong, Macau,
and Taiwan into the “united front framework” and investigated unification andcooperation with these regions. With a nonnegotiable principle of “one China” andnational unification, the United Front Work Department (UFWD) 2 has had to solve
issues related to both Hong Kong and Taiwan. The aims of the department have varied
as the domestic political situation has changed. During Mao Zedong’s era, the UFWD
placed great importance on domestic politics in areas such as overthrowing imperialism
and feudalism, completing socialization of each industrial sector, and accomplishingclass struggle during the Cultural Revolution. 3
1

趙全勝『中国外交政策の研究―毛沢東、鄧小平から胡錦涛へ―』法政大学出版局、2007
年、pp. 258–260.
2

The United Front Work Department is a party organization that covers all relationships with
non-communist institutions and people. It has a cooperative relationship with the Chinese People’s
Political Consultative Conference to promote the UFWD’s goals. Specific organizations and party
groups, including the Taiwan Affairs Office and the Liaison Office of the Central People’s
Government in the Hong Kong S.A.R., are responsible for individual policies and administrative
matters.

3

中共中央統戦部、中共中央党校、国家行政学院、中央社会主義学院編著『中国統一戦線教程』中国人民大学出版社、2013 年、p. 23.

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Mao Zedong did not push for the recovery of Hong Kong for three reasons. First,
Britain recognized the PRC in January 1950. Second, issues in Taiwan were more
important to Mao at that time. Third, under economic sanctions, only Hong Kong could
provide a trade route to the capitalist world. 4 However, China stood firm in its
principles regarding territory and sovereignty, even if Hong Kong was under thecolonial rule of Britain. Regarding China’s representative office in Hong Kong,
although Britain asked China to establish a consulate, China refused, saying “HongKong is our territory. What country will establish a consulate in its own land?” As acompromise, a branch of the Xinhua News Agency was established in Hong Kong tocarry out tasks as both a press office and a de facto embassy of the PRC. Mao was
unable to accomplish reunification with Taiwan; therefore, after two failed Taiwan Strait
crises, his priority moved to the status quo, namely keeping the rivalry between thecommunist party and Kuomintang. 5
In Deng Xiaoping’s era, the UFWD was liberalized from a class struggle anddefined to serve modernization and reunification. When Britain confirmed the renewalof a lease for the New Territory, Deng refused it and demanded the return of thesovereignty of Hong Kong to China. The Chinese side placed a high priority on
sovereignty, and suggested relatively lenient conditions (“one country, two systems”)
for governing post-colonial Hong Kong. 6
After the restitution of Hong Kong, the idea of “one country, two systems” wasincluded in the UFWD’s goals. During Jiang Zemin’s period, the UFWD discussed “onecountry, two systems,” “Hong Kong people administering Hong Kong,” and a “highdegree of autonomy”. Regarding Taiwan, the UFWD emphasized the one-China
principle and a strong opposition to the independence of Taiwan. After the restoration ofHong Kong and Macau, the 19th National Conference of the United Front Workadvocated completion of national reunification as a basic duty of the united front. It canbe said that this is when the Communist Party of China (CPC) considered that thereunification of Taiwan was in sight.
4

余汝信『香港,1967』天地圖書有限公司、2012 年、pp. 11–22.

5

Per Fukuda (2013), Mao Zedong realized that the CPC would not liberalize Taiwan quickly, andhe believed that the continuous confrontation between the mainland and Taiwan would justify
Chiang Kai-shek’s strategy against the mainland in Kuomintang party politics, and making Chiang’s
position as the president of the Republic of China stable. （福田円『中国外交と台湾―「一つの中国」原則の起源』慶應義塾大学出版会、2013 年）．

6

邵維正主編『鄧小平百年百事』解放軍出版社、2004 年、pp. 410–13.

40Vol. 3 September 15, 2017

In the 21st century, because of repeated economic recessions and social unrest in
Hong Kong, the UFWD has had to cope with long-term economic development andmaintenance of stability in Hong Kong. At present, the UFWD emphasizes solidarity
with Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan and overseas Chinese to achieve the “Chinese Dream”
of Xi Jinping’s political slogan.
To conclude the above argument, although China’s claim for its sovereignty wascoherent, the international environment of the Cold War and weak national power in thearena of international politics prevented Mao’s China from reunification of theterritories. After the restoration of Hong Kong, the UFWD had to consider both thestability and prosperity of the recovered territory because Hong Kong was expected toprovide a successful model of “one country, two systems” for the sake of China’s
reunification with Taiwan, and China has no other effective framework.
However, China holds its position on sovereignty. For example, in the UFWD,“Hong Kong people administering Hong Kong” means being patriotic or faithful to the
Beijing citizens of Hong Kong. Under the same logic, Beijing firmly opposes being
independent of Taiwan by any means.
3. Increased economic interdependence
During Mao Zedong’s era, Hong Kong was a precious port city for China because
it was directly connected to the world market. At the end of the 1970s, China regarded
Hong Kong as an effective economic model and a symbol of modernization. However,
the economic value of Hong Kong declined relative to China’s continued economic
growth. Soon after restoration to China, Hong Kong suffered during the Asian
Economic Crisis, the avian flu, and a Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS)
epidemic, which heavily damaged tourism industries in Hong Kong. Shocked by a
500,000-strong demonstration, Beijing quickly intervened in Hong Kong’s economy byenacting the Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement (CEPA) and allowing
individual tourism for mainland residents to Hong Kong. Massive amounts of mainland
capital also reached Hong Kong through the purchase of dairy products, luxury goods,
and condominiums.
Since 2007, the value of the Hong Kong dollar has been below that of theRenminbi. The reversal of the currency values symbolizes economic dependence on themainland. In Hong Kong, merchandise trade between the mainland and Hong Kong
exceeds more than 40 percent, or nearly 50 percent of Hong Kong’s total exports.

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Re-exported goods between the mainland and Hong Kong account for 50–60 percent or
more, of the total re-exported goods to and from Hong Kong. Service trade among thetwo is rapidly developing, currently reaching approximately 40 percent. Since theinception of China’s open door policy, Hong Kong has been the top investor in themainland. Hong Kong’s inbound Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) from the mainlandlies at a high level of investment. Mainland visitors to Hong Kong have been increasing
since 2002 because of the removal of the upper limit of tourism to Hong Kong. Since
2014, the number of mainland tourists has exceeded six times the total population ofHong Kong.
Regarding Taiwan, economic relations with the mainland improved during the Ma
Ying-jeou administration. In cross-strait merchandise trade, Taiwan has gained aconsecutive trade surplus. Exports to the mainland consistently exceed 20 percent of
total exports. Notably, part of the exports to the mainland go to Hong Kong first and arethen redirected to the mainland.7 Visitors from the mainland, most of which are
tourists, have increased rapidly since 2009.8 While they are expected to have an
economic impact on Taiwan’s economy, they may also put pressure on Taiwanesesociety due to congestion caused by massive numbers of tourists from the mainland anda shortage of mutual understanding between the two.
Both Hong Kong and Taiwan are highly dependent on the Chinese economy in
the 21st century. The question is whether their high level of economic dependence on
the mainland will intensify the political negotiating power of Beijing.
4. Post-Mao China’s attempts to approach Taiwan and Hong Kong
(1) Taiwan
China abolished the liberalization of Taiwan, which suggested socialization under
the communist regime, and defined a new policy of peaceful reunification in 1979. In
response to the mainland’s proposal, Taiwan implemented a “three noes” policy: no
contact, no negotiation and no compromise. Thus, there was nothing for the communist
government to do but to deal with business people in Taiwan. The mainland authorities
established economic frameworks for Taiwanese businesses on the mainland such as
Taiwanese investment zones, the Pingtan Comprehensive Pilot zone and so on. Per the7

When considering exports to Hong Kong, trade dependence on the mainland could be muchhigher.

8

Individual visa for residents of the mainland to travel Taiwan was allowed in 2011.

42Vol. 3 September 15, 2017

Chinese government, Taiwanese businesses that invested in these frameworks could
obtain better conditions than other foreign businesses. Notably, responsibilities anddiscretion for management and operations of these economic frameworks were left tolocal governments, and the locals were often inclined to implement economic
development on their own. In this situation, the city of Xiamen, which has been a
primary port for accepting Taiwanese citizens since the 1980s, is promoting manycross-strait forums to open communication with Taiwan, and some important forums
have obtained policy support from the central government of China.
China will still oppose Taiwan’s independence by any means, including military
methods. From the summer of 1995 to the spring of 1996, China conducted military
drills using missiles in the Taiwan Strait to express strong objection to Lee Tung-hui’s
private visit to the United States and democratization of Taiwan’s politics. Despite themenace expressed by the mainland, Lee was reelected as president, and China learned
that military threats would not necessarily change politics in Taiwan.
In Hu Jintao’s era in 2005, the CPC government established the anti-session law,in which some conditions that allowed China to exercise military methods in Taiwan
were mentioned. According to the law, China will appeal to arms when a possibility forpeaceful reunification has “completely” disappeared. From an optimistic view, it can besaid that this condition relieved China of domestic pressure to resort to arms against
Taiwan. As a big beneficiary of the current international economic system andglobalization, it is obvious that, for China, military action against Taiwan would heavily
damage its own economic prosperity.
However, China is actively impeding Taiwan from gaining full membership instate-centered international societies, such as the World Health Organization and theInternational Civil Aviation Organization conference. 9 China did allow certain
generous benefits for Taiwan, such as offering them an observer status with theAsia-Pacific Economic Cooperation and participation in the Olympic Games as Chinese
Taipei. The degree of pressure on Taiwan by the communist government varies,
depending on whether Taiwanese authorities share the “one-China” policy idea or not.
For example, Beijing rewarded the Ma Ying-jeou administration for his support ofreunification, by implementing cross-strait direct flights and the cross-strait economic
cooperation framework agreement (ECFA). The communist government also attempted9『台湾週報』2016 年 9 月 23 日[http://www.roc-taiwan.org/jp_ja/post/39285.html]（2016 年 11
月 12 日閲覧）．

43Vol. 3 September 15, 2017

to stimulate Taiwan’s economy by increasing mainland residents’ visits to Taiwan andpurchasing large amounts of Taiwanese agricultural products. The aims of these
economic activities were to (a) show that the Taiwanese people can obtain economic
benefits under a Beijing-led framework and (b) to help Kuomintang maintain majority
power in Taiwan’s political realm.
In a 2005 discussion, Hu Jintao clearly recognized that China and Taiwan are—in
reality—still divided. He also spoke of the need to win Taiwan’s heart over time.
Coinciding with his announcement, mainland authorities started the UFWD at a
grass-roots level. For example, the Fujian province developed their cross-strait culturalcommunication by using the local cultural assets of Zheng Chenggong, a historical
Chinese hero of the 17th century, and the myth of Mazu—a Chinese sea goddess. 10
As for development of cross-strait educational relations, high-level educational
institutions on the mainland have increased acceptances of Taiwanese students, andeconomic and financial cooperation is also being implemented through increased
cross-strait direct trade.11(2) Hong Kong
Since 1979, China has had a coherent initiative in Sino-British negotiations andthe drafting of a mini constitution—namely, the Basic Law of the Hong Kong Special
Administrative Region (HKSAR). The Basic Law was adopted at the 3rd Session of the
7th National People’s Congress in April 1990, the year after the Tiananmen Square
protests. With the establishment of the Basic Law, China obtained a strong initiative forpost-colonial Hong Kong because the law clearly stated that “the power ofinterpretation of this law shall be vested in the Standing Committee of the National
People’s Congress.” 12
During the transition period, which continued into July 1997, China insisted thatthe status quo of Hong Kong should be maintained, and they opposed the Patten reform,
which called for further democratization just before the restoration. Another issue thatemerged after the Tiananmen Square protests was that influential democrats criticized10

林尚立、肖存良主編『統一戦線理論與実践前沿』上海人民出版社、2013 年、p. 360.

11

同上、pp. 354–358, 360.

12

Article 158 of Chapter VIII of the Basic Law of HKSAR, cited from The Basic Law of the Hong
Kong Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China and Related Documents.
Second ed. (Hong Kong: Joint Publishing, 2016), p. 235.

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the Chinese government for oppression of the student democracy movement in June
1989. China expelled the influential democrats from the Basic Law Drafting Committee.
Since that time, discrepancies between Beijing and pro-democracy people in Hong
Kong have gradually expanded.
Hong Kong’s restoration to China was implemented smoothly without significant
economic or social change. 13 The status of the Hong Kong dollar as an international
currency and economic relations with other countries and the British-style legal systemhave been maintained. Regarding the political system, only a Hong Kong citizen can beelected as its Chief Executive, which is the highest position in the HKSAR government.
The seats of the Legislative Council (Legco) are decided through universal suffrage of
people over 18 years of age. The freedom of speech, right of demonstration, andestablishment of a political party are secured. In addition, cross-border immigration
control has also been maintained. Although residents of both Hong Kong and themainland do not need passports for coming and going, they do need travel permits.
While Beijing worked with Hong Kong in a careful manner at the initial stage ofrestoration, it gradually increased its intervention in the Hong Kong economy inresponse to big business opportunities. 14 Soon after the restoration, due to consecutive
economic crises, Hong Kong business leaders asked Beijing to provide economic
support to help the Hong Kong economy overcome recessions. Large Beijing and Hong
Kong businesses even built a cooperative relationship through preparation and mutualcommittees to ensure the restoration. In post-colonial Hong Kong, Beijing, the HKSAR
government, and big businesses in Hong Kong formed a tripartite relationship based on
business interests and a mutual goal to make Hong Kong prosper. After the three parties
initiated CEPA, infrastructure projects, and encouraged tourists to come from themainland, the non-economic elites of Hong Kong realized the economic benefits of acoexistence with the communist authority.
In contrast, many changes and problems also occurred in people’s daily lives. For
example, small shops were replaced with luxury boutiques for mainland tourists. Whenlarge numbers of mainland pregnant women began visiting Hong Kong to give birth,
people worried about experiencing a shortage of hospital beds and the future costs ofproviding for children born in Hong Kong whose parents were mainland residents.
13

倉田徹、張彧暋『香港―中国と向き合う自由都市』岩波新書、2015 年、pp. 6–13.

14

竹本孝之『返還後香港政治の 10 年』アジア経済研究所、2007 年、pp. 52–53.

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Excessive purchases of powdered milk and diapers by mainland residents also
irritated Hong Kong citizens. Ngok Ma, a scholar of Hong Kong, pointed out that thesphere of intervention by mainland authorities expanded to political affairs, such as theChief Executive election. He suggested that Hong Kong citizens
eventually started to rethink whether the post-colonial process brought any benefits toHong Kong. 15
As of today, Beijing and the HKSAR government have not changed theirapproach to solving local dissatisfaction. Furthermore, the communist government
seems to oppress unfavorable voices in the political arena. In response to pressure from
Beijing, some locals have been inclined to become more provocative. Neither
authorities nor the societies have found a solution to this vicious circle between
Beijing’s quiet oppression and the radicalization of local protests.
(3) Consecutive demonstrations in Hong Kong and Taiwan
In the summer of 2012, because of strong protests made by high school students
and their parents, the HKSAR government was forced to postpone the “moral andnational education” school curriculum, a part of Beijing’s patriotism education. In
March 2014, young Taiwanese occupied the Legislative Yuan to protest a
non-transparent policymaking process regarding a service trade agreement with themainland, resulting in a postponement of the agreement’s completion. Starting at theend of September, young students and ordinary citizens demanded equal opportunities
for democrats to run for the Chief Executive election of 2017 and began a 79-day sit-in
protest in several areas in Hong Kong.
Some observations can be taken from these consecutive peaceful demonstrations.
First, both in Hong Kong and Taiwan, local worries regarding China’s presence in theirsociety have increased rapidly. A combination of China-related factors and economic
differences in local societies created a vicious circle.16 Second, many demonstrators
were of the younger generation and well-trained in spreading information via social
networking services; they shared real-time information using borderless technology.
Third, because Hong Kong is a model of “one country, two systems”, people of Taiwan
15

Ngok Ma, “The Rise of “Anti-China” Sentiments in Hong Kong and the 2012 Legislative
Council Elections,” The China Review 15, no.1 (2015), pp. 48, 52-61.

16

Ibid. p.61.

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are quite interested in what is happening there. These observations suggest that China
will have to closely watch the new generation because it has no intimate feelings of themainland as home.
5. Conclusion
Recent demonstrations by young people in Hong Kong and Taiwan havesuggested that feelings of caution and fear regarding the communist government are
deeply rooted in local societies. However, China will likely continue to insist on theconcept of a united front and claim sovereignty over these regions because the issues
are related to the modern history of China. Thus, the methods used to subsume theseregions are vital, and few options are left to the communist government. Realistically,
military means are not available because both Hong Kong and Taiwan are incorporated
into the global economy and open to the world. The use of force would also damage
Beijing’s international reputation and aggregate anti-China sentiments in local societies.
The remaining possibilities include expanding China’s influence througheconomic support and building political and economic institutions. In Hong Kong, thecommunist government is shielding itself behind basic law and attempting to take anadvantageous position in a struggle over political institutionalization for the Chief
Executive election of 2017. Both China and Hong Kong will soon face another issue ofbuilding a post-2047 institutional framework, the key of which is how to protect
freedom of Hong Kong. As for Taiwan, the cross-strait relationship among authorities isstill fragile and easily stopped when the independence-oriented Democratic Progressive
Party (DPP) gain power. Mainland authorities have shown that cooperation and a closer
relationship with the mainland will bring economic benefits to the Taiwanese throughtourism and trade. Since the occupation of the Legislative Yuan in March 2014, thismainland strategy has seemed to reach a stalemate. In addition, the DPP administrationof Tsai Ing-wen has not stated that it recognizes a premise of reunification. Althoughhuge economic power of China is obviously influential in dealing with territorial
matters, it is not a panacea to solve the issues of Hong Kong and Taiwan. It can be said
that China needs more flexible attitude and a long-range strategy to decrease local
resistances in both areas.

47Vol. 3 September 15, 2017

List of Contributors
Elena Barabantseva is Senior Lecturer at the School of Social Sciences, University ofManchester, UK. Her current research concerns marriage migration and governanceissues in the context of China’s borders with Russia and Vietnam. Dr. Barabantseva isthe author of many articles and papers, and her latest publications include, “Whenborders lie within: ethic marriages and illegality on the Sino-Vietnamese border,”International Political Sociology (2015); “From ‘customary’ to ‘illegal’: Yao ethnic
marriages on the Sino-Vietnamese border,” Cross-Currents: East Asian History andCulture Review (2015) and “Messengers from the US-Chinese Past,” Harvard Journalof Asiatic Studies (2015).

Dai Erbiao is Research Professor of Economics at the Asian Growth Research Institute,Japan. Professor Dai specializes in the economic development of China and East Asia,
urban and regional development, and international migration. His latest publications
include, The New Chinese Immigrants and China’s Economic Development: From
Brain Drain to Brain Circulation (Tokyo: Taga Shuppan, 2012); “Housing inequality
and underlying factors in urban China: a study based on panel data of the NBC Survey(2004-2007),” in Jinjun Xue, ed., Growth with Inequality: An International Comparisonon Income Distribution (World Scientific Pub. Co., 2012).

Naoki Amano is Associate Professor of Yamagata University. He obtained his Ph.D.
from Hokkaido University. He is a specialist in history of the Russian Far East and the
Sakhalin Island. His recent works include “Sakhalin / Karafuto: the Colony between
Empires,” in Sergei V. Sevastianov et. al., eds., Borders and Transborder Processes inEurasia (Vladivostok: Dalnauka, 2013); Naoki Amano and Teruyuki Hara, eds., 40
years history of Karafuto (Sapporo: All Japan Federation of Karafuto, 2017). (inJapanese).

48Vol. 3 September 15, 2017

Yasuhiro Izumikawa is Professor at the Faculty of Policy Studies, Chuo University.
He holds a Ph.D. from Georgetown University. His research activities focus oninternational relations and Japanese foreign policy after World War II. His recent
publications include Yasuhiro Izumikawa, “Japan’s Approach to Russia under Shinzo
Abe: A Strategic Perspective,” Gilbert Rozman ed., Japan-Russia Relations:
Implications for the U.S.-Japan Alliance, (Washington, D.C.: Sasagawa Peace
Foundation U.S.A., 2016), pp. 61-69.

Seungjoo Lee is Professor of Political Science and International Relations at
Chung-Ang University, South Korea. His research focuses on the Asia-Pacific region,
Northeast Asian integration, and East Asian security issues in the region. His latest
works include, “The Economy-Security Nexus in East Asian FTAs,” in Vinod K.
Aggarwal and Kristi Govella, eds., Linking Trade and Security: Evolving Institutions
and Strategies in Asia, Europe, and the United States (New York, US: Springer, 2013),
pp. 135-156.

Evan Resnick is Assistant Professor of International Relations at Nanyang
Technological University, Singapore. Dr. Resnick specializes in International Relations
theory, United States foreign policy, and military alliances. His latest works include,“The ‘Rebalance’ and the Dangers of Amerika’s Creeping Containment of China,” inGeoffrey Till, ed., The Changing Maritime Scene in Asia: Rising Tensions and Future
Strategic Stability (London, UK: Palgrave Macmillian, 2015); “I Will Follow: Smart
Power and the Management of Wartime Alliances,” Journal of Strategic Studies (2015).

Hisako Shimono is Professor at the Faculty of Foreign Studies, the University of
Kitakyushu. She specializes in contemporary Chinese politics, Fujian province, andcross-strait relations. Her recent works include “A Prospect toward Regional Integrationfrom China's Point of View,” CIEE journal, The University of Kitakyushu, 12 (2014),
pp.11-34; "How Internal Politics Influenced the Opening-Up Policy in China: Lessons

49Vol. 3 September 15, 2017from a Case Study of the Xiamen Special Economic Zone,” Bulletin of Faculty ofForeign Studies, The University of Kitakyushu, 135 (2013), pp.25-58.

50

Vol. 3 September 15, 2017

Northeast Asia Today
北東アジアの現在
Vol.3, September 15, 2017
EDITORS
Mihoko Kato (Hokkaido University)
Seth Cervantes (Alliant International University)
Jonathan Bull (Hokkaido University)

NIHU Area Studies Project for Northeast Asia
Hokkaido University Group
Leader: Akihiro Iwashita
Slavic-Eurasian Research Center, Hokkaido University
Kita-9, Nishi-7, Kita-ku, Sapporo, 060-0809 Japan
Tel: +81-11-706-2388

Fax: +81-11-706-4952

https://hokudaislav-northeast.net/en/©2017 by the Slavic-Eurasian Research CenterAll rights reserved51