社団法人 日本経済研究センター

Japan Center for Economic Research

January 25, 2007

Cultural and Human Exchanges in East Asia
Are Expanding
Shigesaburo Kabe
Senior Economist
Regional cooperation and integration for the creation of an East Asian Community
were discussed at the East Asian Summit held in Malaysia in December 2005. Without
doubt, closer political and economic ties are important in order to deepen intra-regionalrelations. However, relations from the perspective of the society and life of ordinary
people also merit attention. This is because mutual understanding is bound to deepen
more between countries with deep trade relations, for example, than between those which
do not know anything about each other. Moreover, even though relations may be understress to some extent on the political front, they are unlikely to deteriorate into one ofextreme tension, if there are people-to-people exchanges.
What, then, are the occasions when ordinary people in their daily life feel there iscontact with other countries? The first such occasion would be when a person makes anoverseas trip and directly comes into contact with the culture and other aspects of anothercountry. Another occasion would be the importation of items of a highly cultural nature,such as movies, music, books and games.
Unlike data on the macro-economy, data on cultural exchanges and the movement ofpeople are difficult to obtain. This study attempts to obtain as much information of thiskind as possible in order to draw a picture of international relations as perceived byordinary people. The definition of the East Asian region here is the “10 countries of theAssociation of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) + Japan, China, South Korea, Hong
Kong and Taiwan,” for which data can be obtained with relative ease. The following are
the results of analysis for the period going back to the 1990s.
Doubling of Intra-regional Cultural Property Exports in a Decade
In order to see the major trend of cultural exchanges, we have examined the trade
situation of cultural properties, including films, books, art works and music. Trade datafrom the United Nations show that mutual exports between Japan, China, the newly
industrializing economies (NIES) and the ASEAN∗ have increased sharply. According tothe Trade White Paper (2006 edition), the total amount of transactions between the above
four parties more than doubled from 1.476 billion dollars in 1994 to 4.114 billion dollars in
2004. Thus, exports and imports of cultural properties within Asia have become veryactive.
∗The figures for the ASEAN are based on those for Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines. Singapore isincluded among the NIES.

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An examination of individual items shows that in the 1990s, Hong Kong movies
accounted for the largest number of Asian films released in Japan with 10 to 20 Hong Kongfilms introduced here annually. Since 2000, however, South Korean films have increased
sharply and in 2005 as many as 60 such films were released in Japan. This number far
exceeded that for Hong Kong (12), Thailand (7), China (5) and Taiwan (5). South Korean
movies are also very popular in other countries. In 2004, 25 such films were released inThailand. Though this figure was smaller than that for films made in Hong Kong (36), it
was bigger than that for Japanese films (12).
In the area of exports of TV dramas, those made in South Korea have increased
conspicuously. In 2003, exports of South Korean TV dramas to Taiwan totaled 8.1 million
dollars, a figure which was larger than that for any other destination. Exports to Chinaand those to Japan also exceeded 6 million dollars, respectively. Even today, one can see
books on South Korean TV dramas and stars piled up high in Japanese bookstores. Itappears that books on Japanese and South Korean films and TV dramas are also sellingbriskly in Taiwan.
Let us now examine the movement of people. Although the objectives of goingabroad are numerous, including tourism, commerce, work and studies, we have elected touse the total numbers of entries and exits. This is because the declaration that one is a
tourist does not always
Movement of People in East Asia (2004)
accurately reflect the(Unit: million persons. Figures in parentheses under the names
actual objective ofof the countries denote population)
entry and also because
10 million or moreeven if one’s objective
1.25
1.99
1 million or moreis other than tourism,
Under 1 million
since a person entering
12.54
Honga foreign country is
Kong (7)China (1,300)
bound to come into
62.67
2.74
contact with the life
2.13
3.69
1.21
and culture there, it is
3.16
ASEAN (550)
Taiwan (22)possible to define all
1.75
entries into a foreign
3.33
1.12
country as “cultural
3.48
2.84
1.05
exchange” in a broad
2.34
23.03
sense.
2.44
SouthKorea (48)Japan (130)1.41

Since 1995, thetotal number of people
entering
intoandexiting from countries
has steadily increased Sources: National statistics and World Tourism Statistics: Outbound Statistics
by Destination, [Asia-Pacific Tourism Exchange Center (APTEC)].
inEastAsia.
Between some pairs ofcountries, more than one million travelers are counted annually in each direction, and their
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numbers are growing steadily. The increased exchanges with Japan can be attributed tothe strengthening of economic and other relations, as well as to an institutional change,
which has simplified the procedures for Visa applications.
Close Ties between Japan and South Korea in Terms of the Movement of People
By country, it can be seen that of South Korean travelers, the largest number used tocome to Japan, but since 2000, China has replaced Japan as the most popular destination.
In 2004, the number of South Korean visitors to China stood at almost 3 million vis-à-vis
1.41 million for visitors to Japan. However, at approximately 2.4 million, Japanese stillaccounted for the largest number of visitors to South Korea. In fact, Japanese accounted
for nearly half of all the foreigners who entered South Korea in that year, underscoring thefact that in terms of people-to-people exchange, relations between Japan and South Korea
are very close.
The number of inbound passengers to China from other countries in East Asia plunged
in 2003 due to the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) epidemic, but it has since
recovered. Because of the close economic relations between Hong Kong and China, andthe fact that the border between the two can easily be crossed by train or other means oftransportation, the number of people who cross the border in either direction is in the orderof tens of millions annually. Aside from Hong Kong, out of the East Asian countries andregions, Japan and Taiwan account for the largest numbers of visitors to China (each withmore than three million in 2004).
Meanwhile, traveling within the ASEAN region has nearly doubled in the past decade.
At the same time, reflecting a steady deepening of economic relations between China andthe ASEAN region, travelers between China and the ASEAN region have been increasing
sharply. A recent, conspicuous trend is growing interest in Vietnam. In 2004, the numberof East Asians who entered Vietnam stood at 1.86 million, far exceeding the 1.25 million
who entered the Philippines.
Shigesaburo Kabe
Deputy Director and Senior Economist, Asian Research Department. Themes of
his research include economic and industrial trends in East Asia and the global
movement of people.

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