Evolution Of Regional Industrial Division And Economic Cooperation In East Asia

Since the middle of 1990's, the regional integration in the world has been developing more and more. In the term of the range of the world, EU (European Union) and NAFTA (North America Free Trade Area) have already been mature, in the meantime, the economical integration of other regions are well boosted. In the face of drastically competition between the EU and NAFTA, what decision should the East Asia region make? Competing or cooperating? What is the impetus and obstacles of cooperation? How to deal with? As one of the biggest country of the area of East Asia, China should be emphasized and analyzed carefully in the aspect of academic model and demonstration .This paper analyses the path of the development about the industrial structure in East Asia, and then discusses the impetus and obstacles in the process they must face with.After the World War II, with ten years'economic rebuilding, Japan became the secondary biggest economical system in the world in the last 1970's. With the development of economy, Japan began to invest immediately in miniature for the countries of Southeast Asia. But by the last of 1970's , Japanese export-oriented economy aiming mainly at America market in the purpose of driving economic development came up against greatly resistance. In the Sep of 1985, with the leading of America, five western countries signed"Plaza Accord"which aimed at intervening the foreign exchange market so as to decline the exchange rate dollar vs. other currencies and then solve the substantive trade deficit of America .Hereafter, Japanese Yen increased rapidly and brought the result that Japanese enterprises exported difficultly. To deal with a series of influence of Japanese Yen's appreciation, Japan increased the scale of FDI. Japanese FDI in the East Asia follows a path: Japan transferred its mature industries or the industries which had lost comparative advantage to ANIES where had comparative advantages in those aspects in the manner of FDI. When these industries grew mature and lost comparative advantage gradually in ANIES, Japan and ANIES would transfer them to the developing countries that still hold comparative advantage, such as ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) and China, at the same time, Japan established comparatively advanced industries in ANIES by the FDI, which drew the outline of the picture with time diversity which is called"wild-geese-flying pattern". In this pattern, Japan was the head,ANIES were the body,China and ASEAN were the tail. The pattern initially established and the structure of regional industrial division within every economic system of East Asia, and made use of the comparative advantage to promote economic development of the East Asia. The wild-geese-flying pattern not only needed the developed countries to dynamically distract their technique and industry to the developing countries at the lower level within the region, but also needed industrial structure in different countries to take on simultaneously a kind of"steady-going"ladder style imbalance. Obviously, with the development of the different economic systems in the East Asia ,the pattern took on prodigious"instability"by itself. Since the 1990s , with the wreckage of economic bubble , Japanese economic had relapsed into the longest stagnation period since the World War II. Comparatively, ASEAN,ANIES and China stepped out away from the shadow of financial crisis rapidly, as well as increasing economy and reformed technique, in the result, their industrial structure had presented the situation of knowledge-intensive and tech-intensive, which narrowed the difference between Japan and them, and began to form competition in some high tech areas. The vertical industrial structure still existed in the East Asia, but it had transformed to intra-industrial division to some extent. In this process, the status of China became heightened, and intra-industrial division came into being .In this system, China introduced into technique and key accessory from Japan and ANIES, and imported raw and processed material and semi-finished product from ASEAN, then exported to some developed countries such as America and EU through the processing and assembling by low cost labor. Industrial division of labor within the East Asia is changing from original division pattern on the base of resource gift under the Wild-Geese-Flying pattern to industrial division within new developed area on the base of scale economy and intra-industrial division. Moreover, the decentralization of the process of production progresses is obvious. The industrial division within the East Asia evolves regional economic cooperation and brings about fresh impetus. It should be not ignorant that the path to the regional integration of the East Asia is still facing with a series of problems, that is, the economic system laying on the same level within the area tend to industrial structure in common and high dependence on the FDI. Through the analysis of a series of obstacles that the economic cooperation of the East Asia have faced with, we can find that those obstacles have relationship with the latent defectiveness of the Wild-Geese-Flying pattern. Every economic system in the East Asia must strengthen in harmony and cooperate with good faith in order to conquer those obstacles, and accelerate the process of the regional integration in the region. As a great country in the East Asia, China has the responsibility to make advantage of her status in the regional economic cooperation to try the best to create win-all. No more than can the cooperation of the East Asia keeps on predominance and remains invincible advantages before the international competition, on the other hand, the opponency will not conduce to solve the problems.