A Plan for the Development of Northeast Asian-Rim A Japanese Perspective - Local Economic Exchange and Economic Cooperation of the Northern Kyushu Area in Japan -

Abstract

The world economy is growing borderless at breathtaking speed. A sharp increase in the trade of commodities and services and international financing, large-scale transfers of production facilities, and extensive movement of work forces are taking place throughout the world. The resultant busy movements of goods, money and people are practically breaking borders between many countries. East Asia is no exception. The transfer and retransfer of production facilities by Japanese companies, reimport of their products into Japan, plant transfers by many companies of the NIEs into the ASEAN countries and China, and the influx of Asian labor into Japan and the NIEs have been continuing since the second half of the 1980s. These movements are spurring the elimination of borders in the East Asian economy. It should be noted that the disappearance of economic borders in East Asia is advancing in parallel with the definite easing of international tensions. The restoration of diplomatic relations between the PRC and Russia, establishment of diplomatic relations between the ROK and Russia, the rapprochement of the PRC with Taiwan, improved relations between the Democratic People's Republic of Korea(DPRK) and Japan, the simultaneous seating of the ROK and the DPRK in the U.N., and the restoration of diplomatic relations between the PRC and the ROK are accelerating the elimination of borders in the Asian economy. And this accelerated movement, in turn, is further easing international tensions.