《L4-korea china and japan#39;s trade in the world and its inpact on asean+3》.pdf

1 Korea, China and Japan’s Trade with the World and its Impact on New Asian Regionalism ASEAN+3 Tran Van Hoa Director, ASEAN+5 Research Program and Department of Economics The University of Wollongong Email: tvheco@.au Website: .au/~tvheco./tvh.htm ABSTRACT Success of recent developments in Asian economic regionalism and free trade arrangement depends to some significant extent on the continuing role and importance of trade of these economies with themselves and also with the world’s major trading blocs. The paper reviews especially the case of Korea, Japan and China’s interest in new Asian economic regionalism and FTAs, surveys particularly its important trends in international trade in the past 35 years and discusses how these trends and patterns will affect the Asian 3’s growth and implementation of ASEAN+3 or even ASEAN+5 or similar regional economic integrations in the long term. 2 1 Introduction This paper is focused on the rising trend, heated discussions and growing support, at both the government and academic levels, in regional economic integrations in Asia. Special attention is paid to the case of Korea as a key player in these new developments. An analytical and methodological evaluation of the new Asian economic integration and free trade arrangement (namely ASEAN+3 or ASEAN plus China, Korea and Japan) is discussed and comments on its plausibility and viab