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 South Korea's post-war economic success is a well-known story. However, its development in the past two decades is relatively less investigated. By reviewing key economic issues in South Korea's economy today, this book offers an input to the research of contemporary South Korea, in particular the country's economic development and its external economic relations.This book provides an analytical overview of key issues in contemporary South Korean economy. The timely and in-depth study presented in the book examines the main reasons behind South Korea's economic slowdown in recent years, the economic and social impact following chaebol's growing business expansion, free trade agreements with China and the United States, the development of income inequality, the ageing demography and the Korean government's policy response to overcome the current economic difficulties.

This book is a collection of essays in honour of Professor Wang Gungwu. Professor Wang is not only a great historian on Chinese history in general and the Chinese overseas in particular, but has much wider influence through remarkable domain crossing, namely spatial crossing characterised by geographical straddling between inside and outside of China, temporal crossing from the ancient past to the contemporary, inter-disciplinary crossing from history to the social sciences, and intellectual crossing from the academia to public activism. He has been a long-lasting source of inspiration for understanding some of the most pressing and complex issues in our times, including the nature of China's rise and its implications for the regional and world order. In a nutshell, this book presents Wang as a highly active educator-scholar who has achieved the highest academic standard as well as far-reaching influence over issues that concern all walks of life.By focusing on the theme of Chineseness and China's modernity, this book adds depth to the analysis of China's rise and its implications for the region and the world. It contains a chapter providing the most comprehensive and updated review of Wang's scholarship thus far. Another chapter demonstrates how Wang, based on his deep understanding of Chinese civilisation and history, articulates a distinct view of the world order that differs from either the thesis of 'Thucydides's trap' or the advocacy of mutual accommodation. Interestingly, this book also includes a chapter that highlights Wang's 'Southeast Asian-ness', suggesting that Wang's scholarship cautions against not only western-centric views towards China, but also Sino-centric views towards Southeast Asia. In short, this edited volume is both a reference book for understanding Wang's scholarship and an extension of his scholarship to the analysis of China's growing international influence and its implications for the world order.

 China has made remarkable yet uneven progress in social development. This book analyses China's achievements and problems in social development from the perspective of social investment. Social investment has gained popularity in Europe as a new social policy paradigm. It seeks to use government budget more efficiently and effectively by investing in people rather than "social consumption".This book focuses on a few policy areas central to social investment and capacity building, including education, technical training, R&D, and the hukou reform. It also analyses challenges and limitations of China's social investment policies. It sheds light on the most notable feature of China's social investment regime, which is the concentration of resources, privileges, and policy support on sectors and institutions with more growth potential. This helps to explain why China's progress in social development is remarkable but unequal.

This book examines the recent development and prospect of the Chinese economy as the country adapts to changing domestic and external settings. After more than three decades of near double-digit annual expansion, the country's growth decelerated considerably to enter a new era of the so-called New Normal.At the macro level, considerable amount of overhaul is required to improve governance and enhance regulatory effectiveness. These include monetary policy adjustment, financial sector development and taxation reforms.As the Chinese government at both the central and local levels plays an important role in promoting growth, issues such as the role of local government and the reform of state-owned enterprises are examined in this book. Topics such as the development of private consumption and industrial upgrading are also assessed. The book discusses several matters considered important to China's social and economic cohesion including the management of agricultural product reserves, the development of a functioning social security system and regional development. To help project a long-term view of China's economic strength, the book also examines such factors as development in population and the labour market.This book provides a comprehensive analysis of China's economy and identifies the recent developments that matter to China's economic future.

This edited book reflects the "yin-yang" of East Asia - the analogy of co-existing "hot and cold" trends in that region. To concentrate only on geopolitical competition and regional "hot spots" will exaggerate, if not misrepresent East Asia as a Hobbesian world. Nevertheless, geopolitical competition cannot be ignored because a failure of the balance of power and deterrence between China and the United States (and its allies) will destabilise the region. There are four "vectors" in the geopolitics of East Asia: China rising, the United States "rebalancing" to this region, Japan "normalising" as a nation-state and ASEAN emerging as a regional community. The interplay of these four "vectors" will set the trajectory of geopolitics in East Asia. Another focus of this volume is on the politics of identity. The distinctiveness, character and flavour of a group, real or imagined, can be "cool". "Cool" as in being charming and appealing transcends national boundaries. Plurality and diversity of identities and cultures in East Asia can be a celebration of life and humanity. However, xenophobic identities, often based on exclusive race, language, religion and hegemony, and its subsequent politicisation can rend a nation apart. Indeed, the affirmation of one's identity may be at the expense or denial of the identity of "the other". Similarly, the assertion and the intricacy of identity and nationalism in East Asia can also be problematic. However, a person or group can have multiple and different scales of identities. Indeed, identities can be fluid and situational.

For more than half a century, East Asia has been the most dynamic and resilient economic region in the world. Following Japan's success in its post-World War Two reconstruction and industrialisation, a good number of East Asian economies flourished. The latest and the most extraordinary case is that of China's rapid economic development. As the largest economy in the region, China pledged to play a leading role in promoting regional economic prosperity. China's economic relations with its East Asian neighbours have been complex and have nonetheless grown in strength. This edited volume examines China's key economic relations and efforts in participating and promoting economic globalisation, as well as the overall development of East Asian economic integration.This book focuses on China's importance and efforts in East Asian economic integration by examining the changing patterns of the growing East Asian production network, reviewing the process and achievement of China's efforts in internationalising its currency and evaluating the efforts to internationalise Chinese firms. It elaborates China's economic relations with individual neighbouring East Asian economies such as Taiwan, Hong Kong, ASEAN, Korea and Japan. It discusses the political economy aspect of East Asian economic integration and describes the origins and processes of East Asian economic integration from the Flying Geese model to the numerous free trade arrangements involving the region.

As China has become the world's second largest economy and risen rapidly amid various internal and external challenges, its profound social transformation and changing social policies are seemingly receiving inadequate attention from both academic and policy communities, especially in the Xi Jinping era since 2013. After decades of development, new social values, behaviours and organisations have emerged in China. Social changes and unresolved social issues are demanding for policy attention and proper governance.This book studies the important aspects of China's social transformation, policy and governance in recent years, including social stability maintenance, education, social media, industrial de-capacity and lay-off campaign, ethnic minority and ethnic policy, elderly care, poverty reduction and social governance. It will enable readers to have a better understanding of China's most important and pressing social issues and relevant social policies.

This book studies the Suzhou Industrial Park, a flagship project between the governments of Singapore and China, in a holistic manner, by highlighting not only its economic progress but also the developments on the social front such as its neighbourhood centres, schools, housing and talent attraction. The success of the Park should be assessed keeping in view not only its economic achievements alone, but also its ability to attract residents to live and play in it. Making the Suzhou Industrial Park economically and socially attractive is thus a perennial challenge and remains key to the continued success of the industrial park.This book details Suzhou Industrial Park's latest effort in industrial upgrading and transformation in terms of new growth areas as well as the challenges faced. It examines the social achievements of the Park, which are critical in enhancing the overall attractiveness of the Park and distinguishes it from other industrial parks in China and elsewhere. It also highlights how the experiences of the Suzhou Industrial Park is being replicated not only in the Jiangsu province, but also in other provinces and autonomous regions in China.

This book aims to contribute to the debate on "authoritarian resilience" with empirical studies from a range of perspectives, including regime support, nationalism, environmental movement, ethnic conflicts and internet management. The chapters in this book centre around two separate but intertwined themes and are collated to discuss on the stability of China in Xi Jinping's era. The first theme examines changes in political attitudes and values among Chinese citizens, and the second focuses on the responses of the party-state and how it has made sophisticated the machine of social control.

By reviewing regulatory initiatives in health financing, service provision, pharmaceutical sector and public health, this book attempts to connect recent research with policy developments in the Chinese health-care system. While there are a small number of studies on the regulations in the Chinese health-care system, this book contributes to the literature in three ways. First, a review of the recent developments in the Chinese health-care system illustrates that the capacity and incentives of the regulatory agencies matter in the implementation and enforcement of the regulations. Second, this book also shows that some institutional arrangements in the Chinese context are particularly important for configuring the capacity and incentives of the regulatory system. Third, this book lays out the mechanisms for the regulatory reform of the Chinese health-care system.

This book provides a timely update on the ongoing transformation of the Chinese economy. As the world's second largest economy, China marked the 40th anniversary of economic reform and opening-up in 2018. In this book, top scholars on Chinese economic studies review China's remarkable economic achievement in the past four decades and analyse the challenges facing economic development in the country.The book focusses on structural changes of China's economy, which are essential to steer the country towards sustainable development. It studies the long-term factors affecting the Chinese economy such as education and innovation, and emerging sources of economic growth, such as e-commerce. Other important aspects of the Chinese economy explored in this book include the economic role of the Chinese government, fiscal reforms, capital account liberalisation, housing policies, competition policy and anti-monopoly law, China's export, trends of regional development and reforms of state-owned enterprises.This rich collection of policy-oriented economic studies is also a tribute to Professor John Wong, former research director of the East Asian Institute, National University of Singapore, who passed away in June 2018. For over three decades, Professor Wong had followed and provided insightful analyses on China's economic development.

The book is part of the recent effort to catch up with the research on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Despite its omnipresence and pivotal role in running the country, there has been a conspicuous shortage of references to the Party in most studies related to China. In its stead, the academic literature as well as popular discussions has too often treated the CCP as a type of regime destined to the dustbin of history. The inadequacy of research in this area is understandable because CCP is a tightly organised Leninist party which has kept much of its internal affairs confidential. This book examines the key aspects of the transformation of CCP in the rapidly changing national and global context. It highlights the problems faced by the ruling Leninist party in adapting to a capitalistic environment that its organisations cannot fully control and its ideology cannot effectively rationalise. It also examines CCP's strategies for adaptation in the areas of ideological reformulation, party-society relations and the ways of exercising power and maintaining internal cohesion. In addition to helping the readers understand how China is ruled and how the Chinese system operates, the book also highlights the evolutionary dynamics of Chinese politics in the environment created by CCP's reform and open-door policies.