Regionalisation of the electronics industry in East Asia: plugging into Japan

In the period since World War Two the global economy has undergone substantial change. While the intensity of cross border economic activity has certainly risen, this activity has not occurred on a spatially indiscriminate basis. Evidence suggests that the global economy is dividing into three regions of which the most dynamic is East Asia. Analysis of regional economic activity in East Asia has often been informed by neoclassical economic theory. The most popular approach has employed the catching up product cycle model, a synthesis of aspatial theories. The model views regional development as a multiple catching up process in which no nation has more or less power than any other. Less developed nations within the region follow more advanced nations, replicating the integrated industrial structures of these nations at an earlier point in their development history. No nation is precluded from entering the trajectory and expanding the region spatially, while once within the trajectory, nations move to ever higher technological ground. Proponents of this orthodox model have dominated the discourse of the regional institution the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), and decisions made by this organisation which impact upon future economic relations within the region have often been informed by this market based approach. This thesis finds that the market based model is not supported by data gathered from the electronics industries of Korea, Taiwan and Japan. This data is more representative of an alternative perspective of regionalisation. This perspective, which is more speculative but more representative of reality than a formal economic model, suggests a process in which some nations exercise technological control over others. In East Asia it is Japan who exercises such control. While other Asian nations benefit from plugging into Japan's technological supply, they are also constrained by it. Evidence suggests that Japan is only too aware of its power within the region and is set on a course of functionally integrating neighbouring nations into a production network. The complexity of regional relations suggested by this alternative perspective go beyond the current discourse of APEC and suggest a need for re-evaluating decisions being made by this organisation