Study On Development Strategy For Integrating Transportation Network In Northeast Asia

With the recent rapid economic growth, the Northeast Asia became one of the three economic powers including EU and NAFTA. As of 2008, the three countries China, Japan, and Korea occupied 16.7% of the world GDP and 15.2% of the world trade volume. In addition, China, Japan and Korea have relations as the one of the most important trading countries each other and their economic exchanges are very active.At present the marine transportation networks in the Northeast Asia is relatively well established, and air transportation which also rapidly developed recently is playing an important role in the transport of passengers and freight between countries. However, the land transportation networks are not playing a particular role as a major corridor in the Northeast Asia due to the geographical, political, historical, and economical reasons. In particular, land transportation is blocked between Korean and China due to the closed policy of North Korea, and between Korea and Japan due to the sea.This thesis analyzed present condition of economy and transportation system in the Northeast Asia and found out problems of the current transportation network. In addition, it analyzed the feasibility and the problem of connecting South-North Korea land transportation systems, and proposed an undersea tunnel networks which directly interconnect the three countries, China-Korea undersea tunnel, Korea-Japan undersea tunnel. And this study predicted the future demands for passengers and freight among China, Korea and Japan and estimated conversion demand for land transportation from marine or air transportation. In addition, it estimated the construction costs and revenues and payback periods of construction costs for undersea tunnel.Furthermore, it is analyzed that economic spillover effect, logistics cost reduction effect, and low carbon transportation network effect from construction of land transportation systems will be very large. In conclusion, the construction of land transportation networks is needed for the development of integrating transportation systems in the Northeast Asia, and as a solution, this study proposed the construction of undersea tunnels interconnecting China, Korea and Japan. This construction of land transportation networks will product various economic effects and contribute greatly to the economic development of the Northeast Asia and the organization of Northeast Asian economic bloc.