Research On Sub-regional Economic Cooperation

The economic globalization and the integration of regional economies are two trends of the world economic development after the war. With the accelerated development of economic globalization, especially during the recent 10 years or so, each country protects its own interest through regional economic cooperation organization, thus various regional economic cooperation organizations are established, and the tendency of regional economic integration is reinforced gradually. Countries throughout the world, especially the developing countries have strong demand for cooperation to promote the economic development of country. However, it is difficult to develop economic cooperation and establish the exclusive economic integration organization between counties which existed big difference or heterogeneous, thus sub-regional economic cooperation is a logical choice. Sub-regional economic cooperation is a new type of regional cooperation appeared in late 1980's and the early 1990's, and this cooperation is noticeable in East Asian Region. It is a new way of economic cooperation in its development stage, and there is no universally accepted boundary in concept, so the study on the theory and practice of sub-regional cooperation is particularly important.United Nations Development Program put forward developing Tumen Area 18 years ago. During this period, according to the theory of regional economic integration, people studied and promoted the mutual development of the region from the perspective of regional resources distribution, industry division, economy distribution and regional economic coordination, but the result of cooperation is not good. Analysis shows that the development project in Tumen River Area has sub-regional economic cooperation property which is international economic cooperation. This thesis tries to explore the regional economic cooperation of Tumen River Area from the perspective of sub-region, and probe the problem existed in the cooperation and its corresponding countermeasureThis thesis first explains the basic concept existed in sub-regional economic cooperation. On the basis of previous study, this thesis explains the concept of sub-regional economic cooperation. Early explanations on sub-regional economic cooperation are different, and these explanations emphasize the meaning of forming sub-regional economic cooperation from the perspective of region and resource complement. This thesis extends the meaning of sub-regional economic cooperation, dividing the concept of broad and narrow sub-regional economic cooperation from the perspective of geographical area and cooperation attribute. The broad sense of sub-regional economic cooperation is divided by geographical area of regional cooperation, and it refers to the secondary economic cooperation of the local area derived from large regional economic cooperation. It is also referred as sub-regional economic cooperation. It can be derived from different countries (the countries are not necessarily adjacent), and parts of area in different countries; it also can be derived from close area which has strong economic connection in one country. The former includes the cooperation between China and Chile, the regional cooperation of five Central Asian countries, and Xinroumiu Delta; the latter includes the regional cooperation of Pan-Pearl River Delta, Changjiang delta and Bohai Sea Region in China. The narrow sense of sub-regional economic cooperation is divided by the attribute of participating body of regional cooperation, the content and the goal of cooperation, and cooperative mechanism etc. It refers to two countries or the areas which are adjacent and complement each other, developing the economic cooperation in adjacent region and comparative advantages of individuals, and taking full advantage of the productive factors of the region and its surrounding area, obtaining positive external effect by realizing resources complementation or adjusting regional economic industrial blueprint, forming trans-national economic development zone, and promoting regional economic development such as the regional economic cooperation of Mekong River and Tumen River Area.This thesis also analyzes the applicability of the theory on regional economic integration. Sub-regional economic cooperation can be regarded as the early stage of regional economic integration, and the relevant theories of regional economy can explain many problems of sub-regional economy. But partial problems existed in sub-regional area can not be explained by the theory of regional economic integration, or the theory of regional economic integration is not completely suitable for the practice of sub-regional economic cooperation. The practice of sub-regional economic cooperation brought about the development of regional economic integration theory, so the theory of traditional regional economic integration needs to be enriched and perfect. So we established a transitional form before six organizational forms of economic integration, and this form of organization in this paper, was referred as the stage of quasi-economic integration. The stage of quasi-economic integration aims at not only eliminating the poor and increasing the economy, but perfecting the infrastructure and facilitating the trade and investment as well, or regarding the energy development and environmental protection as the content. Concrete condition will be confirmed by negotiation according to the development level and requirement. Considering the real situation of most developing countries, this thesis shows that quasi-economic integration is the earliest form of organization to realize regional economic integration among developing countries.The concept of sub-regional economic cooperation and the theory on regional economic integration is the research foundation and the starting point of this thesis. Under the guidance of the theory, this thesis analyzes the nature and the form of sub-regional economic cooperation of Tumen River. The result shows that the development project of Tumen River Area has the attribute of sub-regional economic cooperation of international economic cooperation from the perspectives of the regional cooperation, the participating body of cooperation and the policymaking, or the cooperation content and system. From the perspective of regional cooperation, the regional cooperation has a clear characteristic of low level, and its basic goals are to establish and connect the infrastructure, eliminate poverty and increase economy level, facilitate the trade and investment. From the perspectives of participating body and policymaking body of the regional cooperation, the cooperation of this area has clear local characters. From the perspective of cooperation mechanism, the cooperation behavior of each member country in regional cooperation of this area is soft restraint, there is no powerful and standardized regional cooperation organizations, thus reflecting functional integration not the institutional integration.Under the theoretical frame of sub-regional economic cooperation, the thesis combines the practical experience of main sub-regional economic cooperation organization home and abroad, analyzing and judging the sub-regional economic cooperation of Tumen River through the analysis of the mechanism, goal, effect and regional competition operated in sub-regional economic cooperation of Greater Mekong, Pan-Pearl River Delta, Changjiang delta and Bo-hai rim, and probing the general problem of sub-regional economic cooperation via the practice of sub-regional economic cooperation of Tumen River.Although the development of sub-regional economic cooperation in Tumen River is good, there are still many difficulties to face. The economic development of the region has obvious characters of heterogenization, the development level and the development goal are inconsistent, accompanying the characters of elements lost of the region, soft restraint of cooperation system, and the political interest differentiation of each country. The regional economic cooperation of Tumen River should adjust the thinking and choose the mode. First method is to establish sub-regional economic cooperation mechanism of Tumen River, fulfill internal cause effect, establish economic cooperation area among China, Russia, Korea, Hunchun, Hassan and Luo, rely on the economic cooperation system of forerunner zone of Chang-Ji-Tu, form the plate linkage, enlarge cooperation area of sub-region, and strengthen the competition. The sub-regional economic cooperation of Tumen River provided practical elements for general analysis of sub-regional economic cooperation.After analyzing the practical issues of sub-regional economic cooperation, the thesis gets back to the theory of general analysis of sub-regional economic cooperation.From the perspectives of world economic integration and sub-regional economic integration, when the sub-regional economic cooperation can not make a breakthrough in large area, it will appear the partial cooperation in its internal small area. So people regard this cooperation as sub-regional economic cooperation. The sub-regional economic cooperation can be considered as partial or secondary regional economic cooperation when the economic cooperation can not be realized in a large area, and that is a necessary process or stage in a larger regional economic cooperation. The evaluation from sub-regional economic cooperation to regional economic integration is an evaluated path of sub-regional economic cooperation. The characters of sub-regional economic cooperation stimulated the progress of regional economic cooperation in three aspects: first, the member of established sub-regional cooperation organization became more interest in and strengthened the implementation and enlargement of various preferential measures, thus promoted the development of regional economic cooperation. Second, the outside participating body of sub-regional economic cooperation is attracted by the unique interest of sub-regional economy, applying for joining sub-regional economy in order to maximized the interests so that the participating body of sub-region was strengthened and enlarged into regional economic group. Third, the participating body outside sub-regional economy looked for co-operation partners, and establishes a new sub-regional cooperation form so that more sub-regional groups will appear and promote the development of regional economic integration.The promoting mechanism of sub-regional economic cooperation is a difficulty of sub-regional economic cooperation. Well-established sub-regional economic cooperation includes: first, the internal promoting mechanism of participating body of sub-region. Second, the integrated coordinating mechanism among sub-regional economic participating body. Third, international progressive mechanism outside sub-region. Market economy and planned economy played different roles in sub-regional economic development. Well-established sub-regional economic cooperation mechanism has many correlated effects, including aggregation effect, growing and diffusing effect, external effect and complementary effect etc. The fulfillment of these effects helps to realize sub-regional economic cooperation, and promote the cooperative process of sub-regional economy.