Relative Gains And The Inter-state Game: Political Competition And Regional Trade Agreements In East Asia

The dissertation is basically a study of the relations between political rivalriesand East Asian Regional Trade Agreement under the framework of “strategic choice”.Based on the study, my research purpose is to investigate the interaction betweengeopolitical dynamics and geo-economical dynamics regarding to the TradeCooperation in East Asia.The introduction part presents the research problems and the significance of thisresearch problem. Then, the paper provides a comprehensive literature review on thedomestic and international scholarship in the field of interaction between politicaldynamics and economical dynamics on the East Asian Regional Trade Agreement,and establishes the research approach and methodology of the paper.Chapter One establishes a research model of “Preference–Bargain” for theresearch questions, and regards “Politics-Economics Interaction” model as thesub-field of the model. Based on the history of East Asian Regional Trade Agreement,Chapter Two elaborates the formation of Nation's Preference under the context ofRegional Trade Agreement, such as its effects on overall society wealth development,the reduction of trade cost within East Asia Nations and the effects of economicinterdependence within this region. This part constitutes the demand side of theresearch model. Chapter Three analyzes the other part of the model—supply sides, interms of the theoretical and practical roots of the game theory, as well as the strategicenvironment and the preference intensity. Chapter Four takes China-ASEAN FreeTrade Agreement and China-Japan-Korea Free Trade Agreement as comparative casestudy, and analyzes the strategic interaction between the member states under theframework of “Preference-Bargain” which is established in the first chapter.At the end of the paper, it puts up with several suggestions to improve Chineseperiphery diplomacy In view of the important effects of economic diplomacy on theformulation of China's security environment, institutional channels should beestablished to absorb the bright factors of the good economic diplomacy. Furthermore, more effective measures should be taken to cope with the diversified regionalenvironment so as to serve the overall development of Chinese foreign policy.