Asian Review of Political Economy最新文献

How regime types affect the provision of social spending in the context of developing countries? This article provides a novel political-economic approach, arguing that single-party regimes are more likely to spend on pensions than other types of autocratic states to co-opt the large number of critical members although the regime type does not affect the general welfare spending across autocratic states. The theory emphasizes the effect of institutional and power structure heterogeneity across autocracies in shaping the incentives and strategies that the ruling elites co-opt and respond to the demands of the ruling coalition across different autocratic regimes. Using panel, ordinary least squares (OLS) regression with lagged dependent variable along with several empirical strategies, it finds the evidence supporting this argument with a new dataset from 1990 to 2012. The study provides new insights on how autocratic institutions especially the party utilize strategic social policies to resolve the elite-level dictator dilemma for regime survival that are absent in other autocratic types.

Since the 1990s, China’s engagement beyond its geographical periphery, especially with Asian regions, has grown exceptionally, which is best evident in the Gulf sub-region and Western Asian nations. Indeed, energy-based interactions were the first to be established with Gulf Arab countries, and today, more than two decades after the Cold War, such relationships have evolved into tighter partnerships and engagement networks. Thus, in the last decade, China has increased its economic and political footprint in the Gulf region, as it has become one of the region’s largest external investors and trade partners. In its relations with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states, China faces varying challenges as each country pursues its interests, making the Chinese strategy in the region more complex. The Gulf countries have had to balance their relationship between the US as a security guarantor and China as an important economic partner. They strive to maximize their political and economic interests in the process. The main contention of this paper is that the GCC should not be viewed as a homogenous entity and that the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is a flexible approach designed to bolster China’s economic objectives in each Gulf country. Our research scrutinizes China’s geo-economic strategy and geopolitical aims about the Gulf States’ aspirations to maximize their economic ties with China. Against this background, this paper discusses the political and economic relationships between the People’s Republic of China and the Gulf Arab states: Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

This study proposes a framework to analyze the interaction between geopolitics and the Middle-Technology Trap, drawing on evidence from China's CNC machine-tool industry. Qualitative methods such as interviews have been utilized to identify geopolitical variables that have driven the development of the Chinese CNC machine tools industry. To explore the combined effects of the Middle-Technology Trap and the intense competition between China and the West, this article focuses on an industry that has been significantly influenced by the economic decoupling between China and the US, a phenomenon deeply rooted in recent great power competition. While several industries may illustrate the new status quo of the Middle-Technology Trap, the CNC machine-tool industry is particularly exemplary due to its close interrelation with geopolitics. Accordingly, this study presents a catch-up case that incorporates technology-oriented aspects and factors from strategic competition, underlining three scenarios that geopolitics could influence the result of addresing the Middle-Technology Trap, respectively technological decoupling, the relocation of supply chain, and industrial policy.

This article addresses a critical issue facing developing countries: overcoming the “middle-technology trap” to achieve sustainable economic growth. It posits that transitioning to an innovation-driven economic growth model is pivotal for surmounting this trap and is an essential prerequisite for high-quality development. This study introduces a strategic approach through a new development model, emphasizing the synergy among three core systems: basic scientific research, applied technology, and financial support. This “three-pronged” collaboration model is argued to foster sustainable innovation-driven growth, essential for leaping over the “middle-income trap” towards high-quality development. By analyzing the historical trajectories of the Soviet Union and the United States, the article delineates the critical role of the proposed model in fostering an innovation economy. The Soviet Union’s failure and the United States’ success are examined through the lens of their respective approaches to integrating basic scientific research, applied technology, and financial systems. The analysis underscores the necessity of a balanced and interactive relationship among these systems for technological innovation, industrial development, and sustainable economic growth. The article concludes that for China to overcome the “middle-technology trap” and achieve long-term prosperity, it should embrace this “three-pronged” new development model, ensuring continuous scientific exploration, technological innovation, and productivity enhancement.

This paper aims to unveil the role of openness in fostering enterprises to achieve technological progress. By conducting a comparative analysis of Chinese and Western companies’ supply chain strategies in the internet and new energy industries, the article finds that American enterprises have a higher level of supply chain openness than Chinese enterprises in both two industries. Based on the case analysis, that paper argues that openness plays a vital role in promoting technological innovation in enterprises. The profound influence of openness in promoting technological advancement may be observed through three aspects: openness at the technical level, openness in attracting talent, and openness in facilitating the development of rules and regulations. Accordingly, suggestions are proposed to assist Chinese enterprises in avoiding the “Middle-Technology Trap” through openness on the basis of legislation and public policy intervention. Meanwhile, the Chinese government is suggested to promote national coordination to establish a national unified market to realize the three levels of openness of the supply chain and industrial chain strategies: enterprise-level, domestic regional level, and international level.

This article aims to elucidate the varying effects of democratization in ASEAN members on the normative changes in the core principles of the “ASEAN Way.” Utilizing a regional-centric approach that emphasizes ASEAN members’ agency, the article posits that two critical variables shape the changing trajectory of ASEAN norms: ASEAN members' democratic performances and their regional status. While an ASEAN member’s democratic performance influences its willingness to advocate for normative changes, its regional status is also crucial in determining its capability to implement changes by navigating the divergent interests among ASEAN members. Only the ASEAN member with a high-quality democratic performance at home and recognized regional leadership can effectively bring about normative changes to ASEAN norms. Otherwise, either the domestic democratic deficit or a lack of leadership status will hinder the ASEAN members’ efforts to promote normative changes. Using the process-tracing method, the article empirically focuses on the Philippines, Thailand, and Indonesia for comparative case studies. The findings reveal that the Philippines’ poor democratic performance since the democratic restoration in 1986 has hindered its motivation to push for normative changes in ASEAN, rendering the Philippines a reluctant promoter. Although Thailand has made notable achievements in democratic consolidation since the downfall of junta rule in 1992, its lack of regional leadership has greatly limited its capability to reconcile the divergent interests among ASEAN members, resulting in the failure of its “flexible engagement” initiative. Conversely, Indonesia, with a high-quality democratic performance at home and bolstered by its regional leadership status, successfully brought significant changes to ASEAN norms by facilitating the ASEAN Charter signed in 2007.

With the advancement of the reform and opening up, the non-state Sectors (NSS) in China and Vietnam have developed rapidly. The ruling parties, which used to have comprehensive control over politics, economy, and society, have now found it difficult to control the new economic space. To effectively control NSS, the Communist Party of China and the Communist Party of Vietnam have attempted to embed themselves in NSS by expanding grassroots party organizations. In this process, they have adopted different strategies and procedures, resulting in two distinct models: China’s expansion model, which is characterized by a proactive approach combining rigidity and flexibility, and Vietnam's expansion model, which is characterized by a flexible approach with a focus on soft cooperation. This study compares the formation, nature, and main characteristics of the two models for party organization expansion in China and Vietnam, hoping to provide a more comprehensive and objective understanding of the developments in China and Vietnam, preliminarily elucidate, from an academic perspective, the operational model of party-building in NSS in the two countries, and enrich the theoretical research on the continuous expansion of the existing Leninist parties in the new era.

In Southeast Asia, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines are defined by the World Bank as countries that failed to overcome the "middle income trap". The four Southeast Asian countries (hereinafter referred to as the "ASEAN Four") entered the ranks of middle-income economies in the late 1970s and early 1980s and achieved rapid economic development throughout the 1980s and 1990s. However, since the early 2000s, the competitive advantages of these countries’ labor-intensive industries have started to decline, while the process of industrial transformation and technological improvement has been stagnated due to the lack of innovation resources. With limited R&D input and insufficient indigenous tech innovation, these countries’ manufacturing industry show a trend of "deindustrialization" and the "middle technology trap" phenomenon emerged. As the manufacturing sector failed to generate value-added that promotes economic growth and national income increase, ASEAN Four have so far yet to enter the high-income ranks. Drawing from the cases of ASEAN Four, this paper argues that the "middle technology trap" is a key contributing factor to the “middle income trap,” and countries fallen into the “middle income trap” often experience the "middle technology trap" as a concomitant phenomenon. The paper first introduces the industrialization process of ASEAN Four while analyzes the challenges they faced in industrial structural transformation and technology advancement. It then discusses major reasons that these countries failed to step over both the "middle technology trap" and the “middle income trap”, including limited technology spillovers from FDI, R&D investment shortages and insufficient industrial policies, low-quality education system, deficient intellectual property protection and underdeveloped regional capital markets. The paper concludes with some implications for China and discussion on potential future research on distinctions of the “middle technology trap” phenomenon between upper middle-income and lower middle-income countries.

This study examines the possible emergence of a Middle Technology Trap (MTT) in U.S.-China strategic competition through the lens of the Global Financial Network (GFN) and the Global Innovation Network (GIN). By conducting doctrinal analysis, theoretically informed case studies, and in-depth interviews, we offer a granular study into how the U.S. has been weaponizing its leading position in the GFN to affect China’s level of participation in the GIN. Our findings reveal three U.S. tactics to induce the MTT with China: first, leveraging U.S. private equity and venture capital (PEVC) to enhance its technology advantage over China; second, pushing U.S. investors to withdraw from China’s PEVC market, thereby restricting Chinese access to American capital; and third, inducing Advanced Business Services (ABS) supporting innovation and global business to cease or reduce their operations in China, thereby increasing intermediation costs for innovation. Although Chinese government-guided funds (GGFs) have managed to partially mitigate the “funding gap” from the departure of American PEVCs, they have yet to assume the brokerage role previously played by American PEVCs in both the GIF and the GIN. As such, our study contributes to a better understanding and theoretical advancements of the MTT by linking up the scholarship of innovation and finance with financial statecraft.

Most Latin American countries entered the ranks of middle-income levels almost simultaneously with Japan and South Korea. However, while Japan and South Korea embarked on the path of economic development through technological innovation and industrial upgrading, Latin America fell into the middle-income trap. By examining the history of industrial and technological development in Brazil, Argentina, and Mexico, three representative countries in Latin America, this paper finds that the fundamental reasons for Latin America falling into the middle-income trap lie in the tension between the choice of industrialization path and primitive accumulation, as well as the institutional deficiencies in technology and industrial development. Latin America, which has fallen into the middle-income trap, finds it hard to upgrade its technology and is trapped in premature industrialization and the middle-technology trap. It can be said that Latin America has fallen into a double trap, which reinforces each other and forms a solid trap pattern. The warning from the Latin American experience is that late-developing countries need to maintain an open attitude during the process of technological catching up, build a complete technological innovation system, enhance industrial and technological governance capabilities, and seize the window of opportunity for technological and industrial upgrading. Otherwise, there is a significant risk of falling into the middle-income trap and even the double trap.