[EAIㆍKAIS] Book Webinar Series - A Region of Regimes, T.J. Pempel

YouTube Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5v2BvhBJCWs

The "Book Webinar Series – A Region of Regimes, T.J. Pempel," hosted by the East Asia Institute (EAI) and the Korean Association of International Studies (KAIS), was released on July 12. This webinar series is designed to introduce and intensively discuss major new books in political science and related social sciences, aiming to raise interest in significant domestic and international publications and provide opportunities for diverse questions and discussions. This webinar featured T.J. Pempel's book, "A Region of Regimes." The discussion included Professors Ji-yeon Song (Seoul National University), Wang-hui Lee (Ajou University), and Ju-yeon Chung (Korea University), moderated by Professor Yeol Son (Yonsei University).

In this webinar, the author analyzed and categorized the political and economic development models of Asian countries, explaining the impact of these policy directions on regional security and economy. This was followed by an in-depth discussion with the panelists on the variables that can drive regime change and the future of China under Xi Jinping's leadership.

Program

Watch the Book Webinar

Contact Person

Seo Jeong-hye, Research Fellow, East Asia Institute (EAI)

Video Transcript

Hello, uh, welcome to KAIS's book webinar. Uh, I am Yao Zong, professor of Yonsei University. Uh, and today's moderator. Uh, on behalf of uh KAIS, I'd like to thank all of you to, you know, come to join us today. We are featuring uh Professor T.J. Pempel and his book, "The Region of Regimes." And we also invite uh three uh excellent uh, you know, scholars uh from uh KAIS for discussion. Um, Professor T.J. Pempel received uh his PhD from Columbia University. He's currently a professor of political science at the University

of California, Berkeley. He taught at Cornell University for many years, and University of Colorado, University of Wisconsin, and University of Washington before joining the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of uh over uh 120 scholarly articles and author and editor of uh 24 books. So, um, it's a really uh great uh to uh, you know, introduce his works. And uh, today's uh book, uh, uh, this book has been already translated into Korean, "A Region of Regimes." It's uh, I think, uh, sort of uh summing up of his uh previous

works, uh, and it will be uh, you know, remembered as his, um, I don't know, uh, one of the masterpieces that uh he has produced uh for many, many years. Um, I mean, he will uh produce much, much more, um, you know, after this book, uh, but we are really happy to discuss this book today. With that introduction, um, PJ, it's your turn. You uh, you have about 15 to 20 minutes to introduce your book, and then we turn to our panelists. Thank you very much, Joel. Uh, it's a great pleasure to be here. I want to thank the participants, the discussions for

taking the time and trouble to read the book, and I look forward to getting their comments and reactions. I do want to thank both EAI and KAIS for co-hosting this seminar. I've had a very positive relationship with both of them, uh, a long-time relationship with EAI, probably going back about 10 years or more, but I also had close ties with KAIS, including being a participant and a panelist in their December of 2019 conference. So I have great respect for both of those organizations, and I think they play a

very important role academically. Um, I thought I would start with just a very brief word about my motivation in doing this book, uh, and it really, in my view, comes out of three very different threads. As uh Professor Sun was talking about it, in many ways, it's, it's, uh, growing out of my previous academic work. But, uh, the first thing, of course, that I think is central to this book is my effort to grapple with the so-called Asian economic miracle. We saw huge growth in gross domestic product, exports, Asia's share of

the world economy has gone rather dramatically. We all know that East Asia has been the most dynamic region for growth over the last three decades, if not longer. And I've joined many others in trying to understand that and puzzle it out. The second big thread that runs through this book is what would be called comparative political economy, my effort to link my thinking about issues of the specific countries that are involved to the broader theoretical debates that are going on within comparative politics

that have been going on for decades about how we should categorize different political economies, whether we're talking about just as Big Anderson's three worlds of welfare capitalism, or we're talking about, uh, Hall and Saska's, you know, coordinated market economies, liberal market economies, or whether we're talking about, you know, Schmitter's state-led corporatism or, uh, societal corporatism, etc. So I joined that, that group, and this book is one effort to try to grapple with some of the comparative political economic ways to

think about East Asia. And then finally, as Professor was talking about it, I'm trying to grapple with the whole question of Asian regional relations, both the economic, but also in the book, a little bit of the security relationships. So those are the sort of three motivating engines behind what I, what I'm doing in the book. And the book, uh, very boldly or very ridiculously, tries to tackle the political economies of 10 different countries over a period of about 40 years. So it's obviously going to run into the

difficulties and criticisms that I think are often confronting such an effort at trying to theorize about such a broad range, which is, uh, it looks very good when until you get to the country that I know the most, and, uh, you've clearly gotten the country wrong on the details that are the most critical. So with that boldness, I forge ahead. The starting point for me was regional economic growth, and I think if you look for a thread that runs through the book, it's my effort to try to explain this. And I, what I think I try to do in the

book, or what I hope the book does, is present at least three important challenges to our understanding of what was behind that economic growth. The first of these is the very straightforward point that the countries that have been successful in East Asia economically by no means followed a single path. This was not a situation of the flying geese model as often portrayed in Japan, of one country being out in the front and then other countries catching up and following roughly in the same pattern and

doing the same sorts of things. I'm making an argument that, uh, that things are quite different from one national economy to the other. But at the same time, I'm not suggesting that this is a random collection of individual countries' stories. As I'll try to explain in a few minutes, I see these economic growth patterns, the political economies of these national, uh, national political economies growing in ways that are separable into several different types of ideal types of regimes. The second big thing that I'm trying to

do is to make it clear that despite the so-called East Asian miracle as the overarching label, there are very important outliers of countries that do not participate in the miracle, and not only do not participate in it, but actively and openly reject it. And these are countries that I think need to be part of the regional story. And then finally, and importantly, and I, I think this goes back to some of the things I wrote earlier in in my career, but that I still think are very important, I think in trying to understand the

domestic political economies of these places, it's critical that we also weave in the international forces that were part of the domestic shaping of these political economies. In particular, we need to look at the pivotal force, uh, pivotal power of economic forces. Uh, to get to the heart of this, I try to make an argument about what I call regimes. It's a concept that I build around three key elements. Uh, the first of these are political institutions, essentially state institutions, national bureaucracies. Secondly, socioeconomic

forces, what are the key socio-economic forces, and what resources do they have within these different national economies, and how do they align with each other? What are the social coalitions, socioeconomic coalitions that are formed? And then finally, um, what are the most important international forces that are operating on the domestic political economy? And these can be positive and supportive, as they have been for some countries, but they can also be very negative and, uh, focused on trying to upend or resist

the economic development patterns that are being pursued by these individual countries. So those are the, uh, the three key elements that I see as part of the regime concept. Then, in addition to that, I want to just point out that the book is divided into two parts. Part one really tries to identify three distinct patterns of regime in East Asia, and these in many ways are ideal typical, and I'll talk about them in a minute. But the second part of the book tries to be a bit more dynamic and to look at changes in regime in a

regime that take place over time, to look at the situation in China, which I see as a hybrid of the three types of regimes that I look at in the, in the part one, and then finally in the final and concluding chapter, to reverse the causal arrow and look at the ways in which the different combinations of regimes have led to different regional orders in East Asia, some very important differences from one period to the next. Uh, I want not to not to spend too much time on things, but, but let me say a few things about part

one and the three ideal types of regimes that I suggest are advancing different paradigms of political economy. So I take the three key elements of the regime and pair them with corresponding economic policies. The first category of regime is what I'm calling developmental regimes. Many of you will see this is congruent with the developmental state, although I see it as more complex than that. I play this out with regard to Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. And essentially, I argue that all three

benefited from what might be thought of as strong cohesive state institutions with skilled and relatively meritocratic bureaucratic agencies. They had cohesive pro-growth socio-economic coalitions that were committed to rapid growth and they were capable of marginalizing political oppositions that were pursuing alternative patterns of growth. And then finally, and most importantly, they enjoyed the unstinting support, powerfully economically, uh, in terms of market access by the United States, and the bond that

held this regime together was of course the anti-communism of the Cold War. All three elements of the regime were bound together by their anti-communist agenda. And the economic policy that these regimes pursued was what I call embedded mercantilism. I've used the term before, but basically this involves keeping the domestic economy relatively free from highly competitive manufacturing products and foreign direct investment, but supporting domestic large businesses that can move into the export markets

uh globally, and doing so with a pr particularly high regard for job training, moving people up the educational spectrum, moving up the technological spectrum, and with a high degree of socioeconomic, uh, equality, with economic benefits most importantly going to domestic actors. And this is a contrast to the second category, which I'm calling "irsa's" developmental regimes, where I see the primary economic benefits going to foreign holders of capital or multinational corporations. So a word or two about the airsoft's

airsoft regimes or assad's developmental regimes. The cases I use are Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand. All of these are much more fragmented politically, lots of regional bastions of power. They are socioeconomically more diverse, much greater economic and ethnic tensions, uh, across different regions. There are much stronger oppositions to the dominance of the national government. Patronage is widespread in the national bureaucracies, typically less talented and less cohesive than the developmental regimes. They look like the developmental regimes

in terms of high growth. They look like the developmental regimes in terms of their reliance on exports, but they're very different insofar as the outside support that they receive comes primarily from the multinational corporations. And as a consequence of this, their economic policies are, they become integral parts in the supply chain of the multinational corporations, so that in many respects, the predominant economic benefits redound to the multinational corporation, not so much to the hosting institutions,

the jobs for which are reduced to essentially packaging and assembly, with very little emphasis on improving the job skills of the workforce. The end result of which is that all three of these countries are at risk of falling into what I call the middle-income trap. And finally, I have a third category of regimes, which I'm calling rapacious regimes. These are prototypically North Korea, Myanmar, or Burma, if you prefer, but Myanmar and the Philippines, particularly during the regime of Ferdinand Marcos here. We have uh

very narrow, powerful control of, uh, state power, state institutions, very often reliant heavily on military force and coercion of citizenry, limited bureaucratic skills except in very targeted areas like military skills, and loyalty to the narrow group of political power holders is critical to advancement within the bureaucracy. So it's loyalty takes precedence over technical competence. There are basically no socio-economic divisions that are capable of challenging state institutions, although in places

like Myanmar, there are certainly outlying pockets of powerful ethnic and social division that are challenging the central power within the Burmese core, but basically there are few of these socioeconomic divisions within the DPRK. But all of them, all of these three rapacious regimes really put in place policies that reflect their sanctions from abroad, their absence of strong, powerful economic supporters, except in cases where the outside force, such as China influencing Myanmar or North Korea, are extracting resources from that

regime and keeping in power a narrow political elite. So the policy that these are typically pursuing, uh, involve extraction of benefits for the political elite and for very slow to no growth, a little focus on industrialization, uh, heavy reliance on raw materials and agricultural exports, etc. And the outside regimes supporting them are basically interested in foreign direct investment and exploitation, uh, more than anything else. Now, part two, I'll try to be brief on this. Um, the first chapter in part two looks at

what happens when regimes and many successes, when when the developmental regimes in particular achieve high levels of success and when the Cold War ends and their external support begins to erode. The United States, as we know, was far less supportive of Japan, Korea, and Taiwan once the Cold War ended than they were when they saw them as viable allies, valuable allies in the fight against communism. As a consequence, they all faced much greater pressure from the United States to liberalize their economies

and the support for the regimes in power, the support for the political institutions and for the socio-economic coalitions that have been there before began to erode. And additionally, because of the great economic success that took place, many of the social and economic forces that were once powerful began to lose their power to new socioeconomic groups that rose in power, organized labor, it might be, it might be more entrepreneurs, it might be small and medium-sized businesses. Uh, it also led to, of course,

democratization in Korea and Taiwan. The end result of which was that all of these regimes began to see big changes, not the collapse, but big changes in the nature of their regimes. Taiwan and South Korea both of course moved to a flip-flopping between progressive and conservative regimes. Japan saw its long-standing Liberal Democratic Party and its rule with opposition coming to power and, uh, but the, the final interesting thing that I want to point out in that chapter to me is that the, that the fact that Japan's regime was

the slowest to accommodate new economic forces has meant that Japan has had the slowest economic growth of the three of these regimes. Korea and Taiwan both moved much more quickly to adjust their regimes, but it's been hard for all any of the three to put in place the kind of consistent embedded mercantilism that long drove those three agendas. Turning to the next chapter, which focuses on China, I see China as essentially a hybrid of the, has elements of all three of the other regimes. It looks, it looks like the developmental

regimes in that it has a strong state with competent, coherent bureaucrats, of course responding to controls by the Chinese Communist Party, but in that respect, it's, it's very similar. They're also committed to rapid economic growth, rapid move up to the technological gradient, but they're very much different from the developmental regimes and more like the "assad's" regimes insofar as they rely very heavily on foreign direct investment allowed in foreign competition, uh, and also like the "hair assad's" regimes, much

more reliant on state-owned enterprises as a way to try to keep some control politically of the economy. And finally, they're somewhat like the rapacious regimes insofar as the Communist Party, particularly the Communist Party elite, has been able to extract exceptionally high benefits for themselves and their families and those, uh, that are close to them. But different from the rapacious regimes in that a lot of the wealth that China has achieved has been spread across the country as a whole, and of

course, we know that huge numbers of, uh, individuals have moved into the middle class. Finally, the last chapter tries to take up the question of, so what does this all mean for the regional order? How do these pieces hang together in the context of shaping the regional consequences? And here I suggest, and if you haven't figured it out by now, the magic number for me seems to be three on almost everything I think about, but, um, I see three different orders having been in play over the post-war period. The first of these is the very familiar

Cold War order, in which Asia was divided along communist versus democratic lines, where economic and security interests overlapped almost 100 percent. Uh, the economic players, the Japan, Korea, Taiwan in particular, did not trade with any of the communist countries, and, uh, there were very clear divisions that led and that that promoted security as the primary goal, and that saw economics in accord with, uh, security calculations by the various countries. With the end of the Cold War, though, and with the collapse of the Soviet Union

and with the decisions to move toward more liberalized economic policies by China, what we saw was a movement toward what I would call peace and prosperity, a period that began sort of in the, it began as early as the 1980s or so, but certainly accelerated with the decline, demise of the Soviet Union, and we saw a period of, you know, 30, 30 plus years up until, I would say, the 2008 financial crisis, global financial crisis, in which for the most part, the rapacious regimes had very little capacity to upend the security problems,

security tensions, to create security tensions across the region, to upend the collective project of economic development. China was committed to the regionalization of that economic development and very unassertive when it came to security matters. But we're now in what I would see as a beginnings or the possible embryonic stage of a third period, which is one in which security tensions have risen, there's been a rise in nationalism, an awful lot of countries have turned back on themselves or back into themselves,

become much more skeptical about their regional ties, whether this is Japan-Korea relations, whether it's Myanmar-ASEAN relations, whether it's Taiwan's problems turning into itself and doing its best to reduce its economic ties to the mainland because of its fears that it will be absorbed. But what we're seeing now, of course, is the, uh, we're raising the question, I guess, that Aaron Freeberg raised a number of years ago, which is, is Asia now ripe for rivalry? And I think in some respects, they are, or Asia is. But I think the

vestiges of the era of peace and prosperity, that older order is one to which many of the countries, many of the regimes still aspire. And so I try to close the book with making the simple argument that political leaders across Asia now have the power of agency to decide what the future is. That the structures of the structures that pull in negative directions toward greater tensions and increased security tensions are not without the capacity of these political leaders and leaders in the business community to do their best to

push back and to retain the collective commitment to economic growth and peace and to prosperity and to try to marginalize, uh, the challengers to that security order and to weave them in ways that could be beneficial in the long run. So I went on a little bit longer than I should have. I apologize, but, uh, uh, you know, now you have no reason to go out and buy the book because I just told you virtually everything in there. So I look forward to your reactions and comments, and thank you very much for your patience.

Thank you. Uh, thank you, TJ, for, uh, uh, for introducing, um, your great book. Uh, it's, uh, I know it's impossible to, you know, uh, sum up, uh, you know, all five chapters of, you know, ten different countries' uh, experience, uh, of the past few decades. Uh, uh, now, uh, let me just, you know, directly, uh, turn to our, um, you know, great panelists today. Uh, the first, so, uh, let me, let me do it this way for this question. Um, we have three, uh, you know, excellent comparativists, uh, here, uh, and also, uh, Japan scholar, uh, who translated your

book. Uh, so, uh, I'll give you, uh, also a chance to, uh, discuss. Um, so, uh, each, uh, description, uh, discussion, uh, will take about, you know, eight minutes to talk about his book, giving, you know, questions. And if questions are, uh, posed, and, uh, after then, uh, TJ will, uh, you, you will react to, uh, those questions or comments, and then move to, uh, uh, discussing our second discussion and third and fourth. And then, if time remains, then we will, you know, uh, do further discussions. I mean, follow up these questions with you.

Uh, so, uh, we, uh, let me, let's, uh, start with, uh, Professor Song Ji-yeon, uh, of, uh, Seoul National University. Uh, she, um, she does, uh, she is a comparativist, and she does Japan and Korea, and also she specializes in, uh, labor politics and trade. Um, so, uh, Professor Song, why don't you go first? Okay. Uh, thank you so much for inviting me to participate in our book webinar on Professor T.J. Pempel's new book on the regime of, uh, "Region of Regimes." So, as Professor just mentioned earlier, I also all read and learned a lot from

Pempel's work during my graduate school era and other stuff, even right now. So it's a very honor for me to have a chance to keep some comments or some points about your new book. So, uh, today, uh, I'm going to briefly, uh, summarize a few, uh, important contributions from this book in the field. At the same time, I will raise basically three, uh, discussion points or questions based on the book. So, uh, first of all, Professor Pempel's, T.J. Pempel's new book actually provides a very comprehensive but the new young approach to dramatic

economic advances as well as underdevelopment or economic failure in East Asia. So primary focus on three major key elements are politics, which is in state institutions and social economic forces, external forces, plus and economic pulse paradigms. So this will provide very comprehensive and analysis on 10 countries in Northeast and Southeast Asia. So a very important contribution is although he covers 10 different countries, but he tried to provide some similarities among countries and also kind of new

york's differences even within regimes and across regions. So we should make a valuable, uh, contribution to the field of Asian studies and also comparative economy. So based on his book, he actually provided three, uh, distinct clusters of countries. So he mentioned during his, uh, kind of parts, so I will skip this part, but one of a very interesting and important contribution I think he tried to provide some typology of Asian economic development, which is very unique. So although on many Asian scholars, we are focusing either

one country or world two or the international relations in general, but TJ has trying to offer a comprehensive analysis of the regions and also with very competitive perspectives, which is a huge contribution. And also it helps us to understand the importance of the questions and competitive context. They reflect his actually decade-long research and devotion to the field. So, uh, although I just learned a lot from the book and, uh, got many insights of the book, but I also would like to raise kind of three kind of some discussion questions

points for today. Uh, so first of all, I would like there's some issue about some general kind of causal mechanism among three key components: political, social economic, international forces. So as first temples mentioned that there are three key elements, but they are also based on elect affinity, although they are not really deterministic and test affinity, but they are more or less just going together, evolving together in a sense. But, uh, but it seems to me the, uh, this kind of there are three candidates in his

introduction chapter, he's trying to offer some mechanism changes and influences over among these kind of issues, plus an economic pulse paradigm. At the same time, based on his analysis, especially for the our first global country, developmental regimes, it seems the key constraint here is starting point should be the external forces. So my question is, among these three key elements of institutions, politics, socio-economic, external, what can be the starting point of either each regimes or with each cases or cross-country cases?

So in this context, um, especially for the case of the our first development regimes, uh, for me, we have to take into account more external forces seriously. Although for the second case about the, uh, second groups, there are also important examples, but I raise the question, the importance of external forces are dissimilar across these region cases. For the age of the first group, developmental regimes, there are more security concerns, conservation, regional structural constraints by, uh, the Cold War and plus and U.S. support for the region. But the

second is primary more economic dimensions. So security council may not be as important as the first group. So primary multinational cooperation support, that investment. So in that context, even if the external forces are important, but to what extension forces are critical? That's kind of some question I wanted to hear from your, uh, response later. And at the same time, um, as I mentioned earlier, uh, there are all these three elements are important, but the same time the external forces are very important.

for development region, especially the early stage of institutional setting or economic development. So, later in the conclusion, it is mentioned that domestic factors may influence the international order of regionalism. So, which is going to reverse fidelity? But at the same time, in these cases, only developmental regimes today just make more contribution to variations in region, or all other two breast cases, astral regime or rapacious region, they also have some contribution to the regional order or regionalism in

East Asia. So, in a sense, to what extent does each cluster of countries make a contribution to constructing or reconfiguring the regional order in Asia? So, that's my first part. So, and uh, the other one is, um, uh, having said that, I also raised a bit of kind of mechanical changes in regimes or in regions or algorithms. So, according to Professor Pampa's explanation, so, uh, especially chapter four, the uh, project temple is trying to elaborate developmental regions under reconstruction through incremental erosion. So, it's

reduced external support from mostly the US and fragmented social economics and increased FDI or fragmentation of mercantilism. However, if we just take into account these three key elements as based on elective affinity, so usually we consider they are linked to one another, which means it might also accelerate institutional changes at a higher speed as opposed to incremental changes. So, what if there are some changes in one domain? Do they just trigger more a faster speed of change in other domains? So, I'm just wondering

this incremental uh change, incremental erosion, how is it different from radical change in either in regions or is there any possibility of moving from one type of regime to the other? So, uh, in addition to that, um, let this issue. So, it seems maybe these three classes are quite more resilient or much stronger to just register changes, although they might have some room for change within the regime over time over the past four or five decades, but still, there are key characteristics that still remain as they are. So, it seems to me it's

rather all this institutional development to explain economic development, the political institutions, economic institutions, or external forces. It seems to me a vacant path-dependent trajectory development. So, in that context, these countries, in country response to these new stimuli or forces for change, are rather constrained within a certain scope. So, how do you think this kind of the uh, country responds to change? Are they maintaining their domain of regime type, or is there any possibility for moving from one

over the other, or moving into kind of a fourth type of the clusters? So, that's kind of my second point. Uh, my last point is, uh, you just mentioned about how users come up with these conceptual definitions, how these countries are carried into three clusters. But still, it seems to me this, especially the first two types of regime, which is developmental regime and astro-uh, urso developmental regimes, they are quite similar with the typology of four Asian tigers and late Asian tigers, which means Northeast Asia and also Southeast Asia.

so as opposed to, um, although there are some difficult explanations, different emphasis, as you mentioned, you are trying to reject a single path of development, which is rejecting some flying kiss models, some other issues in literature, but at the same time, it seems to me these three components are very important. At the same time, can we take into account different timing and sequencing of development matters more in explaining these different types of the development? So, this, in this context, the East Asian

development is very uncommon, as you mentioned, it is very easy to find in other different settings. So, it seems to me this all this combination of political, social, economic, external elements can a certain type of religion possible? So, if that's the case, right now, we don't have the same institutional or structural constraints like we had in the past, for example, Cold War or a new type of the US kind of market access. So, if so, so are we going to see kind of similar path of development in other geography settings? So, East Asia has a

really unique model, so take into account all historical contexts and also structural constraints, so some unintended consequences. So, that's kind of the explanation you are trying to analyze. Or if all other countries, other geographical settings, they happen to, they come up with similar constraints, are we going to see a similar path of this East Asian development, which means can we make this framework as a more generalizable perspective in complete context? So, in these settings, I'm just, uh, trying to also emphasizing so you

mentioned the region as, uh, according to your, uh, description, so they said the interaction of three elements, components, people to contribute, economy, but at the same time, people mentioned earlier, so the first, especially they can be easily replaced by developed states. So, of course, divine states put emphasis on city bureaucracy or state institutions, so which is different from your primary focus of three institutions or elements, but nevertheless, they can be also replaced by term of states. So, how states can be

quite different from regimes conceptually. So, these are some of my, uh, points I wanted to raise based on your book. So, once again, I really enjoyed reading the book and learned a lot, and also I would like to thank the Korean Association for the International Studies for giving me this valuable opportunity. So, thank you so much for your listening. Thank you. Thank you so much, uh, Professor, uh, Song. Uh, three very specific questions to, uh, to you. Uh, TJ, do you want to respond? Yes. Uh, of course, I wish I had, you know, an hour

to sort of go off and think about these because they raised some very important questions, but, uh, let me do my best after writing down the notes and, uh, trying to respond to what I think were the the core of your your concerns. Um, I'm fully aware that my use of the term elective affinities skirts the whole question of causality and which is the primary mover, which comes first, and, you know, was the chicken before the egg or vice versa. Uh, and I do that very deliberately because what I'm concerned about

is the way in which all three of those pieces resonate with each other and are critical to the eventual development of the economic policies that that emerge. At the same time, I think it's, it's really, you raise a very important point which the book does not really deal with, which is this question of timing and how historical time may, if we look at it from a different, through a different lens, the lens that you're suggesting, uh, we might very well get to a situation in which we conclude, for example, that

early in, in time, the developmental regimes are the primary movers of economic development and that they are in the position that they're in largely because of the Cold War. And once that Cold War has dissipated, the energy behind the replication of something like a developmental regime is simply no longer as powerful. And I try to make the point in the book, which I think you raised toward the very end, I do think that that developmental regime is a particular regime that is historically unique or certainly historically limited.

I don't think it would be very hard for me to imagine a situation in which one saw a replication of the experiences of Japan, Korea, and Taiwan in a way that, for example, we could see the development of state corporatism in many different kinds of regimes around the world. We could see coordinated market economies coming up and starting from scratch, etc., etc. So, in that sense, there is a certain limitation to the typology that that I'm trying to offer to the typological, uh, transferability of this, uh, and I

confess that, you know, as, as is often the case, uh, the generals are always fighting the last war. And in some cases, I'm fighting the war of believing that this notion of the developmental state is something that could be applied to other countries. And I think the unique experience of Japan, Korea, Taiwan has to be underscored as historically unique, as I think you try to do with your comments about the Cold War. And in, in that context, I think you raised the important point that the developmental regimes, the airsoft's

developmental regimes may simply be looking discreet because they begin at very different historical times in which the external conditions made possible different patterns of domestic politics. I think you're right in that regard. At the same time, I think it's really critical, and I hope I underscore the point that, for example, those airsides developmental regimes were very different in many of their socioeconomic traits from the developmental regimes. For example, they have some natural resources, they

have strong agriculture, whereas the developmental regimes all went through land reform. Uh, they don't have, therefore, the same political impetus to move in the direction of large-scale industrialization. They're simply anchors pulling them back to prioritize or privilege reliance on raw materials. Governments in power can say, well, you know, we don't have to industrialize because we can always send out some more palm oil, or we can send out, uh, you know, more rubber, or whatever it happens to be. So, in that regard, I think there is

something fundamentally different about these regimes, and I think the ethnic divisions compared to the ethnic homogeneity of the developmental regimes is important to underscore. So, I think you're right, the timing is critical. At the same time, I think these regimes start from very different places, uh, in terms of their socioeconomics and what the coalition, coalitional capabilities are, and I think the vulnerability to multinational penetration, or the decision to jump onto the multinational experience of the

multinational opportunities does create a very different set of incentives for these regimes than was the case for the the earlier regimes. None of them are held together by the same kind of regime bonding glue that the Cold War provided for the developmental regimes. So, these are much more fragmented, I think. Um, and just to see if I, if I've got everything, reading my own handwriting is never, never a good experience. I guess, I guess I would simply stop at that, at that point. I, there may be other points that you raise that I need

to think more seriously about. Certainly, it's clear that you read and thought about this in some very powerful ways, and you've raised some questions that I clearly need to think about. Some of them, I, I was thinking about and consciously either chose to ignore or, uh, or just decided that I couldn't deal with them at that time. Oh, I'm sorry, there was the question about how do these regimes pile up in ways that that shaped the the, uh, regional order? And, uh, and I, I guess the one thing or the two things I would

add in this regard. I think the Cold War is clearly driving the early regional order, and it's the, it's the developmental regimes versus the communist regimes that are that are the pivotal drivers of that bipolarity, and, uh, and the economic security divisions are critical to that in that regard. Uh, whereas with the order of peace and prosperity, I would say that essentially it's the, the developmental regimes, the airsets developmental regimes, and China in its early phase that are critical engines to that peace

and prosperity. Vietnam could be added, Singapore could be added, but they all basically are led by politicians, by business people who essentially are saying, don't talk to me about anything but economic growth. You know, let me make my citizens richer, and I will stay in power, and let's all go out and make money. Uh, that has changed. Oh, and the, the rapacious regimes were not in a position to challenge that order in any fundamental way. I think that's all changed since the Global Financial Crisis. Chinese leaders have become much more assertive

on a security side, much more assertive in terms of economic competition. North Korea has developed its nuclear weapons in roughly the same time period and has the capacity to be a major irritant. Myanmar has, you know, managed to reimpose ethnic cleansing as a part of the ASEAN agenda or part of the ASEAN challenge. So, I think in those regards, um, uh, this notion of the the regime feeding the the mix of regimes feeding back to the changing regional order, uh, is something I was trying to deal with. So, let me stop at that note. I do

want to hear from the other, uh, our other two discussions, and I don't want to monopolize the discussion myself. Right. Uh, thank you. Um, and, uh, I think, uh, I feel, uh, time pressure. Um, so, uh, next is, uh, Professor, uh, Lee Wong Ki, uh, from, uh, Aju University. Uh, Professor Lee, um, specializes in in financial politics. Um, you know, he, uh, did an excellent analysis of Asian financial crisis and, you know, East Asian responses. Um, and he also does, uh, technology, and he has a regional focus on, on China and, uh, you know, Korea. So, uh

perfectly. Uh, you, you have, uh, about five to six minutes. Um, um, sorry, we are, uh, we are, uh, running out of time. So, uh, please. Thank you very much, Professor Sun. Uh, yes, uh, I read the, uh, book, uh, three times, and, uh, this is a fascinating and terrific book on, uh, East Asia. Actually, my post impression is, wow, it's too ambitious. Actually, I thought only Professor Scalapino could do this, uh, this kind of comparison, but Professor PJ Pamper proves me wrong, and this is a very, uh, good, uh, uh, overview of developer development stats in East Asia. Yes, it's

a very ambitious task, but its analysis is very, uh, systematic and sophisticated. Actually, uh, I think the one major contribution of this book is to rediscover the economic policy paradigm, which has been long forgotten in the heydays of neoliberalism. The second, uh, major contribution is to explain the diversity within capitalism in East Asia. Actually, this will include outliers such as DPRK, North Korea, and Myanmar. And the final contribution, I think, is to analyze China in the middle of East Asia. Actually, yes, China existed

geographically in East Asia, but, uh, I don't think that China is East Asia in terms of institution. Uh, let me elaborate, uh, on my points. Actually, Professor, uh, PJ Pamper provides, uh, uh, regions' type and their key components: states, uh, social economics, and external forces, and finally, economic policy paradigms. As I mentioned, yeah, I think the economic policy paradigm is one of the key contributions to CPE and IPA scholarships. Actually, this, uh, uh, analytical framework, uh, reminds me of Robert Cox's three factors

of, uh, IPE: social forces, forms of states, and world order. But, uh, I, I think PJ Pamper's paradigm is much, uh, more systematic and more sophisticated. And, uh, uh, my first impression is that this is a book on, uh, developmental states, but as you know, uh, this book is not a Swanson for developmental states. Actually, developmental states were very successful in East Asia, and nowadays, the return of the states becomes buzzwords in the post-pandemic era. And when it comes to diversity within capitalism in East Asia,

Professor PJ Pampel provides five models of East Asian capitalism, as you know well. Yeah, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan were very successful. Other countries were not so, uh, successful. Actually, yes, DPRK and Myanmar were outliers, and, uh, in a sense, a total failure. And China, yeah, nowadays, yes, China, everyone talks about China. Actually, uh, Professor PJ Pampel suggested China adapted the East Asian model. Nonetheless, China is not a developmental state. Actually, China is a socialist market economy with Chinese characteristics.

characteristics. Recently, uh, if the economy, so, uh, Gildan, uh, Lauman, uh, wrote a very short article on the Chinese economy. Actually, the title, uh, is that China has broken the Asian model. Anyway, based, uh, upon my, uh, analysis and impression, I will raise three questions for Professor Pamper. My first question is about institutions in the middle of COVID-19 crisis. East Asia has weathered the COVID-19 crisis very well, and many people point out that government played a push role in managing the crisis. Uh, some scholars, I mean, such as, uh

Francis Fukuyama said, uh, is the Asian model of governance more efficient than any other models? And, uh, I'm wondering if, uh, the East Asian model of governance can explain the relative success of East Asian countries, uh, so far. And the next question is about the return of the states. As this book shows, uh, the states have never gone away in East Asia, but, uh, just after the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997, a new liberal reform forced the states to shrink its role, especially in economic policy making, but

the states still hold commanding heights. Do you believe that the states can be more efficient in managing the economy than the market in the future? And my final question is about the future of China. As you mentioned, the, uh, China is a kind of hybrid model, but many, uh, people, especially Chinese scholars, are worried about the return to state capitalism, uh, especially in the, uh, Xi Jinping administration. Do you think that, uh, China will be able to overcome the middle-income trap without institutional and political

reforms? This is my final question. Let me stop here. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, Professor Lee. Uh, once again, three, uh, very concrete questions to you. Uh, TJ. I'll try to be, I'll try to be very quick. I know we, I know we've got some time pressures. So, uh, let me try to be somewhat sympathetic, and, and I don't want to underplay the, uh, the importance of Professor Lee's questions, but with regard to COVID-19, I think clearly, uh, the combination of, of strong states, effective states, efficient states

uh, worked very well in this regard. I would add to that the fact that, as I understand it, and this is hardly my area of knowledge, but that virtually all of the countries in East Asia that did respond very effectively to the Copenhagen crisis had very strong in-place experience institutions that were based on prior experiences with prior pandemics that led that led their health facilities to be able to introduce measures very quickly in terms of testing, contact tracing, and the like. So, clearly, I think what we saw in place was a

you know, combination of very effective governments and also governments that were very sensitive to the necessity for technocratic solutions to what became political problems in other countries. In many respects, as I understand it, the health officials were in a position to say, we're shutting down, we're wearing masks, we're doing testing, etc., etc. And, you know, it's that level of government efficiency that I think played a very big role. Um, and I certainly think that, you know, within Western Europe and certainly in

particular in, in my country, with the United States, the entire response to COVID was driven by politicians with their own agendas. So, I think that's a very clearly different situation. Uh, the return of the state. Uh, I guess, you know, I think I think we make a mistake if we bifurcate markets and states. Uh, I think that, you know, the, the capacity of the state to, the capacity of the state to shape markets has remained very strong in most places. Certainly, the United States, the UK, and a few other places promote a neoliberal economic model, but

that has not been the case in, you know, large swaths of, of Western Europe. And certainly governments, uh, you know, that that have embraced the neoliberal market and thrown open the gates to market forces have not done particularly well. And I think we're seeing a pullback by many countries in terms of recognizing that A, they have to deal with new global forces, but at the same time, dealing with them does not necessarily lead to or should not necessarily mean the erosion of the state. And I think even in the United States

following the Global Financial Crisis, it's been very hard for even the most dedicated pure economists to sell the virtues of unregulated banks and, uh, unregulated markets. So, I think the state is very definitely alive and well, but it's dealing with very different situations than it did before. And finally, on the future of China, we should go offline and talk for three hours because predicting future China is, uh, is a very big opportunity for people who want to write articles about it. My own sense is that

that right now, Xi Jinping is in a very powerful position as the leader of China, but that the socio-economic forces beneath him have the capacity to push back strongly against him. I mean, I think he's overreaching with regard to Xinjiang. I think he's overreaching with regard to Hong Kong, and I think what he's triggered is a greater reaction on the part of many governments and even many corporations to what they now see or recognize as a, a country that is not necessarily going to rush out and embrace

the kinds of WTO neoliberal open market reforms that were predicted in the 1990s and early 2000s, and that this is, this is a leader with a very strong security agenda. And unless or until the governments of the region and the governments of Western Europe combine and push back, the only recourse is to rely on domestic forces, and I'm not sure that domestic forces are going to be in a position effectively to challenge him. But, uh, this is something that we could come back to in a year and, uh, and find that

we're completely wrong in our expectations of what happened because China's in a very volatile situation. So, let me stop on that and thank you again for your comments and close reading of the book. All right. Thank you. Um, let's, uh, let's turn to, uh, uh, China scholar, uh, here, uh, Professor Chong Ju Young, who, who does, uh, China and also, uh, comparative, uh, economic, uh, systems, uh, among others. Um, so, uh, Professor, thank you. Um, I really enjoyed reading this book, and this is an extremely ambitious attempt to explain the divergent path of economic

development in 10 East Asian cases, and not simply that, this book has categorized them into three regimes, in other words, three specific configurations of political, socioeconomic, and international forces which share elective affinities and thus generate clusters. So, the cube on the book cover, I have noticed, uh, kind of desymbolizes, um, this clustering of different forces and forming three different regime types, and you don't stop there, you also attempt to explain the transformation of these regimes. So, anyone who has done a

cross-national comparative analysis would admire the width and depth of this book, and I truly enjoyed reading this book. I think the narratives about each case and regime are quite persuasive, and from this book, it is clear how three types of regimes are different from each other in terms of the different configurations of forces. But I'm still a little bit confused regarding the general logic behind this regime typology and the causal relationship between particular region configurations and different

economic outcomes. So, I will elaborate that point by raising two sets of questions. First set of questions is about the divergence between regimes, and the second set is about the conversion of regimes. So, first, regarding the divergence between regimes, I'm not entirely clear what makes such divergent paths between different region types. A good example will be the case of North Korea and South Korea. Right? They share many socio-economic and structural characteristics, but they walked totally different paths. North Korea is

representative rapacious regime, South Korea, a representative developmental regime. And explaining this diversion path, uh, two Koreans have walked, you say that in the rapacious regime, well-entrenched elites forged regimes that served their interests and formed predatory pacts to protect their power and interests, while elites in developmental regimes formed protection pacts against existential threats by actions that advance national economic improvement. So, here you seem to, um, not explicitly, but you seem to emphasize

the role of elites, uh, key political actors, uh, in their incentives, uh, and the problem I'm having is the source of these incentives and the mechanism of such incentives. Uh, you seem to emphasize while defining these three different types of regimes, institutional and structural variables, but you also emphasize, highlight the role of the key actors and their incentives to promote or hinder national industrialization. So, what is the relationship between the institutional and structural variables you seem to emphasize

while defining regimes and the key actors' incentives? So, what will be the key variables that shape the elites' incentives? That mechanism seems a little bit murky. That's my first question regarding the divergence between regimes. And the second set of questions is about the conversion of regimes. Well, the puzzle I had was about the elective affinities that the different political, socioeconomic, and international forces have between these three different types of regimes because you emphasize that these different forces, three different

forces share elective affinities, so they tend to stick together, right? And they form three different types of regimes. Then it is unclear how and when they make change, especially from one regime type to another, right? If they stick together, what breaks off that stickiness and cluster and generates changes? So, a good example would be Korea, of course, uh, in the case of Korea, you could compare East Korea with Pakistan, East Korea, but the case of China is more impressive, right? The difference between Maoist China

and Deng Xiaoping's or reformist China. And well, if Maoist China is kind of close to a rapacious regime, the reformist China, it will be a hybrid or quite close to a developmental regime. Then how could China break the old regime equilibrium based on the elective affinities and convert or transform into a different region? Right? So, when is the breakout from the path dependency possible? That will be the first question I raised from this second set of questions. And a question related to that first question is about how could China

be successful if somehow China could successfully break off from the path dependency of the past? So, you mentioned in your book that China could steer a course away from the dependent law and development of the airsoft's developmental regime, and obviously, and it may be more importantly, China could steer away from a rapacious regime, right? Considering China's institutional and socio-economic characteristics, there is a higher chance that China could become a rapacious regime than a developmental regime.

but it seems that China, despite all the problems and high level of corruption, it's not really a typical rapacious regime. And you explain that the Chinese party-state did not restrict economic gains to the ruling view but dispersed benefits to the Chinese citizenry. And this kind of put China apart from, um, being a rapacious regime. So, reading all this, I, I could not help but wonder why, what is the key difference that made China escape the trap of becoming a rapacious, uh, regime or, uh, an airsoft developmental regime? Um, so these two

questions would, uh, be part of the second set of questions regarding the conversion of regimes. So, all, you know, I was fascinated by all the details you have shown regarding all different 10 cases and the typology. It's very interesting, but in the end, closing this book, I just, I was not sure if I found the answer to the ultimate question of what really makes a successful sustainable economic growth while failing to do so in certain cases. So, I'll be interested in hearing your, uh, answers to these questions. Thank you.

uh, thank you, uh, Professor. Before, uh, turning to, uh, TJ, let, because of, you know, time constraints, uh, let me ask if, uh, Dr. Oh, you, you, you translated this book, so I'm sure that you have lots of questions and carries as well, uh, to the author. Uh, do you, do you have a comment or question to TJ? This comment, and thank you for giving this opportunity, Professor Pam Pal and Professor Jonas Gerstone, I'm singing yo. I'm, uh, I was a principal researcher of East Asia Institute and now, uh, working as a research professor of

Institute for Japanese Studies at Seoul National University, and I translated this book in Korean with Professor Sanjo Kim and Sunton National University. I really enjoyed the entire process for the translation. I learned a lot from this book and today's seminar. Uh, there are many, there are many outstanding features of this book, and I think the biggest attraction and strength of this book is that it is well systematically organized by categorizing the East Asia region where the four academical, uh, annually, uh, analytical frameworks

are state institutions, social and economic forces, maximal forces, and economic policy paradigm. And I expect that this book will be the most reliable guide to East Asian studies by giving a broader perspective on East Asia. And naming and categorizing East Asia is quite complicated. And categorizing Taiwan as a country can be a problem for China as it poses one China policy. Also, DPRK or North Korea is not an official country of Korea, but it exists and is quite different from South Korea. Therefore, I think regimes, not countries

can be a good alternative to label these places in East Asia. This is the biggest advantage and system assist significance of this book, recognizing East Asia according to the type of regimes. Overall, I hope this book will serve as an opportunity to look at this matter from a broader perspective and think about how to categorize or evaluate East Asia. I hope this book will be loved by many researchers and students who are living in this region, and new Delhi will be a good opportunity for many Korean readers

who have limited perspective only in Northeast Asia to broaden their horizons. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, well, actually, it's a promotion remarks. Don't stop her. Don't stop her. Okay. He did. Yeah, I, I do want to thank, uh, Professor Oh, both for the translation and for the kind comments that she's made about the book. Um, I think any author loves to hear that kind of thing, and it's nice to have it on the back of the book, but the reality is that, uh, usually there are far more flaws in the book than, uh, then you've probably, uh, been willing to

uh, to underscore, and you probably saw many of these as you were translating, but thank you very much for not mentioning too much. Let me pick up Professor Jung's points because I think a couple of things are very critical in this regard. I think you, you know, I think the central thread that runs through the points that you're making hinge very much on that whole question of where do the incentives come from? What creates those incentives? Why do I mean, in terms of your question about divergence between say, the ROK and

the DPRK, you're certainly right that they both start from very similar places in terms of cultures, socioeconomics, etc. In many respects, North Korea started out with much greater advantages than the South in terms of having more built-in industry, um, than did the South. Um, the South had the population that had problems with agriculture and so forth. I would simply say that this, in many ways, takes us back to the early point that Professor Jones raised about the importance of the Cold War and the structuring features that the Cold War

brought in i mean in many respects i think that the pivotal divergence begins with the fact that the United States picked ROK as its uh as its friend ally supporter in the Cold War and China/Russia or China/Soviet Union sided with the DPRK or vice versa the DPRK sided with them the ROK sided with the United States and as a consequence of that uh certainly in this early Cold War period uh it put those two regimes on very different tracks and created paths that were very different for both of them

or created paths that uh that propelled them in in substantially different directions the North doing its best to hang on to state planning and state-owned enterprises and uh rigid political control the South after a rough period um with uh in the in the immediate aftermath of the Korean War um was either fortunate or unfortunate to get Park Chung-hee who you know took his lessons from Japan uh sided with the United States but but also believed very strongly in the power of state institutions to shape the

development of of economic policy and so the two began to move in in very different directions and I think you know in many respects what I what I took from your point about path dependence was that in many cases once you get on one of these paths uh there are built-in incentives to stay on the same path that that those who are you know walking at the front of the pack uh have every capacity to stay at the front of the pack and and to keep from sliding off the side of the cliff if the path is is getting close to treacherous

areas whereas those who are uh not as privileged uh have the chance to be pushed off so you know in some respects that's the that's a piece of what you're raising with regard to the paths of development but I think you also raise the important question of what is the what is the power of the force the engine that creates the break in the path of what Steve Krasner and others have called the punctuated equilibrium you know what's the what what causes that puncture and what causes uh regimes that seem

to be on one steady trajectory to move in a very different direction you raise the question of China in some respects the answer to that one is relatively easy I mean in some respects uh the Chinese Communist Party uh once it uh you know um once it had uh opened up to once it had moved away from uh reliance on Stalin had opened up relations with the United States once the United States with Nixon had begun to provide military arms and and provide increased economic opportunities made it possible for somebody like Deng

Xiaoping to move into power influence etc but I mean as I try to stress in the book it was not just the United States but I mean Deng was very smart in looking at the other economic success stories which goes back to that point that was raised earlier about timing China had in many respects the benefit China under Deng and subsequently had the benefit of earlier experiences by those developmental regimes where it was very possible for someone like Deng to look to Japan and say what were they doing right

you know how did they manage this to bring in economists from uh Eastern Europe that we're dealing with later dealing with the moves away from state-owned planning state state-led planning and state-owned enterprises and to begin learning from that so you know in many ways you know my story does then tend in some respects to begin privileging key individuals you know key uh turning points that are led by uh by key individuals but I think you know if you if you go back to the South Korean case there are also these powerful structural

changes that take place what I tried to suggest in the chapter about dismantling developmentalism uh the very fact that you know there were there was economic success that created a middle class in South Korea that had not been quite as strong as before middle class that was beginning to demand greater political freedoms than have been uh in place before demands that um the the military leaders uh open things up to a free election of the president etc etc and this this was much less a matter of it was a matter of

collective incentives structural changes that I think was was were very important and I know we're we're tight on time so I think I better stop on that note I do just want to close with uh saying how much I appreciate the comments from all of you on the book uh particularly the nice things that you said but I think also the uh the challenges that you raise uh nothing nothing is more pleasing to an academic than to have his or her work taken seriously and and it's clear that all three of you uh

all four of you rather have taken it very seriously and thought about it in deep ways that I think send me back to thinking a bit more about what do I do uh with you know if I if I get a second printing of this what what do I begin to change and what are I begin to address uh that I haven't really dealt with effectively in this uh in this first printing but thank you very much let me turn it back to Professor Sun thank you uh thank you Professor Pampel uh well uh it uh it looks like uh here's um

here's a student with a big uh this dissertation uh and then uh three uh committee members asking questions with uh I mean actually uh because it's a two uh uh I mean it's a big one uh you know 10 country analysis uh they you know come up with a full of questions and then as we move on you know they are increasingly right persuaded by the you know questions and answers and uh I think it's really a useful uh exchange of opinions and particularly our discussion kind of allowed us to go back to the

manuscript and read uh some of the pieces uh after the discussion so uh thank you so much uh once again this is an unusual book unusual uh in a sense that yes we do have uh edited volumes of uh you know 10 country comparison but not one single author mastering uh those 10 cases and then putting into a book and this is only PJ can do uh on earth so uh we are very much uh appreciate uh your effort and um with uh administration and inspiration let me uh conclude uh by thanking PJ uh for uh joining us once again and also

uh you know our uh great uh discussions our panelists today and most of all Kai's members for joining us thank you very much