The Republic of Korea's global expansion has been mirrored by its interest and presence in Southeast Asia. From trade, investment, aid, tourism, to the cultural "Korean wave", its various roles have blossomed and its influence has grown. The ASEAN region has not only affected Korean foreign policy, but also many aspects of Korean life, from the migration of Southeast Asian industrial workers to marriages and the curricula of academic institutions. This volume explores various aspects of these new relationships and their importance to all concerned parties. It brings together a group of specialists who have documented the growing interlocking roles between Korea and ASEAN and its constituent states in detail. These developments have profound implications for relations in the East and Southeast Asian regions, and for the world as a whole.

This book examines the growing interdependence between ASEAN and Korea and the political and economic realities governing the relationship. Leading experts from ASEAN and Korea discuss the emerging issues in areas of domestic and regional security environments, non-traditional security, regional trade arrangements, Korean relations with the new ASEAN member states, and the prospects of community-building with special reference to the roles of Korea and ASEAN. It also provides a serious and thought-provoking evaluation of future ASEAN-Korea relations in light of the growing trend towards East Asian regionalism.

These essays support the argument that strong and effective presidential leadership is the most important prerequisite for South Korea to sustain and project its influence abroad. That leadership should be attentive to the need for public consensus and should operate within established legislative mechanisms that ensure public accountability. The underlying structures sustaining South Korea’s foreign policy formation are generally sound; the bigger challenge is to manage domestic politics in ways that promote public confidence about the direction and accountability of presidential leadership in foreign policy.

Economic Development of Emerging East Asia presents economic studies of Taiwan and South Korea, compares them chiefly with Japan and the United States and finds that these East Asian countries are still in the process of emerging in the world economy. A timely quantitative and econometric analysis of the regional economies of emerging East Asia, the volume examines development indicators, effects of the 1997 Asian financial crisis, productivity growth, catching up and convergence of long run real GDP per capita growth, the time required for a country to catch up, colonialism and economic development in Taiwan and India. Arranged in increasing complexity of economic analyses, the chapters in this book provide a comprehensive understanding of emerging East Asian economies. In addition to serving as a handy reference for regional economists, policy analysts and researchers, Economic Development of Emerging East Asia can also be used as a textbook on economics and business.

This book presents a comprehensive overview of the relations between the two Koreas and the different ASEAN states, including their relations with ASEAN as an organization. It outlines a complex picture with both bilateral and multilateral relations in play at the same time. It charts for each relationship how the present situation has arisen, discusses current difficulties and strains, and assesses how the relationship may develop in future.

This book explores South Korea's phenomenal economic rise and the impact that this has had on the country's foreign policy.

This volume is a collection of papers written by nationals or former nationals of the respective country in ASEAN and Northeast Asia. Unlike other works written by scholars outside ASEAN or East Asia, it offers an insider’s point of view of the 10 ASEAN states, China, Japan and South Korea on regional community building. While a nationalist perspective may permeate throughout the study, it is also clear that pursuing regional cooperation is considered to be important by the respective author, denoting the non-exclusivity between nationalism and regionalism and the mutual reinforcement of the two. Each author of this volume has made a deliberate effort to introduce and survey the developmental challenges and experiences of his or her country from a historical perspective. All authors, without exception, have emphasized the importance and advantages in staying with ASEAN or linking up with ASEAN by China, Japan and South Korea in political-security, economic and socio-cultural terms. Their papers also reveal that the self-help and self-strengthening mechanism emphasized by the ASEAN Plus Three process will take time to bear fruits. In the meantime, it seems that bilateral interactions and cooperation between ASEAN and Northeast Asian states remain to be more dominant as shown in this study. One can argue that bilateral interactions are the building block of multilateralism interactions. To be sure, there is a deliberate effort in this study to highlight "unity in diversity" in East Asia in general and ASEAN in particular.