This workshop focuses on the vision of a new regional order, in which China and Japan cooperate more to build a more prosperous, resilient and autonomous region. Topics of interests are related to investment, infrastructure finance, bond and equity markets, banking, and currency markets. We invite contributions that propose how China and Japan can contribute to strengthening the regional financial systems and the role of ASEAN as an enabler for closer regional cooperation and integration.
Asia is expected to produce more than a half of the world GDP by 2050. However, the Asian leadership remains weak in the existing international organizations such as the United Nations, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund. Meanwhile, China intends to reshape the geopolitical order with its own initiatives such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Japan and the United States have not joined AIIB and are exploring the way how to engage with BRI.
Balance of power is played out also in the free trade agreements such as the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which, without the United States, is renamed as the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for the TPP (CPTPP). To contribute to the macroeconomic and financial stability, the region has a multilateral currency swap arrangement between ASEAN+3 members: the Chiang Mai Initiative Multilateralization (CMIM). China and Japan contest the leadership in CMIM.
The workshop is part of the research collaboration between the Centre on Asia and Globalisation, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore and the Keio Global Research Institute at Keio University and is funded by the JSPS-NUS Joint Research Project “Economic Cooperation in Asia based on Japan-China relationship.” The first workshop was held on January 16-17, 2017 at Keio University. The proceedings of the first workshop will be published as an edited volume by Routledge under the tile “China and Japan in the Global Economy.”