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Japan has achieved the decoupling of economic growth from air-pollutant emissions since the rapid decrease in air-pollutant emissions in the 1970s and the further-abatement period. Air-pollutant emissions also decreased in China recently. We analyzed the factors driving the changes in air-pollutant emission, which enabled us to identify each factor's contribution and compare the further-abatement period in Japan with the primary reduction stage in China. This study performed the Logarithmic Mean Divisia Index analysis to decompose the industrial-emission changes (SO 2 and NO x ) in Japan and China into the socioeconomic factors that drive these changes. Results showed that changes in these factors, especially energy intensity and economic level, contributed differently to the emission reduction in Japan and China because the two countries differed in emission-reduction periods. The decline in emission coefficient, measured by emissions per unit of energy consumption, was the most important contributor to emission reduction in Japan. The other factors did not exert considerable influence. However, energy intensity decrease in China significantly contributed to emission reduction besides emission coefficient, and economic growth had a substantial negative impact on emission reduction. Differences also appeared in contributions from the industrial and economic structure between the two countries. Some factors may have reached their limitation after the rapid reduction period and thus contributed less significantly in the further-abatement period. A tendency toward a similar condition to Japan was also observed in some factorial contributions in China. From a sectoral perspective, emission change was distributed evenly among sectors in Japan than in China. Based on the comparison between the two countries and the “new normal” that China is experiencing, we provided insights for China for further abating industrial air-pollutant emissions in succeeding years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China, Japan and South Korea are the important East Asian countries and being paid intensive attentions to their economic miracle, while their environmental performance is less discussed together. These three countries are in different level of developmental stages from emerging economy to matured developed economy. We hereby provide a laboratory idea to investigate the socio-economic metabolism under typical development stages, so that enlightenment on global resource management policy making can be made. This study is based on a long-time series data on the material flow analysis on China, South Korea and Japan, applied with up-to date standardized methodologies of material flow accounting. Material flows, resource productivity data, indicators as well as Environmental Kuznets Curve are presented and compared from 1970 to 2008. Driving forces for the material flow change were further investigated with IPAT approach. Obvious differences of resource efficiency, productivity and consumption patterns were verified. Japan presented the trend of dematerialization and technology effects made significant contribution; China was highlighted with surging resource consumption stage, mainly driven by the economic and population factors, even though the resource efficiency was significantly enhanced in the past three decades. South Korea presented the combined features of China and Japan in different stages. Based on the analytical results, information and insights behind results, like the industrial structure, value chain position in the global supply-demand chain and how they had impacts on the resource efficiency and productivity were discussed in-depth. The research results provide critical insights to future effective and efficient global resource management policy making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]