Sustaining the Momentum for Building a Northeast Asian Economic Community

This year witnessed political tensions resulting from a series of provocative nuclear and missiles tests in North Korea and from domestic political unrest, culminating in the abrupt leadership change in the Republic of Korea. All these events pose enormous challenges for minimizing the risks of military confrontation and war in the Northeast Asian region. A significant dampening factor on these possibilities is the real progress made in recent decades in economic cooperation and integration within the region, which contributes to reducing military action in the Korean Peninsula. North Korea, however, still remains the critical gap in an otherwise productive network of dynamic regional economic growth. For Northeast Asia, there is a continuing and growing need for promoting peaceful economic interactions and research on a common basis for cross border economic cooperation for the future common good, as a means of ameliorating political tensions and frictions in the Korean Peninsula and Northeast Asia. Toward this end, the KIEP–NEAEF collaborative project seeks to fulfill the need for timely and forward-looking research activities by focusing on some of the critical components, such as strengthening economic cooperation with China and exploring future scenarios of North Korea as an integral part of broader regional economic cooperation in the region. This collaborative work on Northeast Asia remains essential in carrying out activities aimed at building a future Northeast Asian economic community on the basis of the strong network the NEAEF has built over the years for functional economic cooperation, through discussions and consultations among stakeholder country experts on issues such as cross border infrastructure development and financial cooperation. This volume in the series of proceedings volumes is titled Sustaining the Momentum for Building a Northeast Asian Economic Community and comprises summaries of research presentations and discussions on building a Northeast Asian economic community presented at the planning meeting in Honolulu and at the Annual Conference of the Northeast Asia Economic Forum in Hong Kong, China, in 2017. The results of this project represent activities that have been contributing to efforts toward regional economic cooperation and have been carried out in a spirit of cooperation. KIEP is grateful to Dr. Lee-Jay Cho, Chairman of NEAEF, for his leadership in implementing the project, and to the authors of the presentations, conference participants and discussants who contributed to this volume. Drs. Lee-Jay Cho and Hyung-Gon Jeong would like to extend their appreciation to the NEAEF staff for their assistance in the course of the successful implementation of this project, and to Drs. Karla Fallon and Kennon Breazeale for their editorial review and editing of this volume.