countries China, Japan and South Korea share geographical adjacency and cultural
resemblance and these three countries can complement each other in economic
performance and economic patterns. However, the regional economic cooperation
hasn`t yielded much accomplishment that it should have. Based on the idea of exploring
ways to strengthen the economic cooperation, the realistic basis, future possibility,
difficulties, policy and prospects in the three-country economic cooperation have been
discussed and elaborated in this paper, based on the perspective of merchandise trade.
From the perspective of merchandise trade, the China, Japan and South Korea
economic cooperation has been elaborated in several ways: firstly, the research
background and related theories have been expounded, and the corresponding domestic
issues have also been summarized to establish the theoretical foundation for this paper;
the realistic foundations of the three-country regional economic cooperation have been
discussed in line with their trade statuses, trade intensity, comparative and competitive
advantages; subsequently, the theoretical model based on trade gravity model was
established to analyze the trade expansion effect and future possible trade variations of
the three-country economic cooperation, based on which the conclusion that the three-
country economic cooperation can boost the trade and economy of these three countries
was drawn. Furthermore, the obstacles hindering the China, Japan and South Korea
economic cooperation have been elaborated in line with the economical, political and
social, and external factors. The future economic policy of China has been discussed
based on previous chapters and finally the prospects of the China, Japan and South
Korea economic cooperation have been expounded.
Two innovations have been drawn in this paper: on one hand, the revealed
comparative and competitive advantages of the three-country commodities have been
thoroughly estimated according to the standard international trade classification and the
corresponding issues have been comparatively analyzed; on the other hand, a large
amount of statistical data and measuring economic and statistical analysis methods were
used to establish trade gravity model for the use of analyzing examples in qualitative
and quantitative ways to gain certain credibility of the conclusions in this paper.
The realistic basis and future development of the China, Japan and South Korea
economic cooperation have been analyzed from the empirical and theoretical
perspectives. The fact that the regional cooperation of the three countries has firm
realistic basis has been clarified in this paper. If the three countries can deepen
communication and cooperation positively, the prospects in regional economic
cooperation look bring, notwithstanding the obstacles we have now.
Key Word: China, Japan and South Korea, Economic Cooperation,
Obstacle, Policy Suggestion