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This chapter discusses the nature of International and Comparative Education in East and South East Asia through the different organizations, networks, and programs formed to cater to the field. It gives an overview of the existing networks in international and comparative education, related activities, and studies instituted to strengthen the field in the region. Given the more developed network in East Asia, this chapter also highlights the increasing importance of international and comparative education in South East Asia, through the broader base of objectives also defined in the Association of South East Asian Nation (ASEAN) Economic Community (AEC) of 2015. Opportunities and policy reorientations (in education) set to present and utilize the field in both regions are also examined.

This chapter focuses on South Korea’s newly found regional leadership, as the emergent middle power of East Asia, in order to advance regional integration and institution-building. Policy leadership is observed and analyzed from an international lens, linked to the literature of middle powers. The chapter first conceptualizes middle powers in connection with the issue of international leadership, since such states often play important roles in promoting cooperation. The chapter looks especially into South Korea’s foreign policy behavior toward East Asian regional processes and how it has manifested innovative and capable leadership. More specifically, the last three presidencies of Kim Dae-jung (1998–2002), Roh Moo-hyun (2003–2008), and Lee Myung-bak (2008–2013) are scrutinized in the hope of underscoring how their particular administrations, political leadership, and strategic approaches to foreign policy toward the region influenced South Korea’s regional leadership attempts and middle power status.

This chapter elaborates on the perspectives of financial development of countries of Central Asia and China through cooperation with Russia. The authors determine financial resources for the development of the countries of Central Asia and China and figure out possible scenarios for attracting additional financial resources and conclude that financial resources have a decisive role in socioeconomic development. It is substantiated that the increase and expansion of cooperation with Russia are the preferable scenario for attracting additional financial resources. The authors recommend expanding cooperation with Russia within the implementation of the selected optimal scenario are given.

In the first two decades of the twenty-first century, low-cost carriers grew rapidly in many low- and middle-income economies. In this chapter, we examine the geography and network structure of low-cost carriers in such economies across Asia in 2018. We use these analyses to explore the relationship between budget airlines and economic development. Levels of disposable income and infrastructure adequacy help to account for the significance of low-cost airlines in some middle-income economies. And in turn, these airlines by fostering higher levels of accessibility and personal mobility may help catalyze faster development. However, the environmental externalities associated with aviation, especially atmospheric emissions, raise concerns about the sustainability of this mode. We assess these concerns and focus in particular on the development of low-cost carriers fleets in Asia. We ask whether the acquisition of more fuel-efficient aircraft will ameliorate aviation's environmental impact.

This chapter models industrial, tech, and financial cooperation between Russia and the countries of the Asia-Pacific region. We use several complex methods of economic and mathematical modeling to analyze specific features of such cooperation and determine critical factors in industrial, technological, and financial development. The preferable choice for the Asia-Pacific region is cooperation with Russia, which is ready for an increase in imports of industrial and high-tech products as well as joint industrial innovational entrepreneurship. Investments would lead to synergetic effects, ensuring simultaneous industrial, technological, and financial development.

Post-crisis policy measures in Asia have focussed on banking sector and market reform. The paper argues that in order to propel growth, banking and market reform in Asia must be undertaken with the view that they are not mutually exclusive competitive tradeoffs. Rather banks and markets must be viewed as complementary supportive pillars in a financial system. Additionally, legal and functional reform must be undertaken simultaneously. The paper proposes that a likely consequence of doing so will enable creating a four-pillared multi-dimensional growth paradigm in the region to help restore and promote growth.

This chapter uses new data sets to analyze labor market integration between 1882 and 1936 in an area of Asia stretching from South India to Southeastern China and encompassing the three Southeast Asian countries of Burma, Malaya, and Thailand. We find that by the late nineteenth century, globalization, of which a principal feature was the mass migration of Indians and Chinese to Southeast Asia, gave rise to both an integrated Asian labor market and a period of real wage convergence. Integration did not, however, extend beyond Asia to include core industrial countries. Asian and core areas, in contrast to globally integrated commodity markets, showed divergent trends in unskilled real wages.

Why have so many overlapping regional institutions been established in the Asia-Pacific? Is there any possibility of a convergence of these institutions into a single (or a few) “authoritative” regional institution(s)? What implications do the emerging overlapping regional institutions have for an evolving regional architecture in Asia? I argue first that the proliferation of regional institutions reflects complicated strategies taken by the countries to respond to the increased insecurity and uncertainty caused by the structural changes. Second, the countries of the region are taking a variety of national strategies through regional institutions, ranging from engagement to soft balancing and risk-hedging, to respond to these changes. Third, all the states of the region want to maintain a variety of institutional choices to respond to their uncertain futures. Fourth, what makes the institution-building so complicated lies in the fact that there are two major (and uncertain) powers to whom the regional countries have to respond through regional institutions: the United States and China. This makes the bargaining game for regional institution-building more complicated and competitive. Fifth, the amalgamation or convergence of the existing institutions into a single (or few) “authoritative” institution(s) through “institutional competition” will not take place in the foreseeable future. Sixth, the countries of the region may engage in “forum shopping.” Seventh, the roles of these institutions have been and will be quite modest. However, the regional institutions could to some extent contribute to moderating inter-state tensions and putting institutional constraints on the deviant behaviors of member countries.