Transitions from Rule-Taker to Rule-Maker? Asian Investment Regimes in Japan, China and Korea

Abstract

East Asia’s changing role in the investment regime is at investigation. The key question considered includes: are Asian countries evolving from rule takers to ruler makers? If Asian countries are playing an influential role in redesigning the IIR, then are they pursuing an alternative path to western countries’ traditional liberalizing provisions? In the first section, I provide a historical examination of European and Western erecting international law and in extension foreign investment law which illustrates the way the Asian region has been at a disadvantage. In the second section, I look at Japan, China and South Korea individually to understand the changing role of Asia within the investment regime. In the third section, I provide a comparative analysis of Japan, China and South Korea to examine the way they fit into the Western Liberal economic order. I conclude that East Asia as a region collectively and Japan, China and South Korea individually are becoming rule-makers within a liberal economic order, hence western countries status as rule-makers is not threatened. The rise of Asia within international investment regime and in extension in the international community does not equate to a zero-sum game of the western countries losing their historical advantage and status of being rule-makers.