A Comparative Study of China’s and Japan’s participation in Regional Environmental Regimes in East Asia

• Main Authors: U-An Yeh, 葉育安
• Other Authors: Chih-Cheng Lo
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2008
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/9de737

碩士 === 東吳大學 === 政治學系 === 96 === The problems of environment have now become an issue of global concerns. Rapid economic development, population explosion and environmental degradation in East Asia also contribute to the worsening of global climate change. How East Asia countries respond to and balance these urgent and important issues is a topic that deserves careful examination. In recent years, several regional environmental regimes have been developed to deal with these issues. As key players in East Asia, China and Japan have been very influential in the shaping and developing of regional environmental cooperation. This thesis seeks to investigate the motives, behaviors and roles of China and Japan in their participation in regional environmental regimes. The first part of this study reviews literature on international regimes, including power-based international regime, interest-based international regime, and knowledge-based international regime. The discussion then focuses on major environmental regimes in East Asia. The thesis selects two environmental regimes in the region, The Tripartite Environment Minister Meeting(TEMM) and ASEAN Plus Three Environmental Ministers Meeting, for the investigation of policy behaviors of China and Japan. This paper concludes that, among the three approaches to international regimes, interest-based international regime offers the best explanation to the behavior of China and Japan. It is also found that both China and Japan play a role of promoter in regime formation and policy implementation. By comparing and contrasting the behaviors and attitudes of China and Japan toward the regimes, this study suggests China and Japan appear to have somewhat different motives in their participation in regional environmental regimes. In short, China is hoping to gain technology form its regime participation, while Japan’s goal is primarily about developing its green industry.