黃砂와 東北아시아 環境協力

Abstract

The Northeast Asian region needs to establish a regional cooperation regime to address the serious Yellow Dust problems, which sweep through the whole region every year. Despite the fact that Yellow Dust problems originate in China (and Mongolia), its transnational impacts on their neighboring states such as Korea and Japan along with China's incapability of resolving problems on its own require effective cooperation among the Northeast Asian states. There are several elements that we need to bear in mind in creating a regional cooperation institution. First, the concept of an ecological region needs to be incorporated in creating an environmental cooperation regime. Heavy reliance on already existing political system may hamper regional efforts to address the Yellow Dust problem effectively. Second, we also need to consider the fact that Northeast Asia lacks any possible candidate for a strong leadership in forming regional initiatives as found in other regions such as the role of France in the Mediterranean region. Therefore, different form of institution such as soft-institution may be a better fit for Northeast Asia. Third, the focus of the cooperation should be given on how to provide advanced technologies and ample capitals to China which can be seen as the ultimate issue in resolving decertification problems while achieving sustainable development in China. In other words, the regional efforts should find out ways to provide these technologies and capitals to China from other regional states such as Korea and Japan. These include tackling the problems of deep influence of Guanxi (or particularist relationships) as well as the lack of Rule of Law in Chinese society which have prevented environmental policies from being implemented effectively in China.