The Tumen River Delta Project and Northeast Asian Regional Economic Cooperation

Abstract

This paper analyzes a regional economic development project-the Tumen River Area Development Project (TRADP). It examines how historical and structural conditions have informed new regionalist efforts to promote cooperation in the region, and emphasizes that this new regionalism is not only market-driven but also government-solicited. A unique pattern of cooperation has developed in the TRADP: economic cooperation but with different security concerns, political cooperation but with little common political interest, and subregional cooperation but with limited institutional establishment. The development of this project has been based on the regional division of labor and also constrained by the regional political-economic structure. In many ways, its development can indicate future prospects for regional economic cooperation.