KJC Korea
Journal Central

Since the 2000s, China has expanded its military footprints in the Indian Ocean and increased its economic influence in the Indian Ocean littoral states. However, from the perspective of India, which has been regarded as a traditional regional leader, China’s growing influence has weakened India’s position and imposed a threat to India’s national security. Under these circumstances, how has India responded? This study reviews how China has attempted to attract small South Asian countries into its economic and strategic orbit as well as strengthened its naval activities there, and how India has dealt with a rising China. The study argues that, facing this unfavorable strategic circumstance, India has actively practiced an anti-China balancing strategy, and specifically, tried to diversify its strategic relations by enhancing defense and security cooperation with its neighboring countries.

Central bank interest in CBDC is increasing. It is unclear whether central banks in the future will compete with each other over the introduction of CBDC or will take a mutually cooperative stance. However, international cooperation is inevitable if CBDC is to be used for the purpose of improving the efficiency of international payments and settlements. Currently, international payments made in various ways have significant costs and technical problems. This article attempts to analyze these costs and problems and whether CBDC can attenuate these problems. In addition, it will examine whether East Asian countries can achieve meaningful results through cooperation in the issuance and circulation of the CBDC. In East Asia, there is a high possibility that, based on the experience of financial cooperation accumulated over the past 20 years, the institutional framework for international use of CBDC in the region can be conceived to increase the efficiency of regional payments and settlements, and to enhance monetary sovereignty of countries in the region. Of course, East Asian cooperation surrounding the CBDC has complex political and economic implications because it has the potential to lead to a change in the international monetary order centered on the US dollar. In addition, higher exchange rate volatility due to international capital movements, and in some countries, currency dependency problems may arise with a generalized international use of CBDC. However, in spite of these costs associated with the introduction of CBDC in many East Asian countries, the benefits that the CBDC can open are likely to be greater. It will be necessary to set cooperation on the new agenda in the ASEAN+3 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors Meeting or RCEP.

In this study, we investigate the effects of government subsidies and the globalization thereof on the short and long term financial outcomes of the Chinese firms listed on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges from January 1, 2008 through December 31, 2018. We employed the fixed effect panel regression models in the study and main research results are as follows: Firstly, the globalization of the Chinese firms have significant negative effects on their short term profitability. The negative effects are irrespective of whether the firms received government subsidies and are even more significant in case of the firms without government subsidies since it turns out that the effects last for longer than four years. Secondly, the OFDI(Outward Foreign Direct Investment) of the Chinese firms has negative effects on their short term profitability for most firms without government subsidies. Thirdly, the exportations of the Chinese firms have positive effects on their short term profitability. The effects are irrespective of whether the firms received government subsidies, which are also consistent with the results from previous studies. Fourthly, the government subsidies for the exporting firms have positive effects on their profitability in the corresponding year only and it turns out that they have even negative effects for the next two years. We focus on the effects of the specific subsidies for exporting firms in order to support their globalization and maybe with unfair supports by the Chinese government on their profitability. The government subsidies enhance the profitability of the exporting firms in the corresponding year but worsen them in the subsequent years, which reveals the side-effects of the government subsidies possibly causing moral hazards and harming the fair competitions of the firms concerned in the global markets.

This article investigates whether it is reasonable to interpret the North Korean department store space as a message of reform entering the consumption era. It further aims to track the process of uniting the aspirations of the state and the people by assessing whether it is appropriate to interpret it as a result subordinate to the government's governing strategy. After Kim Jong-un came to power, North Korea has been focusing on economic revival sufficient to make full use of its urban sales strategy as a national strategy. The urban commercialization process is being executed with cultural processes through the discourse of socialist civilization. In particular, the urban sales strategy modernizes the department store space and utilizes it as a collage element with commercial facilities; it was revealed that the department store in Pyongyang has transformed its identity as a space for vision and service in the past, and has been reorganized into a complex cultural space favored by civilized city dwellers. Consequently, department stores in Pyongyang cannot be interpreted as a result of the augmented consumption level of North Koreans. By lowering the threshold of a department store to induce a variety of spatial experiences, it was considered reasonable to interpret it as a symbolic cultural space and a space of the system, such as the production effect of imitation of global trends, consumption education, and cultural promotion.

A strong source of consumption is the desire of consumers. The formation of consumer needs reflects both personal and social factors. Values are objects that satisfy human needs and are pursued through human activities. In this paper, we leverage the method-purpose chain theory to connect the cognitive structure of values pursued by consumers. The attributes that consumers consider for consumption, the benefits or consequences of consumption, and the value pursued by these consumption behaviors are analyzed through a ladder method. This study analyzes the characteristics of consumption by laddering the domestic and foreign video contents consumed by Vietnamese female college students and identifies the value pursued by drawing consumers’ cognitive structure on a hierarchical map. Looking at the results of the class value map, the most sought after “fun” and “love” as modern romantic ethics consumers, but reflected the reality and situation of the society in which Vietnamese female college students belong as social members, and the pattern of value pursuit was different. In the consumption of domestic video content, plot (attributes) - family love (results) - traditional (values) were also pursued, but in the consumption of Korean video content, plot (attributes) - hardship (results) - universal (values) were also pursued. This study is meaningful in that it conducted on-site surveys in Vietnam, an area that was relatively alienated from Korea wave research, and that the existing trend of cultural content research was not centered on inertia. It was intended to understand that consumption was not only a personal choice but also a cultural consumption influenced by society, and that Korean content provided implications for the direction of planning and production of Korea Wave content as an export content by specifically deriving consumer’s cognitive structure.

Cumulation, which is a special provision of the FTA, has the effect of enhancing the flexibility in fulfilling the rule of origin and promoting intra-regional processing by expanding the area of place of origin. Though most of the agreements Korea concluded were of Bilateral Cumulation, Korea introduced, for the first time, Cross-Cumulation, of which the utilization level is higher than Bilateral Cumulation into the Korea-Canada FTA, which came to effect in 2015. The Cross-Cumulation defined in the Korea-Canada FTA is partially applied to automobiles. Automobiles are a main industry of Korea and Canada is a major importer, and as about 20,000 kinds of components are used for automobile production, the Cumulation provision is expected to be utilized. For this reason, in the present study, we intended to analyze whether the introduction of Cross-Cumulation has any practical effect. In the study, we utilized the Gravity Model to examine whether the components used for the export of Korean automobiles to Canada demonstrate any trade creation effect or trade diverting effect in component imports as a result of applying Cross-Cumulation. The analysis results have shown that the items in Chapter 85 (HS Code) and Chapter 87 have the positive effect of an increase in the trade scale among the countries in the region resulting from Cross-Cumulation. In the case of the items in Chapter 84, as the trade creation effect was shown to be of a significant level, the trade among the countries in the region increased, and in the case of the items in Chapter 94, the trade among the countries in the region decreased and the trade with the countries outside the region increased after application of Cross- Cumulation. As for the study method, the panel analysis method and the Two-Stage Least Squares regression analysis that utilizes instrumental variables were used.

For the reinforcement of international competitiveness of domestic companies amid a rapid globalization of the world economy, the government has provided young people who seek overseas employment with training programs for capabilities required by employers, which helps them to work abroad and to grow into a global talent. In this study, we verified the effects of usefulness of training prior to the departure of overseas employment on the local adaption, as well as the mediation effect of learning transfer and the moderation effect of cultural intelligence among these variable factors. For verification, a survey was conducted among overseas employees who had participated in training and 133 questionnaires were used for analysis through self-reporting surveys. First, the usefulness of training prior to the departure of overseas employment of overseas employees has a positive effect on the both local adaptation and the learning transfer, respectively according to the analysis. Secondly, it has been confirmed that the learning transfer of overseas employees has a positive influence on local adaptation. Third, it has been confirmed that the learning transfer of overseas employees fully mediated the relationship between the usefulness of pre-departure training of overseas employment and the adaptation. Fourth, it has been confirmed that the cultural intelligence of overseas employees regulates the relationship between learning transfer and adaptation. According to the research, the usefulness of pre-departure training of overseas employment can strengthen adaptation, and cultural intelligence of overseas employees can also increase adaptation. The significance can be found in that it offers important implications for the composition and operation of pre-departure training programs of overseas employment.