[KS] Tokto

[J.Scott Burgeson]

--- On Fri, 10/12/12, Frank Hoffmann <hoffmann at koreaweb.ws> wrote:
I then start  to wonder if maybe what (especially in South Korea) is seen as a national support system for its corporations (e.g. culture as support system *for* corporations, see again the "nation branding" campaign) is actually not what it is, if maybe it is in fact the nation-states and their political institutions in Asia that are the actual movers and shakers. I can't imagine that Samsung or Kia would get any profit from the kind of campaigns you now see in Korea. Maybe the economists on the list have some input?
Naive musings of a non-economist: This sounds rather like mercantilism or neomercantilism to me, which is certainly strong to varying degrees in Japan, South Korea and China. And if protectionism is a key feature of mercantilism, "protection" of territorial boundaries would mesh quite easily with such economic nationalism, would it not? Indeed, the struggle for control of resources and shipping routes seems to be the driving force for most of the island disputes in this part of the world. And at a somewhat deeper level, for instance, one wonders if China's current snubbing of the IMF meeting in Tokyo, ostensibly because of the spat over the Diaoyus, might in fact be a way for it to subvert or undermine the influence of the IMF, an institution of "globalization" par excellence, in favor of its own long-game national interests? Which is to say, playing the "nationalist crazy" card in the most rational manner?
--Scott Bug 
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