A comparative study on environmental policy development processes in the three East Asian countries: Japan, Korea, and China

Abstract

This study comparatively analyzes the environmental policy development processes in the three East Asian countries: Japan, Korea, and China. The history of policy development and relative sociopolitical background are investigated and compared in relation to the countries’ economic growth using quantitative economic indicators. The comparisons show that environmental policies in the three countries, in the long run, have been converging, except for a certain time lag, and that the environmental policy development processes in the three countries were closely related to economic growth. However, when compared to Japan, the tempo of environmental policy development in China and Korea has been faster than that of their economic growth. Major differences identified in these processes were due to several factors: the role of local government, information disclosure, influence of international pressure, latecomer status, the market mechanism, and environmental issues in the policy agenda. The applicability of these findings to other East Asian countries’ experiences is examined in the final section.