Aging is a challenge which countries in East Asia and Pacific (EAP) regions are grappling with or will soon confront. It raises many questions for policymakers ranging from potential macroeconomic impacts, to fiscal challenges of supporting pension, health and long-term care systems, and labor market implications as countries seek to promote productive aging. The urgency of the aging challenge varies across the region, but it will confront all EAP countries in time and early preparation is essential to avoid the missteps of other regions. Live Long and Prosper discusses the societal and public policy challenges and reform options for EAP countries as they address aging. It aims to strike a balance between aging optimists and pessimists. On the one hand, the impacts of aging on growth, labor markets and public spending are not the unavoidable catastrophe often feared. However, minimizing the downside risks of aging and ensuring healthy and productive aging will require proactive public policy, political leadership, and new mindsets across society. The report reviews the evidence on demographic transition in EAP and its potential macroeconomic impact. It addresses the current policy environment including pensions and social security, health, and long-term care and labor markets to assess the risks of 'business as usual'. It also suggests policy directions to promote healthy and productive aging in EAP, and emphasizes that aging is not just about older people, but requires policy and behavioral change across the life cycle.

East Asian Dynamism continues to offer a succinct account of Pacific regional political economy from the dawn of the modern world system to projections of alternative futures. Steve Chan is a master at demystifying the geography, history, and culture of the region while bringing to life the current policy choices and dilemmas facing its people

The East Asia and Pacific (EAP) region has an international emigrant population of more than 21 million people who remitted US$112 billion to their home countries in 2013. The region also hosts more than 7 million migrant workers, mostly from other Asian countries. These migrant workers account for 20 percent or more of the labor force in economies such as Malaysia and Singapore and thus play a significant role in the economies of the labor-receiving countries. An aging population in many East Asian countries will create significant labor shortages, leading to greater demand for migrant workers. For these reasons, international labor mobility is emerging as an important development issue in East Asia, with important implications for reducing poverty and supporting sustainable economic development in the region. In this context, International Migration and Development in East Asia and the Pacific analyzes the impact of migration on development of the EAP region and examines how international migration should be managed in East Asia in a way that supports development goals while simultaneously protecting the rights of migrants. The study covers trends in international migration in East Asia and overarching regional issues such as the links between macroeconomic management and remittances and the role of demographic trends in migration; the economic impact of migration and remittances on labor-sending countries and labor-receiving countries; the migration industry; and the policies and institutions that govern migration. This report shows that in labor-sending countries remittances help reduce poverty significantly by increasing income for migrants’ families. At the country level, remittances have a significant role in helping finance trade deficits and in bolstering reserves, not only in the small Pacific Island economies but also in large economies such as Vietnam and the Philippines. For labor-receiving countries, such as Malaysia, Singapore, and Hong Kong SAR, China, migrant workers form a significant part of the workforce, especially in labor-intensive manufacturing, construction, plantation agriculture, fishing, and household services. Migrant workers thus help relieve labor shortages, boost output, and maintain competitiveness. The role of migrant workers will become more important in the future given the rapid population aging in many labor-receiving East Asian countries. Given these factors, the key question concerning international migration in East Asia and the Pacific is not whether it is desirable but how it should be managed in the future. International Migration and Development in East Asia and the Pacific discusses a range of policy options in both labor-sending and labor-receiving countries to address this question.

Soon after the American Revolution, ?certain of the founders began to recognize the strategic significance of Asia and the Pacific and the vast material and cultural resources at stake there. Over the coming generations, the United States continued to ask how best to expand trade with the region and whether to partner with China, at the center of the continent, or Japan, looking toward the Pacific. Where should the United States draw its defensive line, and how should it export democratic principles? In a history that spans the eighteenth century to the present, Michael J. Green follows the development of U.S. strategic thinking toward East Asia, identifying recurring themes in American statecraft that reflect the nation's political philosophy and material realities. Drawing on archives, interviews, and his own experience in the Pentagon and White House, Green finds one overarching concern driving U.S. policy toward East Asia: a fear that a rival power might use the Pacific to isolate and threaten the United States and prevent the ocean from becoming a conduit for the westward free flow of trade, values, and forward defense. By More Than Providence works through these problems from the perspective of history's major strategists and statesmen, from Thomas Jefferson to Alfred Thayer Mahan and Henry Kissinger. It records the fate of their ideas as they collided with the realities of the Far East and adds clarity to America's stakes in the region, especially when compared with those of Europe and the Middle East.

One-quarter of the world’s school-age children live in East Asia and Pacific. During the past 50 years, some economies in the region have successfully transformed themselves by investing in the continuous upgrading of the knowledge, skills, and abilities of their workforce. Through policy foresight, they have produced graduates with new levels of knowledge and skills almost as fast as industries have increased their demand for skilled workers. Yet the success of these high-performing systems has not been replicated throughout the region. Tens of millions of students are in school but not learning, and as many as 60 percent of students remain in school systems that are struggling to escape from the global learning crisis or in systems where performance is likely poor. Many students in these systems fail to reach basic levels of proficiency in key subjects and are greatly disadvantaged because of it. Growing Smarter: Learning and Equitable Development in East Asia and Pacific focuses on the experiences of economies in the region that have been able to expand schooling and learning and showcases those that have managed to pursue successful education reforms at scale. By examining these experiences, the report provides both diagnoses and detailed recommendations for improvement not only for education systems within East Asia and Pacific but also for countries across the globe. In East Asia and Pacific, the impressive record of success in education in some low- and middle-income countries is proof of concept that schooling in resource-constrained contexts can lead to learning for all. This report identifies the policies and practices necessary to ensure that students learn and suggests how countries can improve learning outcomes.

In this singular collection, indigenous experts describe the social welfare systems of fifteen East Asian and Pacific Island nations and locales. Vastly understudied, these lands offer key insight into the successes and failures of Western and native approaches to social work, suggesting new directions for practice and research in both local and global contexts. Combining international experiences and professional knowledge, contributors illuminate the role of history and culture in shaping the social welfare systems of Cambodia, China, Hong Kong (SAR, China), Indonesia, Malaysia, the Micronesian region (including the Federated States of Micronesia, Guam [Unincorporated Territory, U.S.A.], Marshall Islands, Northern Mariana Islands [Commonwealth, U.S.A.], and Palau), Samoa and American Samoa (Unincorporated Territory, U.S.A.), South Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand. The contributors link the values and issues that concern populaces most to the development of social work practice, policy, and research. Sharlene B. C. L. Furuto then conducts a comparative analysis of the essays including their data and social service programs, highlighting the similarities and differences between the evolution of social welfare in these nations and locales. She contrasts their indigenous approaches, the responses of governments and NGOs to social issues, the availability of social work education, as well as API models, paradigms, and templates, and the overall status of the social work profession. Furuto also adds a chapter comparing the distinct social welfare systems of Samoa and American Samoa. The only volume to focus exclusively on social welfare in East Asia and the Pacific, this anthology holds immense value for practitioners and researchers eager for global perspectives.

This book introduces readers to the deep political tensions in the Asia-Pacific and offers classroom simulations designed to encourage students to delve deeper into the issues and dynamics of the region.

East Asian countries are now pursuing greater formal economic institutionalization, weaving a web of bilateral and minilateral preferential trade agreements. Scholarly analysis of “formal” East Asian regionalism focuses on international political and economic factors such as the end of the Cold War, the Asian financial crisis, or the rising Sino-Japanese rivalry. Yet this work pays inadequate attention to the strategies of individual government agencies, business groups, labor unions, and NGOs across the region. Moreover, most studies also fail to adequately characterize different types of trade arrangements, often lumping together bilateral accords with minilateral ones, and transregional agreements with those within the region. To fully understand this cross-national variance, this book argues that researchers must give greater attention to the domestic politics within East Asian countries and the U.S., involving the interplay of these subnational players. With contributions from leading country and regional trade specialists, this book examines East Asian and American trade strategies through the lens of a domestic bargaining game approach with a focus on the interplay of interests, ideas, and domestic institutions within the context of broader international shifts. With respect to domestic politics, the chapters show how subnational actors engage in lobbying, both of their own governments and through their links to others in the region. They also trace the evolution of interests and ideas over time, helping us to generate a better understanding of historical trends in the region. In addition to scholars of East Asian and comparative regionalism, this book will be of interest to policy-makers concerned with international trade and U.S.-Asia relations, and those interested in understanding the rich trade institutional landscape that we see emerging in the Asia-Pacific.