ABSTRACT
The interaction of industrial policy measures, and related trade and foreign-direction investment measures, is having very extensive effects in the Asia-Pacific regional political economy. The identities of interest between European firms and member governments in their economic community could sustain a common industrial policy, directed mainly against the competitive challenges of American and Japanese enterprises. Japanese industrial policy, influencing the operations of the nation's international firms, tends to have very extensive effects on the regional interdependencies resulting from transnational acquisitions of market power and corporate internalizations of market processes. Some imperatives to engage collectively with issues posed by rising structural interdependence are activating national policymakers, because of trade imbalances. Some regional trade liberalization may result from exchanges within the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, comprising the market economy states of East Asia and North America, and China. Regional industrial cooperation could help to reduce structural imbalances and enhance growth in Asia and the Pacific.
