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Asian-Pacific Rim Logistics

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Asian-Pacific Rim Logistics Book Reviews also bow, at the outset, to the spirits of political and diplomatic theories (constructivism, neorealism, even Kahneman’s prospect theory, etc.) before moving on to the more interesting task of calling regional developments as they see them. These are quibbles for what is an informed and insightful reflection on some of the key dynamics shaping Asia and its place in the world. The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada Joseph Caron ASIAN-PACIFIC RIM LOGISTICS: Global Context and Local Policies. By Peter J. Rimmer. Northampton, MA; Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2014. xxiv, 522 pp. (Illustrations, maps.) US$180.00, cloth. ISBN 978-1-84720-628-2. While there have been many books written about the rise of the Asian economy, none before this one have focused on the key transportation and logistics challenges facing the Asian-Pacific Rim in the twenty-first century. Transportation geographer Peter Rimmer provides a grand synthesis of the region’s supply chain needs and discusses how national transport policies are responding to the growth of a region that stretches from eastern Russia in the north to the Indonesian archipelago in the south and which encompasses China, Japan, South Korea, and Southeast Asia. What is at stake is that due to the elongated geography of the Asian-Pacific region, together with its decentralized production and service hubs and the difficulties of shipping, air transport, and so on, the costs of logistics are inherently more expensive here than in Europe and North America. “A seamless Asian-Pacific Rim is still a long way from reality” (15). This of course impacts on the region’s Copyright (c) Pacific Affairs. All rights reserved. overall competitiveness. By way of a long introduction, in part 1 the author discusses the growth of supply chain management for manufacturing and retail companies Delivered by Ingenta to IP: 192.168.39.211 on: Sat, 25 Sep 2021 11:39:58 together with recent trends in container shipping, cargo airlines, and telecommunications in terms of hub-and-spoke spatial arrangements on a global region level. He uses spatial concepts such as gateways and transport corridors as a way of linking international flows of goods and information with national-level logistics policies and plans, which are then explored in detail for selected countries of the Asian-Pacific Rim in the second part of the book. This examination is also extended in part 3 to Australia and India, just around the corner from the Rim. One can only marvel at Rimmer’s in- depth knowledge of individual Asian manufacturing, transportation, and distribution companies and the very interesting case studies of the supply chain requirements of Toyota, Sony, Samsung, and Lenovo, as well as the up-to-date marketing strategies of Qantas and Singapore Airlines. In a chapter examining the paucity of any joint logistics policy between China, Japan, and South Korea, he comments favourably on Canada’s 397 Pacific Affairs: Volume 89, No. 2 – June 2016 national approach to supporting integrated trade corridors in British Columbia, which is a long-term project aimed at capturing the growth of Asian exports sent by container ships into North America involving multi- level governance, public infrastructure, and the input of the private sector. He shows that similar plans exist for Northeast Asia on paper but very little implementation has occurred, especially in the absence of an effective region-wide institution. Rimmer argues that another missing link in Asian-Pacific Rim logistics is a “land bridge” that could span the industrial and consumption hubs of China with those of India and further into Europe. He points out that a Eurasian land bridge would disrupt the current “hub-and-spoke” system of global transportation links, which gives more or less equal weight to North America, Europe, and Asia (and hence helps set the status quo geopolitics and geo-economics) by integrating Europe-Eurasia-Asia as the core global region, leaving North America as a relative outlier. This of course is exactly why Chinese President Xi Jinping has proposed the land-based “New Silk Road,” which will begin in Xi’an in central China before stretching west through Lanzhou (Gansu Province), Urumqi (Xinjiang), and Khorgas (Xinjiang), which is near the border with Kazakhstan. The New Silk Road then runs southwest from Central Asia to northern Iran before swinging west through Iraq, Syria, and Turkey. From Istanbul, the New Silk Road crosses the Bosporus Strait and heads northwest through Europe, including Bulgaria, Romania, the Czech Republic, and Germany. Reaching Duisburg in Germany, it travels north to Rotterdam in the Netherlands. From Rotterdam, the path runs south to Venice, Italy, where it meets up with the equally ambitious Maritime Silk Road. Although not mentioned in this study, such an enormous project conveys economic and political ambitions far beyond Copyright (c) Pacific Affairs. All rights reserved. reducing the costs of logistics: it is designed to reclaim China’s place as the “Middle Kingdom,” linked to the world by trade, currency and cultural exchanges through an “economic cooperation area” that stretches from the Delivered by Ingenta to IP: 192.168.39.211 on: Sat, 25 Sep 2021 11:39:58 Western Pacific to the Baltic Sea. This book’s strengths lie in its comprehensive grasp and synthetic approach to the material, together with the many maps and diagrams explaining the conceptual ideas and spatial patterns of the region’s transportation networks between countries, as well as national development corridors, either actual or proposed. It will be very valuable for not only business studies scholars but also for geographers and spatial planners interested in the Asian-Pacific region. The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada David W. Edgington 398.
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