Project: Human Flows Across National Borders in Northeast Asia: Globalization, Regionalism, and Local Capacity Building

The countries of Northeast Asia - China, Japan, North and South Korea, Mongolia, and Russia - have been slow in forging multilateral efforts to deal with such traditional security issues as arms control, proliferation, and territorial disputes, as well as such non-traditional issues as environmental security, economic security, and human security. However there are some signs of interest in developing multilateral cooperation in combating transborder environmental problems, ensuring energy security, and providing for sustainable development. One area in which the need for regional cooperation relates to the growing flows of people across national borders in Northeast Asia and the challenges they pose to both the local communities and the national government. The transnational human flows in this region include both legal and illegal movement of people. There is currently no international research project focused specifically on crossborder migration issues in Northeast Asia. The objective of the project is two-fold: (1) to develop analytical insights to be gained from collaborative and comparative studies of the phenomenon in question that have universal applications and (2) to offer recommendations for building the capacity of the national and subnational authorities, as well as local communities to harness the promises of expanding human contacts across national borders and to ameliorate the negative consequences of those human flows.