Shandre M. Thangavelu, Universiti Sains Malaysia: The paper examines the “twin-hub” trade pattern between China and Japan for the past two decades, the rising China hub and declining Japan hub. The paper adopts the “hub-ness” index (Baldwin 2004, 2006) to examine the trade hub-ness in East Asia. The results indicate that hub-ness is due to the technological advances of Japan, with Japan leading the role of distribution center for parts and components. In turn, China remains as the “recipient” center. The results also indicate that the East Asia hub-ness is fragile and will become weaker without strong economic integration in the region.
This is an interesting paper that examines the twin-hub trade of China and Japan in East Asia. The paper needs to provide a clearer understanding of the emergence of twin-hub trade in East Asia. It is not clear as to the economic factors driving the twin-hub...