Peter J. Rimmer

Ocean liner shipping services: corporate restructuring and port selection/competition

An examination is made of the nature of corporate restructuring among liner shipping companies to meet the needs of producers for logistic services within the Asia-Pacific Economic Region. This task is undertaken by detailing the development of the global alliances forged in 1996. Then their impact on port selection and competition within the Asia-Pacific Economic Region is studied with particular reference to the Trans-Pacific trade. As the composition of these alliances has already changed by mergers their likely effect on port destinies is considered.

The Asia-Pacific Rim's transport and telecommunications systems: spatial structure and corporate control since the mid-1980s

There is a need to move from discussing the Asia-Pacific Rims leading port cities as shipping centres measured by container throughput. This shift in focus involves examining how different transport and telecommunications systems are interacting with each other at an international scale under the power and control of major world operators. Using a three-level network framework an attempt is made to illustrate and explain the formation of multilayered trade/communications corridors and hubs/headquarters in the Asia-Pacific Rim since the mid-1980s and to identify the factors affecting them. From this examination of spatial structure and corporate control three levels of cities in the Asia-Pacific Rim are recognised: first level cities with strong corporate representation in container shipping, air cargo, air passenger and telecommunications; second level cities with marked corporate representation in one but not all four modes; and third level cities with no marked corporate representation in any mode but with strong throughput. The third level includes the Asia-Pacific Rims ‘true’ port cities. Perhaps the ambiguous category ‘port city’ should be reserved for them.

The Internationalization of Engineering Consultancies: Problems of Breaking into the Club

Changing global trends in the location of engineering consultancies are examined. This reveals the relative decline of firms headquartered in North America and the rise of European-based counterparts. It raises the question of why multinationals located in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East have not broken into this Western club in greater numbers. Of particular interest is the relatively poor showing of consultancies based in Japan, Korea, and the Philippines—countries conspicuously successful in exporting construction contracting.

Underdevelopment theory: a geographical review

Summary A review is undertaken of post‐war development geography. It focuses, in particular, on the influence of modernization, post‐modernization, dependency, neo‐modernization and various forms of marxist and neo‐marxist theories on geographical research. While geographers have accomplished substantial work on what are now termed peripheral capitalist societies they have remained dependent upon other disciplines, such as economics and sociology, for theoretical innovations. A critical review of the current polarization of development geography into a neo‐modernization school and a marxist school suggests that the former has little to offer. The challenge to geographers, therefore, is to work towards a theory of underdevelopment. Before progress can be made on this score geographers will have to overcome the problems stemming from the fragmentation of marxist research.

The Japanese Internet: Visionaries and Virtual Democracy

An examination is made of how the development of the Internet in Japan is likely to affect civic rights and the relationship between citizens and their government. This was undertaken to determine if the trajectory of Internet development in Japan, with its distinct locational and corporate biases, has followed the predictions of two prominent Japanese commentators: the visionary Kumon Shumpei who espoused an expansive international perspective that citizens will be transformed into ‘netizens’ in a virtual community; and the media analyst Kogawa Tetsuo, whose pessimistic views were targeted primarily at a national audience and concerned the adaptability of the Japanese to the ‘permanent autonomous zones’ created by information technology. The observations of these commentators on the relationship between the Internet and civil society are tested in an examination of the degree to which the social and political uses of the Internet have followed their conjectures by means of two case studies: the protest movements over United States bases in Okinawa, and the Nibutani Dam in southern Hokkaido—an area with a predominantly indigenous Ainu population. Although the authors report evidence that the Internet has extended the sphere of grass-roots political activity, they believe its effect is likely to be limited until there is a restructuring of Japanese political organisations and attitudes.

Redirections in Transport Geography

Transport geography lacks a unique identity. The role of the engineer, economist and even the sociologist is becoming widely accepted in multidisciplinary transport studies but that of the geographer is not self-evident. This identity crisis stems from the widespread borrowing from other disciplines that has characterized transport geographys development. If this dilemma is to be resolved there is a pressing need to specify what the transport geographers particular contribution could be in interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary transport studies. Before attempting to redirect the subdiscipline towards a unique identity the derivative nature of the evolution of transport geography has to be reviewed.

EFFECTS OF THE ASIAN CRISIS ON THE GEOGRAPHY OF SOUTHEAST ASIA'S AIR TRAFFIC

Abstract An examination is made of how the Asian Crisis of 1997–1998 has affected the geography of air traffic within Southeast Asia and between the region and other parts of the world. The study’s context is provided by an examination of extra-regional and intra-regional air transport networks in 1965 and 1995 to highlight the key features of the period of rapid traffic growth. This exercise is repeated in 1998 and comparisons are made with the 1995 pattern to gauge the impact of the Crisis on the geography of air traffic and the variable response of major regional carriers. Interpreting the many extra-regional and intra-regional patterns emerging from this data comparison proved difficult. Some of the readjustments and realignments can be attributed to the Asian Crisis, others cannot. There are many explanations of these patterns just as there are multiple causes of the Crisis. As the Crisis is related to wider interconnections of the globalising economy it cannot be seen as a separate and isolated event. Invariably, the general effect of the Crisis meshes with specific political factors.

Japan's ‘Resort Archipelago’: Creating Regions of Fun, Pleasure, Relaxation, and Recreation

Changes have occurred in Japanese regional development policy to accommodate the decline in production and commercial activities. Initially, the thrust was on using high-tech activities to promote regional development within an emerging information society. Subsequently, this strategy has been complemented by a policy of regional development based on the leisure and construction industries. Before this policy is outlined attention is focused on examining a conceptual framework for tourism urbanisation and past resort development in Japan. Then the key features of the Comprehensive Regional Resort Preparation Plan, 1987 and its implementation are detailed with reference to case studies in Tohoku, Kanto, and Kyushu and Okinawa. An analysis is also undertaken of key resort facilities with particular reference to golf course development and theme parks. The relevance of concepts fashioned for tourism urbanisation in explaining tourism-led regional development is also considered. Apart from underlining the way in which resorts are blurring the distinction between urban and regional activities the task of monitoring Japanese resort development is highlighted.

Overview: Restructuring Chinese space in the new millennium

This collection is concerned with understanding the nature of China’s spatial development during the transition to a socialist market economy. It does so primarily by questioning the applicability of the ‘desakota’ model and extended metropolitan region (EMR) concept to the contemporary Chinese space economy. Yu Zhu’s contribution extends the ‘desakota’ model by applying it to rural areas without the attraction of large cities. Wing-Shing Tang and Him Chung’s contribution discusses illegal land use and construction to highlight the rural-urban transition’s negative and disintegrative aspects glossed over by the ‘desakota’ model, which stem from the extension of urban administration to former rural areas and the redistributive effects of land use reform. Andrew Marton sees the original ‘desakota’ model being rejuvenated by introducing the notion of rural agglomeration, a clearer recognition of local administrative structures and an appreciation that development issues now take place within a global-local framework. George Lin explores the lingering effects of rural origins on Chinese identity and how this affects subsequent social and commercial groups within the Chinese diaspora. Peter Rimmer and Claude Comtois show how changes in China’s transport and telecommunications industry underlie, to a significant degree, the restructuring of China’s space economy and the country’s links to the rest of the world. Overall the contributions highlight that a new consensus will be required for any revised model of the Chinese space economy if this is to provide guidance for planners engaged in restructuring Chinese space in the new millennium.

Changes in Transport Organisations within Southeast Asian Cities: Petty Producers to Statutory Corporations

A spate of studies of West European and North American cities have charted and interpreted the remarkable and rapid transformation of public transport since the early 19th century. The question arises as to whether the attempts to superimpose metropolitan culture via public transport structures in African, Asian, and Central and South American cities were as spectacular and speedy. Attention, in tackling this question, focuses upon the transfer of public transport technological — organisational structures to Southeast Asia since the 1860s. Rather than accept the transitional process of competition through oligopoly to state-monopoly as given, a test is made of whether the basic prerequisites of these phases can be sustained in a Southeast Asian context, from an analysis of core technologies and the structure, conduct, and performance of individual firms. Past corporate growth paths of urban public transport in Southeast Asia can then be mapped out and future directions suggested.