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compared to Japan. Moreover, the measures for environmental conservation through the market
mechanism in Korea and China were weaker than in Japan.
Fourth, even though the details were different in each case, international influence caused
by pressure from foreign countries or latecomer in the field of the environmental policy have
contributed to environmental policy development in these three countries.
Fifth, China and Korea, in a relatively short period, have had to address many environmental
issues which took up to 40 years for Japan to resolve, such as pollution control, improvement of
quality of life and consideration of global environmental issues.
6-2 Pros pects
Are the above findings applicable to other countries, especially to other East Asian countries ?
Because only three countries have been studied, definitive judgment can not be offered on the
entire range of East Asian countries. Nonetheless, certain prospects emerge quite strongly.
1) Convergence of Environment al Policy
The most important finding that can be drawn from this study is the convergence of
environmental policies in the three East Asian countries. Vogel states that the most important
conclusion of the comparative environmental policy literature of the 1970s-1980s is the contrast
between the substantial differences in policy style across national boundaries and the relative
similarity of regulatory outcome (Vogel,1987,p.156). He, however, does not take environmental
policies in developing countries into consideration at all. Thus, it is of great significance here to
find similarity of environmental policy outcome between developed country and developing
countries.
It seems reasonable to suppose that environmental policy outcomes, not only in these three
studied countries but also in other East Asian countries, have converged due to the following
several factors. First is scientific and technical uncertainties of environmental issues. In general,
environmental policies have to be made under the conditions of extreme scientific and technical
uncertainties. Because available scientific information and technologies are limited all over the
world, if the government would seek to more advanced policy instruments, policy outcomes
become to be similar each other. Second is flying-geese pattern of economic growth by East
Asian countries. It is pointed out that East Asian countries resemble each other in respect of the
pattern of their industrial development. The NIEs (Newly Industrializing Economies) countries
have caught up with Japan, and the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) countries
are now catching up, followed by China (Ymazawa,1993, pp.24-27). As the above mentioned,
the environmental policy development processes in Japan, Korea, and China were closely related
to each country’s economic growth. In the same way as these three countries, economic growth
in each East Asian country also has been accompanied by the surfacing of environmental issues
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