Economic or Cultural Encirclement? Differential Association in the Strategic Management of Multinational Asian and European Corporations

There is emerging what may be considered to be an upheaval (known in international relations as a deracinement) in strategic diplomatic, economic, intelligence, military, and trade alliances across East Asia and South Asia, followed by Eastern Europe and the Middle East, with India and Japan veering toward the Russian Federation and away from their more traditional partners: United States and Europe, and the Russian Federation unilaterally recapturing the Crimean Peninsula by force from the Republic of Ukraine. The extent to which this political and economic upheaval is likely to exert an impact upon trade relations as well as military alliances between affected countries and the West is the research focus of this article. The research question here is whether this deracinement is likely to influence changes in strategic alliances between companies in all Asian countries including the Eurasian Russian Federation and corporations in the West, not only involving those countries that are changing alliances but also China, India, and Russia (“RIC” bloc without Brasil and South Africa) and members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), in addition to American, Canadian, and European companies, in reaction, with the conclusion being that this is likely. This paper draws upon current literature in global news reports plus the author’s participant observation. The aim of this paper is to identify reasons why this scenario is emerging, why at this moment, drawing on a theory of differential association applied from other disciplines: Asian countries will construct or abandon strategic corporate alliances depending upon their perception of an excess of definitions favorable or unfavorable to changing political alliances, and many American and European firms will do the same. What are such definitions? What will most likely be the economic, political, even military consequences of this sort of realignment? Is “encirclement” the primary cause or the primary effect? This paper argues that encirclement is both cause and effect, encirclement begets more encirclement, as countries and also companies from those countries tend to align and realign culturally then economically in what one might characterise as being a “two-tailed” pattern.

Récupéré en direct depuis OpenAlex et désinversé. Les résumés ne sont pas conservés dans cette base de données : les index inversés représentent 8,6 Go des 9,3 Go de texte de la base, et le serveur dispose de 13 Go libres.