Asia in the transforming global economy

Against the backdrop of de-globalisation, technological disruption, geopolitical shifts and post-pandemic recovery, Asia has become the core engine of the transforming global economy. This special issue ‘Asia in the Transforming Global Economy’ responds to the urgent need for rethinking classical theories of economic geography and updating analytical frameworks for regional development. Since China plays a pivotal role in the economies of Asia and the world as a whole, the nine empirical studies published here also focus primarily on China. They place emphasis on the regional transformation of the country, covering digital transformation and global value chain participation, global production networks and strategic coupling, regional economic resilience from evolutionary and network perspectives, administrative governance and regional industrial complexity. Collectively, these contributions reveal how Asian regions adapt to and reshape global economic restructuring through digitalisation, institutional innovation, strategic coupling, skill upgrading and governance reform. They advance theoretical understandings of evolutionary economic geography, global production networks and regional resilience, and provide empirical implications for promoting sustainable and inclusive development of not only China, but also of Asian economies in a turbulent world.