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Tumen River is an important international river originated in the main peak Mount Baekdu of Changbai Mountains. It flows through the Korean Autonomous Prefecture of Yanbian in Jilin Province, China, North Korea’s Hamgyeongbuk-do, Hassan district of Russia’s Primorsky Territory, and ultimately flows into the Japan Sea. Because of its unique geographical location, transportation potential and rich in natural resources, it was identified as the key support project in1991by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). The surrounding five countries, China, Russia, North Korea, Mongolia and South Korea actively participated in the development of the Tumen River area, especially China, Russia and North Korea. They constructed the infrastructure construction of highway, railway, aviation, ports, telecommunications, energy in their respective areas, and strengthened the economic and trade cooperation and communication. After20years of independent development and bilateral, multilateral cooperation, the Tumen River area’s economy, trade and investment have greatly increased, and the traffic facilities have improved a lot. But it was still far away from the original goal of UNDP, its progress was very slow during the20years.On the basis of reference from domestic and foreign research, this article regarded the Tumen River sub-regional economic cooperation of China, Russia, North Korea as the research object, clarified the background and significance of the selected topic, reviewed and evaluated the existing relevant research, expounds the concept and relevant theories of economic integration and regional economic cooperation, explored forming conditions and the course of development of the Tumen River sub-regional economic cooperation, then respectively introduced the current situation of development of the Tumen River area in China, Russia and North Korea, analyzed the main reasons of slow process of the Tumen River sub-regional economic cooperation, finally in order to further the development of the Tum en River area, policy recommendations were provided.The main contributions of this paper are:By absorbing and using for reference of the existing research and guided by the theory of regional economic cooperation, this paper expounded the concept, characteristics of sub-regional economic cooperation and its relationship with economic integration theory, analyzed the current situation and issues of the Tumen River sub-regional economic cooperation from a whole perspective, and provided practical policy recommendations. Data used in this paper were from statistical yearbook or authority sites as much as possible, to ensure them of primary value and guarantee their reliability, accuracy, and the latest.
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