Asian Regionalism: Not so New, Not so Effective

The ADB Working Paper Series on Regional Economic Integration focuses on topics relating to regional cooperation and integration in the areas of infrastructure and software, trade and investment, money and finance, and regional public goods. The Series is a quick-disseminating, informal publication that seeks to provide information, generate discussion, and elicit comments. Working papers published under this Series may subsequently be published elsewhere. Disclaimer: The views expressed in this paper are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the Asian Development Bank or its Board of Governors or the governments they represent. The Asian Development Bank does not guarantee the accuracy of the data included in this publication and accepts no responsibility for any consequence of their use. Use of the term "country" does not imply any judgment by the authors or the Asian Development Bank as to the legal or other status of any territorial entity.

Journal of Asian Economics, 1995

Review by Menzie Chinn Recent years have witnessed a burgeoning interest in East Asia and Pacific Basin economic relations. In gathering together a collection of articles dealing with the diffuse topic of Asia-Pacific regionalism, Ross Gamaut and Peter Drysdale, two long-time scholars in the field, have done the profession a great service. The editors state in the preface that "[tlhese readings will make the Asia-Pacific literature on regionalism accessible to the large community of people who now recognize the importance of Asia-Pacific regionalism: economists, business people, government officials, and participants..." I believe the book is mostly successful in reaching this goal, particularly in bridging the gap between academic discourse and policy analysis. About half of the papers are quantitative in nature, containing either descriptive statistics or reporting the results of statistical analyses. Almost all of the authors are academic economists, but there are a smattering of non-economists and government officials. After an introductory chapter by the editors, the book is divided into 10 parts. Since there is a large number of articles (30), a comprehensive summary and evaluation is infeasible. In order to focus fully on the central issue of Asia-Pacific integration, I will restrict the discussion to those articles examining the Asia-Pacific region as a whole. Section 1 sets up the theoretical underpinnings for the subsequent discussion of regionalism, starting with Richard Cooper's classic article "Worldwide Regional Integration: Is There an Optimal Size of the Integrated Area?" He points out that since the optimal trading region is the world, arguments for regionalism must be based on the provision of collective goods. The relevance of the paper is limited, as it is not clear what public goods are currently being provided in Asia-Pacific regional arrangements. However, the provision of public goods is likely to become a more

Since the start of the Association of South East Asian Nation (ASEAN) Plus Three (APT) initiative in 1997, East Asian regionalism seems to have progressed and an East Asian Community is just around the corner. In spite of all the pessimism brought about by the 1997 Asian financial crisis, East Asian political frameworks are in place, East Asian regional production networks are the most integrated in the world, and regional financial initiatives have taken off. From a financial integration, financial regulation, and education perspective, however, East Asian regionalism has either stagnated or even regressed. Furthermore, US re-engagement in the region and the increased tension over the South China seas tend to challenge further developments in East Asian regionalization outside of the economic space. This paper is a mini-scoping study to present the realities that East Asian regionalism is still lap-sided: economic regionalism is highly developed, while other key components (regional financial and financial regulation integration, education collaboration, and a regional political framework) are developing at a slower rate, stagnating, and/or regressing. It aims to present the reality of East Asian regionalism, provoke awareness of false perspectives, and present a recommendation towards a balanced and more sustainable East Asian regionalism and the formation of a real East Asian community.

Asia & the Pacific Policy Studies, 2017

The largely unexpected election of Donald Trump as President of the United States has overturned many assumptions and expectations about the future of Australia's regional relationships. Even before Trump's election, however, the history of regional evolution in East Asia presented a number of striking paradoxes and raised important questions about the forces that encourage or obstruct integration and cooperation at the regional level. For a region that has frequently been associated with comparatively limited cross-border political institutionalization and development, East Asia has recently been the centre of a large number of initiatives and proposals that are intended to give expression to particular visions of the region. We argue that the outcome of such regional processes is profoundly influenced by both geo-economic and geopolitical forces. We illustrate this claim by looking at the history of institutional development in the 'Asia-Pacific', before considering the attempt to create a new 'Indo-Pacific region', which, we suggest, has more to do with contemporary geopolitical concerns rather than any underlying 'natural' coherence. The Australian policy-making community needs to think carefully about the implications of the Trump presidency for such initiatives.

2020

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