ABSTRACT
Asian regionalism can be summed up with one simple but decisive fact: in the year 2010 this continent will be the source of 35 per cent of the world’s wealth, against 18 per cent for the United States and 17 per cent for Western Europe.1 The breakthrough by Asia is all the more remarkable in that it is tending to spread across the whole continent. In 1970, Asia’s success was limited mainly to Japan; three-quarters of Asian wealth was concentrated there. In 2010 Japan’s share will fall to one-quarter in favour of China, Korea and the ASEAN nations.2 To think of Asia as a space controlled only by Japan is already an anachronism. The meaning of Asia is above all a meaning of prosperity, a prosperity which is increasingly shared.3
