ABSTRACT
Staffan Linder, the distinguished economist and Swedish politician, argued in 1986 that Pacific dynamism “is transforming world politics and economics.” In turn, Japanese military commanders found the Soviet military buildup in the Pacific during the 1980s, with its threat to maritime corridors, a distinct threat. As Japan’s fleet of destroyers began to outnumber those that America had in the Pacific, other Asian nations took action. The shock on the Pacific of increased protectionism in Europe would be enormous. As the Pacific-Asian region grew, some Americans and Europeans became apprehensive about free trade. In America, politicians, labor leaders, and businessmen argued that jobs would be lost, “the dollar will shrink, the energy import bill will rise, inflation will advance, the industrial heartland will decline, investments will be more difficult, and expanding markets will be lost.” In response to Western hostility, the Pacific developed various ways of coping with the possibility of a world recession precipitated by protectionism in the early 1990s.
