Politico-strategic dimensions of economic cooperation in the Asia Pacific

In important respects, the prevailing pattern of regional economic cooperation has shifted since the mid-1990s, with the pace of change accelerating from the late 1990s onward. These trends can be summarised as follows:

• the rise of preferentialism in regional trading arrangements with the sharp swing toward FTAs since the late 1990s;

• the rise of significant financial cooperation; and • the growth in momentum for East Asian-only regional cooperation.