ABSTRACT
The 1997 financial crisis has proved to be a turning point for regionalism in Asia. This chapter argues that regionalism in Asia after the financial crisis departs significantly from its pre-crisis incarnation. It analyses in more detail the emergence of a new post-crisis regionalism and examines the reasons for its emergence. Particular attention here is paid to the motives of the two most significant powers in East Asia, China and Japan. The chapter discusses the implications of this regionalism for a theoretical analysis of the global economy. It is implicitly being argued that the monetary and the trade dimensions of the latest round of Asian regionalism are essentially caused by different factors and are responding to quite different external forces. Chinese academics argued, 'in its strategy to solve the Southeast Asian financial crisis, the United States has not fully recognized the importance of China'.
