ABSTRACT
From Singapore to Washington and from Tokyo to Canberra, officials, scholars, and policy analysts are discussing the future of international relations in the Asia-Pacific region. They are debating the impact of the collapse of the Soviet Union, the growing diplomatic assertiveness of Japan, the apparent strategic retrenchment of the United States. Beginning in the early 1960s, the Asia-Pacific region was characterized by growing economic interdependence, at least among the market economies centering on the United States. There were also consultations between Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and its major trading partners on economic issues. Finally, the most important of the unofficial economic organizations in the Asia-Pacific region, the Pacific Economic Cooperation Council (PECC), was formed in 1980. The gradual shift of the international order in the Asia-Pacific region from bipolarity to multinodality has therefore increased the prospects for the creation of multilateral regimes and institutions in both the economic and security realms.
