ABSTRACT
The existing theories of International Relations (IR) have been tainted by the special experience of the Cold War years: high security tensions combined with little economic interdependence between East and West while Liberal theorists championed high economic interdependence backed by security cooperation among the Western partners as proof of their theory. This chapter calls this paradoxical coexistence of high economic interdependence and high security tensions in East Asia an 'East Asian paradox'. This is justifiably called a 'paradox' because it goes against the conventional wisdom about the relationship between security and economic interdependence in IR theory. It shows that Realist theory predicts that security tensions lead to low economic interdependence and lack of such tensions leads to high economic interdependence. The chapter argues that despite many disagreements, Realist and Liberal theories have much in common when it comes to the relationship between economic interdependence and security.
