Transnational Asia and its changing dynamics at the turn of the twenty-first century 1

East Asia has undergone profound transformations since the beginning of the twenty-first century. The first and foremost is China emerging as the second largest economy in the world; its accelerated pace of economic growth and integration into the global and regional economies have reshaped the Asian political economy. China’s role in global governance has been further strengthened by its ambitious Belt and Road Initiative, launched in 2013 (Liu and Lim 2019; Zhao 2019). Second, partly in response to the rise of China, East Asian countries have restructured their domestic economic systems, including the manufacturing, trade, and banking sectors. To some, China’s development model has become gradually more attractive as an alternative to the “Washington Consensus” (a series of neoliberal policies emphasizing fiscal discipline, trade liberalization, privatization, and deregulation). Third, East Asian developmental states have faced increasing challenges from domestic interest groups for democratic changes and social movements, thus disabling them from wielding autonomous power in governing the market and economic development trajectories as they did in the 1970s and 1980s (c.f. Suehiro 2008; Yeung 2014; Yeung 2017). Finally, the flows of capital, population, practices, and ideas have become substantially intensified, thanks in no small part to the advancement of transport and technology as well as the escalating pace of globalization and trans-national knowledge transfer (Liu and Wang 2018; Ren and Liu 2019).

How do we understand these changes and related debates about the dynamics of the East Asian political economy? What are their key characteristics and future prospects? Drawing upon a wide range of data in the English, Chinese, and Indonesian languages, this chapter is divided into three parts. The first section examines the cultural, historical, and institutional foundations in the making of Transnational Asia. The second part calls for bringing network and governance into the center of our analysis. The third section employs empirical examples of changing patterns of interactions between the state and networks in China and Singapore to underscore the growing power of transnational governance.