ABSTRACT
Pushing reform after Asia’s financial crisis (1997-8), the West’s liberal international order has effected a strategic, triple move.1 Not a cloak-and-dagger conspiracy, as some would dismiss it, this triple move rather reflects an openly calculated coordination of institutional interests to sustain Western capitalist hegemony in the global economy.2 In this case, the liberal international order has sought to (1) (re)feminize Asia by discrediting the region’s claim to a muscular, alternative capitalism; (2) (re)masculinize the role of Western capital in the region by buying out Asian capital at bankrupt prices; and (3) (re)hegemonize relations in the region, both domestically and internationally, by mimicking cold war power politics.
