Introduction

Asia’s ascending, if occasionally lurching, transformation continues to marvel most observers. Despite cataclysmic changes wrought by the 1997 economic crisis, the events of September 11, 2001, the global war on terror, and a tsunami, the roller coaster that describes the economic, political, and social progress of East Asia, Southeast Asia, Australia, and New Zealand (herein, ESEA, or “the region”) rolls on and shows surprising resilience and progress. Though some alliances and alignments have changed, the nature of international affairs has been redefined, and marketing systems have been affected, the people and nations of the region seem determined to make the twenty-first century “the Asian Century.”