As Asia grows and prospers, its economies are increasingly vital to each other -and to the world. Led by a team of ADB staff, scholars, and advisers to regional policy makers, this study highlights what is at stake the emerging Asian regionalism and lays out the ground for further discussion on how to move forward.

Provides the first systematic analysis of new Asian regionalism as a paradigm shift in international economic law.

This collection of selected studies by well-known experts in major Asian countries surveys, discusses and analyzes emerging problems and challenges facing them. It proposes prescriptions for better regional economic integration and more effective economic management in the future. The book's area of study includes economics and business development, development economics, trade and investment, global competitiveness economics policy in Asia, globalisation, the WTO, and regional and international economic integration.

The structure and policy architecture of the world economy, as it emerges from the historic challenges now underway, will be affected by the dramatic rise of Asian economies and deepening connections among them. This important book examines the dramatic transformation of the Asian economy, the challenges it faces, emerging regional solutions, and how Asia can play a more constructive role in the global economy. Asia is becoming not just the world's factory, but also its leading creditor, and one of its key sources of dynamism and stability. Key questions are identified and addressed in three areas: Asia's growth and productivity, financial stability, and regional economic integration. In each of these areas, the contributing authors evaluate current trends and the forces shaping the future. They consider whether the regions progress is sustainable and what it will take to make it so. How is Asia reshaping its economy in response to the changing global landscape? More urgently, how can Asia weather the severe, global financial and economic stormoriginating from the global credit crisis? How will it extend its gains to people left behind? And how can it contribute to better governance and greater prosperity in the world economy? This book covers new ground by connecting theory, assembling detailed evidence on trends and challenges, and offering forwardlooking policy prescriptions. This timely book will appeal to Asian economic policymakers as well as postgraduate students interested in Asian economics, international economics and regional integration. Staff of international and regional organizations interested in Asian economics will also find this book invaluable.

With the disappearance of the imperial structures that had dominated Southeast Asia, newly independent states had to develop foreign policies of their own. But so far few if any of these states have been willing to allow the public to explore any documentation of their activities. Building on his earlier work that drew on U.K. records, the author incorporates material from New Zealand archives -- which also contain reports from Australian and Canadian diplomats -- to provide a historical analysis of the foreign policies of Southeast Asian nations from a New Zealand perspective.

The Routledge Handbook of Asian Regionalism is a definitive introduction to, and analysis of, the development of regionalism in Asia, including coverage of East Asia, Southeast Asia and South Asia. The contributors engage in a comprehensive exploration of what is arguably the most dynamic and important region in the world. Significantly, this volume addresses the multiple manifestations of regionalism in Asia and is consequently organised thematically under the headings of: conceptualizing the region economic issues political issues strategic issues regional organizations As such, the Handbook presents some of the key elements of the competing interpretations of this important and highly contested topic, giving the reader a chance to evaluate not just where Asian regionalism is going but also how the scholarship on Asian regionalism is analysing these trends and events. This book will be an indispensable resource for students and scholars of Asian politics, international relations and regionalism.

Asia is a crucial battleground for power and influence in the international system. It is also a theater of new experiments in regional cooperation that could redefine global order. Whose Ideas Matter? is the first book to explore the diffusion of ideas and norms in the international system from the perspective of local actors, with Asian regional institutions as its main focus. There's no Asian equivalent of the EU or of NATO. Why has Asia, and in particular Southeast Asia, avoided such multilateral institutions? Most accounts focus on U.S. interests and perceptions or intraregional rivalries to explain the design and effectiveness of regional institutions in Asia such as SEATO, ASEAN, and the ASEAN Regional Forum. Amitav Acharya instead foregrounds the ideas of Asian policymakers, including their response to the global norms of sovereignty and nonintervention. Asian regional institutions are shaped by contestations and compromises involving emerging global norms and the preexisting beliefs and practices of local actors. Acharya terms this perspective "constitutive localization" and argues that international politics is not all about Western ideas and norms forcing their way into non-Western societies while the latter remain passive recipients. Rather, ideas are conditioned and accepted by local agents who shape the diffusion of ideas and norms in the international system. Acharya sketches a normative trajectory of Asian regionalism that constitutes an important contribution to the global sovereignty regime and explains a remarkable continuity in the design and functions of Asian regional institutions.

Regionalism in the Asia-Pacific is a complex and rapidly evolving phenomenon. This volume explores the relationship between globalization and regionalization, between states, markets and civil society, and between US hegemony and Asian aspirations.