Regionalism in East Asia: why has it flourished since 2000 and how far will it go?

1. Introduction -- 2. Before 2000 : The case of the missing regionalism. From 1945 to 1967. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Regional trading arrangements outside Southeast Asia. Conclusions -- 3. The rise and decline of open regionalism. Origins of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation. The Bogor Declaration and APEC's heyday, 1994-1997. The early voluntary sectoral liberalisation initiative, the Asian crisis and APEC. Conclusions -- 4. Market-driven regionalization : The emergence of subregional zones. Sub-Regional Economic Zones (SRZs). Regional value chains. Trade facilitation. Conclusions -- 5. The Asian crisis, monetary integration, and ASEAN+3. Monetary and financial integration before 1997. From AMF to CMI. After the Chiang Mai Initiative. Conclusions -- 6. Asian regionalism resurgent : FTAs after 2000. ASEAN : From free trade area to economic community. The ASEAN-China FTA and the weakening of ASEAN+3. Bilateral trade agreements. Conclusions -- 7. How wide is the region? The East Asia Summit (ASEAN+6), variable geometry, and the G20. Australia and New Zealand. India. Central Asia. Conclusions -- 8. How deep is Asian regionalism? Variations in trade costs. Trade facilitation requires deeper Integration. Migration. Conclusions -- 9. Conclusions.

Annotation, This book examines an important economic development in East Asia during the first decade of the 21st century. Whereas regional arrangements were, with the sole significant exception of ASEAN, conspicuously absent before 2000, they have proliferated since 2000 in both the monetary and trade areas. The book places this political development in the changing nature of the national economies, especially their increasing integration into regional and global value chains with the fragmentation of production processes. This is a freshly written, coherent analysis of the topic, drawing upon (updated) material from a series of articles that the author has published on the subject over the years. Although the book is based on theoretical and, especially, empirical analysis of regionalism, it is written in a non-technical style accessible to a wide range of readers. The book is likely to be adopted as supplementary reading for university courses on Asian economies, whether be it in area studies or economics/political economy disciplines