East Asia´s competitive regionalism

Abstract

The main argument is that East Asia´s nascent regionalism is driven by competition within the region and with NAFTA and the EU. Unlike France and Germany which consciously led in European integration to avoid a catastrophic war again, the lynchpin of East Asian regionalism is actually ASEAN. However, the strategic rivalry between the two great Asian powers of China and Japan is also driving East Asian regionalism because they are competing to establish FTAs, bilaterally and multilaterally, with Southeast Asia. This article will first define the terms “regionalism”, “South” and “Global Hegemony”. Then it will examine the engines which drive the “concentric circles” of East Asian regionalism (ASEAN, APT, EAS and APEC). This paper will also analyze how the impetus and threats of “global hegemony” have facilitated --- often unwittingly --- and paradoxically also hindered the grand enterprise of East Asian regionalism. Following that is the question whether the rise of China in East Asia will challenge US global hegemony and perhaps replace it with a “local hegemony”. It will conclude by examining the problems and promises of East Asian regionalism and South-South alignments in an American global hegemonic system which is eroded by Washington´s futile war on terror and marked by instability in the global financial system as evidenced by the US sub-prime housing mortgage woes.