ASIAN REGIONALISM

Since the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum began in 1989 as a
regional institution for economic cooperation, momentum for regionalism in Asia has
gradually developed and led to institutionalized regional progress. Regionalism may be
defined as the construction and utilization of multilateral intergovernmental institutions to
share information; to develop, endorse, and enforce common rules and regulations; and
to settle disputes. Membership is normally based on shared geographic space .
Although promoting trade and economic cooperation was the original incentive for
enhancing Asian regionalism, a hope of building a regional bloc to increase Asia’s clout
in global trade talks has not materialized as yet. Regional security mechanisms such as
the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific
(CSCAP), and Northeast Asia Cooperation Dialogue (NEACD) emerged in the 1990s,
and helped not only to institutionalize regional security dialogue processes, but also
strengthen the desire for regional cooperation on more varied aspects of international
relations.
Asian regionalism moved forward steadily until the 1997 Asian financial crisis. Regional
countries were hit hard by the multiple follow-on crises. Affected economies felt panic
and were not able to cope with serious challenges, and they discovered that existing
regional mechanisms were of little use in either protecting the region or helping it
recover. There were two main reasons for this ineffectiveness: first, the existing
mechanisms remained mostly to be regular dialogue forums and could not generate
necessary resources when needed. Second was a lack of confidence; the Southeast
Asian countries believed the existing regional mechanisms served American and
Western interests at the expense of the regional countries.