Boulanger, Éric

Regionalism in Asia: One Building Site, Three Patterns - 2008.


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For a decade now, Asia's regionalism has been in mutation. There has been a proliferation of economic agreements and institutional arrangements bundled together without much coherence. These regional dynamics reflect the diversity in understandings and interests among Asia's great power, and they have resulted in a form of regionalism that is different from past American and European experiences but whose ultimate form remains uncertain. This uncertainty comes from the confrontation of American, Chinese, and Japanese views of the optimal institutional arrangement for Asia, which leaves ASEAN as Asia's regional cornerstone. This paper first reviews different theoretical views of the New Regionalism in Asia and compares the approaches of the region's main powers. It then concludes that Asia's regional institutional forms arise from the pacific coexistence and competition of various visions and practices of regionalism: ASEAN+3 (favored by China), the Asian Summit (favored by Japan), and the Asia-Pacific approach (favored by the US).