Since the early 1990s, regional trade agreements (RTAs) covering trade in services have proliferated, with 95 RTAs on services notified to the World Trade Organization (WTO) under Article V of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), as of June 2011. This paper discusses how RTAs...

The rapid economic growth in the region consisting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the People’s Republic of China (PRC), and India has begun to change the strategic landscape of the world. This paper provides an assessment of the region’s unfolding geopolitical...

The repercussions of the Great East Japan Earthquake on 11 March 2011 spread far beyond the geographical areas directly affected. The disaster also highlighted Japan’s many other structural challenges besides reconstruction needs, including persistently low growth, population aging and low...

This paper argues that the collective action in Asia by its regional organizations has historically suffered from a “capability–legitimacy gap”: a disjuncture between the capability (in terms of material resources) of major Asian powers to lead regional cooperation on the one hand and...

The Asia and Pacific region and Latin American and Caribbean region are two regions divided not only by vast geographic distance, but also by disparities in economics, politics, culture, and history. Most recently, a number of forums explored the possibility of closing such gaps and linking the...

In the last decade, East Asia has engaged in constructing numerous mechanisms to enhance regional cooperation in the areas of trade and finance. However' the region's economic architecture exhibits certain idiosyncrasies such as an eclectic institutional structure and a limited level of...

The paper argues that United States (US) participation in the East Asia Summit (EAS)—regional integration architecture led by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)—was motivated by four changes in the regional economic landscape: (i) the Asian financial crisis of 1997 and...

This paper examines the evolving dynamics between economic globalization and Asian regional interdependence, and asks whether and how the global financial crisis impacted Asian regionalism. The analysis suggests that the global crisis did trigger advances in regional policy cooperation from 2007...

The formation of regional production networks in East Asia has occurred mainly through market forces, without much help from regional institutions in promoting the creation of a single Asian market. While this approach has served the region well in the past, the drastic changes experienced since...

Domestic financial market development is a key determinant of a currency’s international status, and financial depth and market liquidity are two essential attributes for an international currency. This paper discusses the status of the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) financial markets...