Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This paper examines the contested process of Asian regionalism with a specific focus on the question of why East Asia has not succeeded in establishing a formally institutionalized regional scheme. To answer this question, I seek to establish a 'bridge-building enterprise' between realism and constructivism. Unlike other regions, increasing economic interdependence has not developed into formal regional institutionalization in East Asia because political factors including power relations (for example, hegemonic competition between China and Japan, the unresolved historical legacy of Japan, and the region's economic and political dependence on the US) have prevailed over economic logic in the region. Although Asia-only regionalism has emerged since the Asian Financial Crisis in the late 1990s in the form of ASEAN + 3 or the East Asian Summit, the progress of it has been very slow in part because major powers in the region have not been able to agree to the boundary of the region or the membership of a new regional initiative. In other words, political struggles in the region have developed into identity struggles.