« Taiwan Journal of Political Science No.14Publish: 2001/06

The Development of Regionalism in East Asia and the Role of Taiwan

Author: Chyuan-jenq Shiau

Abstract / Chinese PDF Download

From  a  historical  perspective,  this  article  tries  to  analyze  the  formation  and development  of  three  sorts  of  regionalism  in  East  Asia.  Any  regionalism  obviously entails specific patterns of competition and cooperation among the related countries,and thus  different  interest  to  all  of  them.  These  countries  collude  and  collide  from  one another accordingly when the regionalism forms, operates, and changes. In order to upgrade political autonomy and accelerate economic development of the ASEAN nations as a whole, Aseanism was originated in the presence of the East-West confrontation  in  the  Cold-war  era,  and  expanded  when  economic  cooperation  and security consultation had been emphasized in the age of the Post Cold-war. Furthermore, while   the   U.S.   and   some   other   advanced   countries   attempted   to   promote   an Asia-Pacificism  to  rearrange  the  political  and  economic  order  in  East  Asia  after  the phase-out of the Cold-war, China and Japan respectively endorsed different versions of East-Asianism  when  they  each  had  distinct  strategic  interests  and  considerations.  The development  of  these  sorts  of  regionalism  had  been  conditioned  by  the  hegemonic struggle  between  the  continental  world  and  the  maritime  world  of  the  region  in  the Cold-war  era;  this  impact  seems  to  have  still  been  there  when  the  struggle  obviously continues.

Keywords:ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF)、Aseanism、Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC)、Asia-Pacificism、East-Asianism、Regionalism、the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)