The Game of Regionalism in the Rising East Asia

Abstract

The Ascent of East Asia out of the world's poverty drama to the growth center of strongest resilience is largely the fruit of an open trade and investment based on non-discrimination which as principles is anchored in the WTO. China's miraculous growth and that of Japan and South Korea before it predated their engagement in regional trade agreements (RTAs). Even ASEAN countries, the earliest adopter of economic regionalism in East Asia, have climbed up the lower part of the development ladder before the establishment into force of ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFT A) in 1992. Empirical studies suggest that the various RTAs that have branched out of ASEAN have produced only limited impacts on the region's trade, output and employment. Yet, East Asia has mutated into the world's most active arena of regionalism.