Since the end of the 1990s, an “East Asian Community” has attracted considerable
attention. A number of policy makers, academic scholars, and business executives have
discussed the possibility of the creation of a regional framework in East Asia2
Regionalization is defined as an increase in the cross-border flow of capital,
goods, and people within a specific geographical area. It develops from the bottom up
through societally driven processes coming from markets, private trade, and investment
flows, none of which is strictly controlled by governments. The core players are
non-governmental actors—firms or individuals. Regionalization can be called a
spontaneous, bottom-up process. In contrast, regionalism is defined as a political will
(hence ism is attached as a suffix) to create a formal arrangement among states on a
geographically restricted basis. Since its main participants are governments, it can be
expressed as an artificial, top-down process. The “development of regionalization”
means an increase in the number of regional economic transactions such as money,
trade, and foreign direct investment (FDI). “Regionalism in progress” refers to the
agreement of regionally close governments to establish kinds of formal institutions such
as the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), the East Asia Summit, or bilateral
preferential trade agreements (PTAs) in order to cooperate with each other on various
issues. Few scholars oppose the idea that both regionalization and regionalism in East
Asia have been developing since the Asian financial crisis of 1997
.
Concerning this topic, there is mutual agreement among international relations scholars
that “regionalization” and “regionalism” are different phenomena, but there are
unresolved arguments as to whether there is a causal relationship between the two.