Asia is changing.
After World War II and the end of Japanese military expansion, many countries fought for and won their independence in Asia. In 1949 China ended its internal disorder by establishing the People’s Republic of China. But Asia was divided because of the Cold War, and these divisions continued until the Soviet Union collapsed. As Asian countries embarked on their own development processes, and they began to reshape the region. Economic integration based on market forces gradually extended to more and more economies. Normal state-to-state relations between Asian countries developed only gradually after the Cold War, but multi-layered sub-regional cooperation mechanisms have continued to bring Asian countries closer.