Conclusion
The foregoing analysis leads us to three conclusions. First, the stark juxtaposition of regionalism against globalism is unhelpful in East Asia, where economic regionalisation has been remarkably open and externally-oriented. This functional characteristic fundamentally limits the prospects for the ‘closed’ regionalism project. It also means that the regional re-negotiation of economic order is deeply interwoven with that at the global level. Second, the realm of macro-economic and financial governance has undergone dynamic change and renegotiation since the 1980s. At the global level, the provision of the financial public goods that has long been regarded as a hegemonic imperative does remain dominated by the U.S. and its allies – for example, it continues to provide the world’s reserve currency – but there has been gradual burden-sharing in terms of contributions to and disbursement of capital liquidity, for instance. These ongoing global renegotiations impact on the major East Asian economic powers. Japan and China are both unwilling or unable to monopolise the supply of regional financial public goods, not just because of capacity considerations, but also because they have multiple aims at the global level – to limit exposure to different types of risk commensurate with their financial profiles, to block each other’s potential gains in status, and to preserve certain beneficial aspects of the existing order while reforming less desirable aspects. Finally, therefore, the point is not that the western-led global liberal ideology and institutions cannot be challenged by regionalist impulses in East Asia and elsewhere, but rather that these existing global institutions are extremely
costly to replace. Thus, it is more likely that regional economic powers will use regionalism as leverage to seek inclusion in the core group of global economic leaders, rather than to alter the nature of global economic order and its constitutive norms.
* Evelyn Goh is a Shedden Professor in Strategic Policy Studies, Strategic and Defence Studies Centre