Two funerals and a wedding? The ups and downs of regionalism in East Asia and Asia-Pacific after the Asian crisis

The principal regional organizations in East Asia and Asia-Pacific, ASEAN a nd APEC, are widely seen to be crisis-stricken, 'becalmed' or 'adrift'. At the same time, East Asia is witnessing the emergence of a new, as yet embry onic body, ASEAN Plus Three (APT), and ambitious projects implying closer i ntegration between Northeast and Southeast Asia are being mooted. Departing from an analysis of the determinants of the success and failure of regiona l integration, this article discusses the roots of the perceived decline of ASEAN and APEC and the origins of the rapid rise of APT. The Asian financi al crisis in particular, it is argued, has been instrumental both in underm ining ASEAN and APEC and in fostering the rise of APT. The crisis has bruta lly exposed the structural weaknesses of ASEAN and APEC, both of which are handicapped by the political and economic diversity of their member states and the absence of a benevolent dominant state or coalition of states. It h as simultaneously fuelled the development of APT because it has greatly str engthened perceptions of mutual economic interdependence and vulnerability in East Asia and resentment against the West and the US. As APT is likely t o exhibit similar structural weaknesses to ASEAN and APEC, the odds, howeve r, are against it developing into a strong regional organization, notwithst anding the possibility that, in the near future, external forces and trends (stagnation of world trade liberalization, closer European and American in tegration) will, if anything, encourage plans for closer East Asian integra tion.