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The global financial crisis of 2008-09 presented a critical challenge to East Asian regional financial cooperation. Over a decade of efforts to reduce regional vulnerability to financial crisis and contagion were confronted with the worst global economic crisis since the 1930s. The results for East Asia were mixed. On the one hand, no economies were forced to submit to IMF-led bailouts, as had happened so painfully in 1997-98. On the other hand, the most highly-developed component of the project of ASEAN+3 financial regionalism - the Chiang Mai Initiative (CMI), which set up a system of emergency liquidity provision - appeared irrelevant, as the central banks of South Korea and Singapore prioritized the establishment of new swap agreements with the United States as a means of ensuring dollar liquidity instead of relying on their Chiang Mai partners. Nonetheless, in May 2009, the ASEAN+3 finance ministers agreed to a substantial expansion and 'multilateralization' of the initiative. This paper critically addresses whether CMI has been transformed into an 'Asian Monetary Fund' and argues that the events of 2008-10 make substantial additional movement in that direction unlikely. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the efforts of the past decade, maritime piracy remains of international concern today. Countries need to cooperate actively at both the regional and international levels to eradicate the problem effectively. In particular, the nature of the threat in the Asia-Pacific region suggests that coastal states - countries that possess sovereignty over the pirate-infested waters but lack the law-enforcement resources - have to turn to resource-rich extra-regional powers for assistance. Unfortunately, cooperation between such disparate countries has traditionally been impeded by sovereignty sensitivities, as best exemplified by Malaysia's and Indonesia's hostile responses to the United States' Regional Maritime Security Initiative in 2003. Faced with this apparent dilemma, a new phenomenon has emerged. National coast guard agencies, instead of their military naval counterparts, have become attractive alternatives for promoting international cooperation against non-traditional security threats, such as maritime piracy. Spearheaded by the Japanese Coast Guard (JCG), coast guards from various countries have imparted training expertise, conducted joint exercises, hosted low-publicity multilateral meetings, and even transferred security equipment across international borders. Together they have succeeded in promoting cooperation without arousing the sovereignty sensitivities often associated with such cooperation. This article analyzes the evolution of coast guard cooperation in Asia, highlighting in particular the Japanese Coast Guard's success in this endeavor. With the general alignment of regional and global power interests in Southeast Asia, coast guard agencies hold promise for extra-regional powers wishing to help eradicate maritime piracy in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the influence of globalization on a state's trade policy and politics through the study of Japan-China trade friction over safeguards. Two hypotheses are presented: the state shows transformative capacity to formulate trade policy for maintaining overall interest of national industries in rapidly evolving international marketplaces, and division in trade policy preferences among societal actors due to globalized corporate activities has a critical influence on a state's trade policy. In the two case studies, the Japanese government showed different responses to demand for invoking safeguard measures. In the textile case, the government maintained a stance against the measures, stressing the need for structural reform. In the agricultural case, the government invoked emergency import curbs on farm products rather swiftly after an import surge became a serious problem. In addition to the different degree of support from political circles, policy preferences of government agencies concerned produced this difference. While the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) took into account the evolving influence of China on Japanese industries, the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) handled the issue from a purely domestic standpoint. Division in policy preferences among societal actors also differed in the two cases. In the textile case, opposition from producers engaging in operations in China impeded a petition itself or helped to create public opinions against import restrictions. In the agricultural case, trading houses, main actors engaging in the development and imports of Chinese products, did not implement overt opposition activities because of their interests in desirable relations with the agricultural groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why, in July 1991, did Japan suddenly reverse years of opposition to regional security multilateralism in East Asia, and propose a multilateral security dialogue? This study argues that two factors largely account for the so-called Nakayama proposal. First, after the Gulf War and in the midst of Soviet collapse, Japan concluded that it would have to play a larger international security role. Second, Japan realized that as a consequence it would need to expand its efforts to reassure Asian countries mistrustful of Japanese military power as a result of historical experience. Japanese policy-makers thus came to conceive of a multilateral security dialogue as a means for reassuring Asian countries about its plan to send troops overseas to participate in United Nations peacekeeping. Secondary factors contributing to Japan's decision to promote security multilateralism include the declining Soviet threat, fear of American withdrawal, and competition from other countries with differing conceptions of what form security multilateralism should assume. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]