Southeast Asia: National Marine Interests and Marine Regionalism.

Abstract Increased awareness of the value of marine resources and their fragility and/or limits is fostering a consideration of regional marine arrangements when states in physical marine regions perceive that global standards and regimes may not adequately address their special circumstances. The semi-enclosed South China Sea appears to be a logical site for regional approaches to certain transnational problems of common marine resource use or protection. Political entities include the Western-oriented ASEAN block-Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, and the Philippines; the socialist states-China, Vietnam, Kampuchea, and land-locked Laos; politically-isolated Taiwan, the British dependencies of Hong Kong and Brunei, and the Portuguese colony of Macau. Each political entity's predilection to participate in regional marine arrangements is determined by integrating perceived advantages and disadvantages to national marine interest, approximated by such measures as marine accessibility, dependence, investment and control, with the perceived importance of politically integrative and divisive factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]