'Too often analyses of East Asia are written by outsiders. the great merit of this broad ranging and well-conceived collection is to showcase original perspectives from China, Korea and Japan. As such, it is a welcome addition to the existing literature.' - Mark Beeson, the University of Birmingham, UK

The common images of Korea view the peninsula as a long-standing battleground for outside powers and the Cold War's last divided state. But, Korea's location at the very center of Northeast Asia gives it a pivotal role in the economic integration of the region and the dynamic development of its more powerful neighbors. A great wave of economic expansion, driven first by the Japanese miracle and then by the ascent of China, has made South Korea - an economic powerhouse in its own right - the hub of the region once again, a natural corridor for railroads and energy pipelines linking Asiatic Russia to China and Japan. And, over the horizon, an opening of North Korea, with multilateral support, would add another major push toward regional integration. Illuminating the role of the Korean peninsula in three modern historical periods, the eminent international contributors to this volume offer a fresh and stimulating appraisal of Korea as the key to the coalescence of a broad, open Northeast Asian regionalism in the twenty-fifth century.

Northeast Asia, where the interests of three major nuclear powers and the world's two largest economies converge around the unstable pivot of the Korean peninsula, is a region rife with political-economic paradox. It ranks today among the most dangerous areas on earth, plagued by security problems of global importance, including nuclear and missile proliferation. Yet, despite its insecurity, the region has continued to be the most rapidly growing on earth for over five decades—and it is emerging as an identifiable economic, political, and strategic region in its own right. As the locus of both economic growth and political-military uncertainty in Asia has moved further to the Northeast, a need has developed for a book that focuses analytically on prospects for Northeast Asian cooperation within the context of both Asia and the Asia-Pacific regional relationship. This book does exactly that, while also offering a more general theory for Asian institution building.

Northeast Asia stands at a turning point in its history. The key economies of China, Japan, and South Korea are growing increasingly interdependent, and the movement toward regionalism is gaining momentum. Yet interdependency, often set in a global context, also spurs nationalism in all three countries, and elsewhere in East Asia. Northeast Asia today feels the presence of all three complex forces--national, regional, and global--connecting, competing, and colliding in myriad ways. The authors of this book assess current interactions of national and regional forces in Northeast Asia, in the context of U.S. presence in the region. These seemingly contradictory forces must be considered together; the sparks they generate have important policy implications for the United States and for the region as a whole. Constructive reformulation of these interactions is one of Northeast Asia's most pressing contemporary challenges.

A comprehensive picture of the pursuit of regionalism across Northeast Asia in the years following the Cold War.

Developments in East Asia have progressed rapidly in terms of regionalism since the 1997 crisis. The end of the Asian miracle called into question not only the capacity of regional states to meet the needs of their attendant peoples, but also challenged the viability of regional organizations, such as ASEAN, to adapt and respond to the changing circumstances. Advancing East Asian Regionalism looks at the ways in which ASEAN has expanded since the crisis, and evaluates the potential of East Asia to come together in a regional formation - one capable of representing the region as a whole - akin to the European Community. It draws upon the knowledge and perspectives of academics and policy makers actively engaged in the contradictory issues of regionalism. Coupling case study material on regionalism, institutions, and sectoral cooperation, with theoretical debates on regionalization, this book is an invaluable resource that pushes our understanding of East Asian regionalism forward.

Embedded in the evolving comparative regionalism literature, this book offers a systematic analysis of the factors positively and negatively influencing regional institution-building. The ruptures caused by the Eurozone crises, the coronavirus pandemic and by Brexit have renewed the interest in the impact of crises and critical junctures on regionalism here defined as regional institution-building. Drawing from critical juncture research and historical comparative analysis, this volume uses the cases of European and East Asian regional institution-building to systematically analyse institutional transformations during specific historical turning points and critical juncture moments. Wunderlich's research offers an in-depth analysis of the interrelated drivers, spoilers and dissolvers of regional institution-building processes in Europe and East Asia, and addresses key questions including: Under what conditions does regionalism take hold? What is influencing the initial institutional design choices? What is the impact of historical experiences and well-entrenched norms and ideas? What are the roles of regional leaders? How do external factors influence regional institution-building? What turns a crisis into a critical juncture and are such junctures threats or opportunities? What accounts for variations in institutional responses to crisis events across different regional settings? This book will be a valuable resource for scholars of regionalism, region-building, regional governance and international relations of Europe and East Asia.