Compelling reasons exist in Asia for closer economic cooperation and reduction of political convicts. Asia scored in the 70s one of the highest growth rates in the world and many knowledgeable persons predicted that Asia would be the fastest growing r...
Compelling reasons exist in Asia for closer economic cooperation and reduction of political convicts. Asia scored in the 70s one of the highest growth rates in the world and many knowledgeable persons predicted that Asia would be the fastest growing region in the world in the 1980s. Beside the growth potentials, Asia includes countries of different levels of economic development and resource endowments. Broadening the scope to include
such Pacific countries as the United Slates, Australia, and New Zealand, the area encompasses such highly industrialized coultries as the United States, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan, such newly industrialized countries as South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and Hong Kong, and such developing countries as the People's Republic of China, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, and India. Intra-regional trade among these Asian countries in the 1970s grew more rapidly than inter-regional trade. Also, the growing awareness among the Asian countries of the need for intra-regional economic and political cooperation has become particularly acute.
Asian countries, however, have to overcome a number of obstacles before their increasing economic cooperation could lead to some form of institutions, much less the establishment of new economic order in Asia. A close analysis of the patterns of regional cooperation ana interaction among the Asian countries suggests that non-economic factors are still highly significant in determining their external orientation, and directions of cooperative and conflictual behaviors. Intra-regional cooperation did increase substantially ill the 1960s and 1970s. Yet, judging from the changing patterns of the membership of Asian regional organizations, Asian countries are very provincial in their orientation, and the tension of ethnic, religious and cultural origin persists with little prospects for drastic improvements in the foreseeable future. In Asia, the fundamental unit of regional interactions is the nation-state and an inter-governmental regional organization with genuinely transnational authority has yet to emerge. Although, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the number of regional organizations did increase in Asia, their authority to overrule the membership nations, or the index the membership of regional organizations indicates that Aslan countries are unusually reluctant to cross the geographical boundary of their subregion. In the 1970s: for instance, East Asian countries interacted with each other far more than they di4 with countries of other subregions. The same provincialism is found in all other subregions. The South Asia, the Southeast Asia, and the countries in Indochina.