Introduction

Abstract

Speaking in 1991, a United States (US) official reflecting on how dramatically the East Asia region had changed in the 20 years since he had arrived in Washington noted that ‘In the early 1970s, the region was engulfed in war and great power confrontation, burned by millennial poverty, and challenged by aggressive communist movements. The list of our aid recipients in Asia was a long one…’ He went on to suggest that the ‘transforming developments’ in the region — the tremendous economic progress combined with the end of the cold war, which had made the region one of the ‘engines of global growth,’ leading people to speak of a coming Pacific century — were indicative of the success of American policy in East Asia. Opinions vary on how much of the success can be attributed to US policy, but there is little disagreement on the extent of the success. Both China and the subregion of Southeast Asia have been major beneficiaries of the changes (Solomon, 1991).