What Form Should An Asian Economic Union Take?

The Impetus to Recent Initiatives or Asian Economic Integration: The Asian Financial Crisis

A financial typhoon appeared in the Gulf of Siam on July 2, 1997, first toppling the Baht and the Thai economy and then sweeping to-and fro across East Asia for the next eight months, doing severe economic and political damage to South Korea, Indonesia, and Malaysia. The ripples of the typhoon were felt as far as Brazil and Russia, with an equally disastrous outcome in the latter. Postmortems have abounded since; initially in the form of media and official assertions; next in dissertations from academic dissections; and finally in Paul Blustein’s excellent book, The Chastening (Public Affairs, 2001). Each autopsy report typically contained the following three findings, with each work differing in emphasis on the importance of individual findings in each country.

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Copyright: Japan Economic Currents, a Keizai Koho Center publication