| Abstract: | In order to predict the future of East Asia in the wake of the 1997-98 financial crisis, Kenneth B. Pyle looks to the region's past for lessons. He assesses East Asia's 'old new orders' and deduces six major lessons from their history that can be applied to the current post-Cold-War interregnum. The region is gaining an unprecedented power to shape its own system and to influence the international order, but its current institutions are built on extremely fragile foundations. The risk is that we are in an age of rising nationalism within the region and the emergence of strategic rivalries, arms races, and competition for limited resources. Finally, in looking at Japan, Pyle predicts that the currently awkward US-Japan alliance will determine the region's stability, despite the fact that Japan will most likely continue to shy away from a proactive role in the area. These lessons lead to the argument that events will drive the region's international relations in the future and that the region must seize this opportunity to create new stabilising institutions. |
