The East Asian Cooperation Models under New Regionalism (Published)

Research on the regionalism in developed countries has been very mature, especially in terms of the study concerning European Integration Theory. Exploration on the topic of regionalism is mainly carried out from two different fields in international relations forum: international economics and international politics. For example, international economics put forward “the customs union theory”, “the optimal currency area theory” and “the fiscal federalism”; while the international politics proposed “the functionalism”, “the New functionalism”, “intergovernmentalism “,” liberal intergovernmental theory” and so on. In China, the real acceptance and use of the concept “regionalism” began at the end of the 20th century. The concept barely existed in the international political field in the early 1980s. Although Chinese scholars have long noticed “regional integration” or “area” problem.  Many scholars have made the introduction and comment on European regional integration, but they didn’t notice the concept of “regionalism” as the relative concept of “regional integration” or “regionalization”.  By the end of the cold war, with an in-depth understanding of European integration, the Chinese become an important force in regional integration in East Asia, with “regionalism” gradually attracting more attention. The thesis will start with some regionalism-related concepts, exploring the origin, the process and characteristics of new regionalism. I intend to use the process of regional cooperation in East Asia as a main line, and study the practice and the development of new regionalism in this area. In this thesis, I will analyze and summarize the development and historical evolution of the regionalism. Furthermore, I will analyze the diversity of mechanisms and arrangements in East Asian cooperation. Following that I will list the problems and obstacles that may hinder the process of the East Asian cooperation, and in view of these obstacles analyze some realistic choices for East Asia in the development process of new regionalism. I intended to start from the historical evolution of the regionalism theory, then I will look at the interdisciplinary research method. Next we focus on new regionalism’s influence on the East Asia cooperation and provide a fresh perspective based on the core values, essential characteristics, and basic connotation of new regionalism, and try to put forward the countermeasures China should take in response to this changing process.

Keywords: East Asia, New Regionalism, Regional Cooperation, Regionalism