East Asian regionalism: Much ado about nothing?

East Asia has emerged over the last decade as the most active site for the negotiation of regional inter-governmental collaboration. The primary focus has been on trade but, in the wake of the financial crises, governments have also engaged in historically unprecedented collaboration in several areas of finance. Multiple factors have driven this new regional engagement. Although the agreements have been primarily economic in their focus, the primary motivation for many of them has been to secure diplomatic or strategic gains. The aggregate benefits from the agreements are likely to be limited given the low levels of tariffs and the availability of provisions that facilitate the intra-regional exchange of components. They may, however, be of significant interest to producers of specific products either because they provide advantage over competitors (or remove the advantage that competitors through agreements that their governments have signed). The trade agreements thus often reflect particularistic interests that governments have been enlisted to champion.