CONTEMP

• Regions


  A group of countries located in the same geographically specified area
• Regionalization


  A political ideology that favors a specific region over a greater area
• Regions


  • Combination of two regions
  • Combination of more than two regions organized to regulate and oversee flows and policy choices
• Asian Regionalism


  A political ideology that favors the Asian region over a greater area
• The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) was born with five original members: Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore


  August 8, 1967
• First ASEAN summit meeting was held

  1976
• ASEAN Plus Three (Japan, South Korea, China) was instituted

  1997
• Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC)

  Regional economic forum established with the United States' strong support
• Regionalism


  Created as a sort of counter-globalization
• Globalization


  The expansion and intensification of social relations and consciousness across world-space and world-time
• Differences between Regionalization and Globalization

  • Globalization promotes integration of economies across state borders all around the world
  • Regionalization divides an area into smaller segments
  • Globalization allows many corporations to trade on international level and allows free market
  • Regionalization is more likely to develop monopolies
  • Globalization accelerates multiculturalism through free and inexpensive movement of people
  • Regionalization does not support multiculturalism
  • Globalized international communities are more willing to aid countries stricken by disasters
  • A regionalized area does not get involved in the affairs of other areas
  • Globalization has driven great advances in technology
  • Advanced technology is rarely available in one country or region
• Regional Integration


  The process by which two or more nation-states agree to co-operate and work closely together to achieve peace, stability and wealth
• Reasons why countries form Regional Associations

  • Military Defense
  • Economic Crisis
  • Resources
  • Protection of Independence
• Factors leading the Asian Region into greater Integration

  • Integration has been market-driven
  • Formal institutions such as the Asian Development Bank (ADB) were established
  • Economic grants and overseas development assistance are made available by better Asian economies
  • Production networks have expanded
  • Cooperation among the ASEAN and East Asian countries ensued the ASEAN + 3 Financial Minister's Process
• Challenges to Regionalism


  • Resurgence of militant nationalism and populism
  • Continuing financial crisis
  • Conflict between sovereignty and regional stability
  • Differing visions of regionalism
• ASEAN was founded on August 8, 1967 by Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines
• Tun Abdul Razak: 'We the nations and peoples of Southeast Asia must get together and form by ourselves a new perspective and a new framework for our region. It is important that individually and jointly we should create a deep awareness that we cannot survive for long as independent but isolated peoples unless we also think and act together and unless we prove by deeds that we belong to a family of Southeast Asian nations bound together by ties of friendship and goodwill and imbued with our own ideals and aspirations and determined to shape our own destiny'
• How ASEAN confronts the challenges of globalization, regionalization, and COVID-19


  • Energy and environmental concerns
  • Migration
  • Organized crime and threats from "non-state" actors
  • Weakening regional institutions because of rifts between authoritarian members of ASEAN
  • Shifts in balance of power
  • Expanding roles of the Military
  • Globalization and Democracy
  • COVID-19
• Some Asian countries like South Korea acted swiftly to ramp up health systems, in some instances before even a single COVID-19 case had been confirmed within borders