Building Asean: 20 Years Of Southeast Asian Cooperation
Two decades of steady progress have transformed ASEAN into a model of a successful regional organization. This volume provides a good introduction to the history of the organization, with informative chapters on its successes, shortcomings and prospects. Economic, political and security issues are effectively woven together.
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The global financial turmoil that began in Thailand in 1997 has forced the international community to reevaluate the institutions, structures, and policies aimed at crisis prevention and resolution. In September 1998 President Clinton suggested that a distinguished private-sector group assess the need for reform of the international financial architecture. With this concern in mind, the Council on Foreign Relations sponsored the Independent Task Force on the Future of the International Financial Architecture, cochaired by Peter G. Peterson, chairman of both the Council and the Blackstone Group and secretary of commerce during the Nixon administration, and Carla A. Hills, CEO of Hills & Co. and U.S. Trade Representative during the Bush administration.
Initially devised to maintain a system of fixed exchange rates, the IMF took on a new role during the Latin American debt crisis of the 1980s-providing moderate amounts of credit, facilitating debt renegotiations, and recommending responsible macroeconomic policies. But the IMF is also applying the lessons of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, where a fundamental economic restructuring was necessary, to Asia. So in Korea, for example, the fund called for reform of inefficient conglomerates and inflexible labor laws. However beneficial in the long run, such changes are not needed to resolve the current crisis. By stepping in too far and too soon, the IMF discourages countries from seeking modest help. Even worse, it encourages bankers to undertake more risky loans, making another crisis more likely.
America now faces the prospect of economic conflicts with both Europe and East Asia. The United States and the European Union have already fired the first shots of retaliatory sanctions over their ever-growing trade disputes. On the other side of the world, meanwhile, Asian countries are creating a bloc of their own that could include preferential trade arrangements and an Asian Monetary Fund. These developments could produce a tripolar world and hamper global economic integration. To avert this outcome, the United States must quell its domestic backlash against globalization and reassert its economic leadership in the world. The new Bush administration should make multilateral trade liberalization a top priority -- or it will face unpleasant economic and political consequences as the U.S. and foreign economies slow.

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