Co-Prosperity Sphere Again? United States Foreign Policy and Japan's “First” Regionalism in the 1950s

Abstract

in the Asia-Pacific attracts considerable attention. Since the end of the 1980s, we have witnessed many proposals for creating regional institutions such as APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation), EAEC (the East Asia Economic Caucus) and ASEAN+3 (a so-called East Asian Community). This movement is often called New Regionalism or Second Regionalism together with the expanding and deepening links within the EU (the European Union) and the creation of NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement) ? Adjectives such as new and second indicate that contemporary Asia Pacific regionalism is not unprecedented. Competition in creating regional blocs was one of the contributing factors leading to World War II. In the war's aftermath, attempts to build regional arrangements in Asia continued, especially in the 1950s and 1960s, leading to the so-called First Regionalism phase, which saw the creation of SEATO (the Southeast Asian Treaty Organization) in 1954, ASA (the Association of Southeast Asia) in 1961, and ASPAC (the Asia-Pacific Council) in 1966. However, many of these arrangements never came to full fruition or, once created, soon ceased to exist. Only one state-led regional arrangement has survived to the present: ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations). But it is far less formal and institutionalized than its Western counterparts. Why are there no institutions in the Asia-Pacific that are equivalent to those found in Western regions, such as the EU, NATO and NAFTA? Since