Hegemony And Regionalism: The United States And East Asia After The Cold War Cooperation Relations

This paper focuses on the relations between the U.S. and the East Asian cooperation after the Cold War. It is firstly based on the general relationship between hegemony and regionalism. From the perspective of hegemony, as a global leading force with the purpose of global interests, the hegemony, by forming and establishing a system oriented for its own interests and preferences, exerts great influences to global affairs, including the areas vital and important for its hegemonic purposes and interest. From the perspective of regionalism, the formation and development of regionalism results in the improvement of level and ability in regional governance, results in the political, economic and security order suitable for regional characteristics and purpose. Therefore, a tension arises between the order and hegemony. The tension is reflected in two ways: on the one hand, regionalism corresponds to hegemony; on the other hand, regionalism challenges and influences hegemonic interests. Faced with such a tension, from the perspective of initiative, the hegemony tries to control, lead and make use of regionalism. From the perspective of passivity, the hegemony makes great efforts to stop regionalism from attacking and challenging its global and regional interests. The relationship between hegemony and regionalism is dependent on their continuing interactions.After the Cold War, the rapid process of economic globalization and the identity as the sole hegemon in the world bring significant influences to the adjustment and formation of American global strategy. In the meanwhile, the East Asian regionalism is formed and developed by this force. As far as the U.S. concerned, it is mainly aimed to guarantee and maintain its global hegemony and win the initiative in the economic globalization and maximize its interest in the Post-Cold War Era. Regionalism is taken as an important means to serve the U.S. global and regional strategies. As far as the East Asia concerned, with the deepening interdependence in economic development and security affairs, the countries in this area take as their common aim the dissolution of risks from economic globalization and the promotion of security and economic development. So cooperation within this area becomes an important part for each country's foreign strategy. Considering the American hegemony and its broad political and economic and security interests in this area, and the U.S. as a leading force in this area, hence arises the tension between the regional cooperation of East Asia and the East Asian strategy of the U.S. This argument is based on the following facts. On the one hand, the U.S tried to lead and make use of East-Asian regionalism with the help of APEC; and then it exerts influences to the regional cooperation of East Asia (10+3 and the East Asian Summit) in nature, process, route, direction and the establishment of leading force. On the other hand, the regional cooperation of East Asia challenges the U.S. strategic arrangement in this area to a certain degree. Therefore, the U.S. adopts some countermeasures to lead the East Asia cooperation and to stop it from damaging and undermining the U.S.' interest and status in this area.Generally, the U.S' policy in East Asia is based on the relations between East Asian cooperation in economy, political security and the establishment of leading force, and the U.S' interest in this area. According to the universal characteristics of a global hegemon, the main concern of the U.S. in this area is the formation of the leading force. Especially, The U.S. fears that China will lead the process of regional cooperation of East Asia and challenges the dominant status of the U.S. and finally elbow out the U.S. from this area. According to its own characteristics and preferences, the U.S. focuses on the following questions: whether the economic regionalism in East Asia will challenge the economic and trade liberation, the opening up of the markets and multilateralism; whether the security regionalism of this area will threaten U.S' bilateral military alliances and military bases in this area. So the U.S. adopts the countermeasures. In economy it establishes FTA with some countries in this area and gives limited support to Chiang Mai Initiative. In political security it adjusts and consolidates bilateral alliances, intervenes in multilateral security mechanisms in a limited way; it also does not oppose the leading position of the ASEAN, meanwhile, it strengthens relations with ASEAN in all sides. Based on the argument that a tension exists between U.S. and the regionalism in East Asia, this dissertation proposes that both sides should establish linking points on the bilateral, regional and multilateral levels in order to realize the mutual interests in a complementary way.