Remapping East Asia: The Construction of a Region.

• Author: Hill, Hal
• Position: Book Review

Remapping East Asia: The Construction of a Region. Edited by T.J. Pempel. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 2005. Softcover: 315pp.

This volume, in the words of the editor's excellent introduction, addresses an "overarching ambiguity [which] characterizes East Asia". The region has more than a century of "... internal divisiveness, war, and conflict", and "several nettlesome territorial disputes". It is observed that the region is not as integrated as Western Europe, the Gulf States, Central America and the southern cone of Latin America (though the comparison with the latter does depend on which integration indicators are employed). East Asian nations are often better connected across the Pacific than they are with each other. Nevertheless, "despite the overwhelming structural impediments to integration", East Asia is becoming increasingly "interdependent, connected and cohesive". Hence the authors are concerned with the "remapping" of East Asia, not in the sense of defining its outer boundaries, but rather with the "additional lines of cooperation" across the region. There are three principal drivers of this process--governments, corporations and "ad hoc problem-oriented bodies"--from two interrelated directions, regionalism and regionalization.

Organizationally, there are three main sections in the book. The first looks at regionalism in comparative perspective and features chapters on East Asian regional institutions (by Etel Solingen) and its demographic futures (by Geoffrey McNicoll). Next, two drivers of integration are analysed. The chapters on states look at the decline of the Japan-led model in the region (Andrew MacIntyre and Barry Naughton), and Japan and regional cooperation (Keiichi Tsunekawa). The chapters on corporations examine Japanese and Southeast Asian production and business networks (Dennis Tachiki and Natasha Hamilton-Hart respectively). Finally, section three investigates the three I's in regional linkages: institutions, interests and identities, with chapters by Paul Evans (policy networks), environmental regionalism (Laura Campbell) and terrorism (David Leheny). The editor sums up with an extensive, forward-looking conclusion.

In such a diverse and rich collection of papers, it is impossible to do justice to all the contributions. In this review, I will single out three which caught this reviewer's eye. Geoffrey McNicoll provides a typically stimulating and broad-ranging assessment of demographic issues...