When Economic Interdependence Meets Power Politics: Predicting the Direction of East Asian Regionalism in Asia's Paradox

Abstract

Because of rapid economic growth and close economic interdependence, East Asia has recently been in the spotlight of regional integration theorists. Currently, East Asia is being remapped in two ways: one is the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP); and the other is the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership (TPP). This article aims at predicting the winner of inter-institutional balancing between the two tracks from a viewpoint of power politics. To do so, realist hypotheses are made of regional integration and they are tested against the Integration Achievement Score (IAS) data. As a result, newly suggested hypotheses and some conventional ideas are strongly supported. These findings hold, regardless of model specifications and measurement of variables. Next, after analyzing how much the RCEP and the TPP accord with those findings, probabilities are presented showing that the two tracks can achieve regional economic integration. In conclusion, the TPP is expected to become the winner of inter-institutional balancing.