Asia’s Emerging Regionalism: The Path Ahead

Abstract

The centre of gravity of the global economy has been shifting to Asia. The region's economic integration is an idea whose time has come and Asia could learn useful lessons from Europe. However, it is likely to follow its own distinctive path and India could play a multifaceted role in this historic process. The diverse cultural, political and social context across the continent makes it difficult to “sell” the notion of supranational institutions to individual countries. Nonetheless, even as Asia accords priority to internal integration, it would remain strongly connected to the rest of the world.