A New East-West Synthesis? APEC and Competing Narratives of Regional Integration in the Post-Cold War Asia-Pacific

The Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum (APEC), inaugurated in 1989, is emerging as part of wider efforts to manage transition from Cold War to post-Cold War era in Asia-Pacific and beyond. The rise of APEC and a growing emphasis on Asian-Pacific integration are linked to dominant Anglo-US narratives that represent rapid economic growth of East Asia as dawning of a prosperous Pacific Century one that will see center of gravity of world economy shift to Asia-Pacific.1 For example, C. Fred Bergsten, director of Institute for International Economics and former chair of APEC Eminent Persons Group, has argued that APEC is an important vehicle for regional integration and economic prosperity, at same time that it represents a possible new force for global liberalization.2 By contrast, some observers based in East Asia such as Helen Nesadurai, senior analyst at Institute of Strategic and International Studies in Kuala Lumpur, raise possibility that APEC could serve as an important vehicle for maintaining and extending US influence in region. However, she concludes that this is unlikely, in part because North American politicoeconomic and sociocultural norms are unattractive to many East Asian elites, who look to the East Asian model which has apparently proved to be far superior to U.S. model.3 This latter interpretation highlights way in which Anglo-American liberalism has been increasingly challenged by influential East Asian narratives embedded in politiceconomic and social forces in Northeast and Southeast Asia. These emphasize that Asian institutions