Why East Asia's Financial Safety Net Remains Unused: From Reserve Adequacy to Liquidity Usability

East Asia has built one of the world's largest regional financial safety nets, but the Chiang Mai Initiative Multilateralisation (CMIM) has never been activated. This policy analysis argues that financial scale alone cannot explain this record. What matters is liquidity usability: Governments must be willing to request support, and the arrangement must be able to deliver it quickly and predictably. On the request side, the IMF link, the market signal associated with seeking assistance and access to bilateral swaps may make CMIM use politically costly. On the delivery side, contingent commitments, collective decision‐making, domestic authorisation requirements and untested procedures create uncertainty over timely disbursement. Reform must therefore address both sides. Confidential consultation, clearer communication, stronger AMRO capacity, legal preparedness, operational testing, coordination across safety‐net instruments and gradual resource pooling should proceed together. CMIM will become credible only when its liquidity is politically acceptable to request and operationally feasible to deliver during a crisis.