Asian Cooperation: Problems and Challenges in the New Century

This volume discusses the challenges to Asian cooperation from the points of view of political, economic, and sociological disciplines. It approaches the issue of cooperation from different levels: national, bilateral, and regional. The chapters in this volume were selected from among the papers presented during the February 2004 Ateneo Center for Asian Studies conference entitled “Asian Cooperation: Problems and Challenges in the New Century.”

Asia in the twenty-first century faces the challenge of better economic integration. Asian countries have to deal with old and new forms of violations of human rights. As part of the shrinking world, Asia has to tackle the problem of sustainable development. It has to think of ways and means to cooperate with international efforts to save the earth. While the region is relatively more peaceful now than in the century that has just passed, flash points continue to be worrisome in the South China Sea, the Taiwan Straits, and the Korean Peninsula, not to mention the continuing threats of international terrorism. Moreover, there are issues of democratization that each Asian country has to deal with. These concerns are but some of the many major challenges confronting the region. The problems are as numerous as the states that comprise the region, their impact going beyond its boundaries. But the prospects of working together to understand the problems, if not to really solve them, are just as great.

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