A Study on the U.S.Policy toward East Asian Regionalism

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This two-year project aims at the historiographical analysis of the U.S.policy toward Asian regionalism in the postwar period. In other words, it attempts to combine the update policy studies on the emerging regionalism in the Asia-Pacific region, such as APEC,with the diplomatic history studies on the Cold War period. Therfore, priority was given to collecting primary source materials, including unpublished U.S.diplomatic papers, U.S.Congress commitee and hearings prints and reports, policy analysis and research reports by thinktanks in the U.S., publicatiions by the regional organizations in the Asia-Pacific region, and diplomatic papers held in the Korean and Japanese National Archives. Recent studies on the Cold War history were also collected systematically. Based on these materials and sources, several hypothetical interpretations of the U.S.policy toward regionalism in the Asia-Pacfic region were attempted. The materials collected show that the U.S.Asian policy has been undergoing a tendential shift toward unilateralism in its approach toward Asia since the early 1970s. Or more accurately, we can find two paradigms of unilateralism and multilateralism competing with each other over Asian policy. Until the 1960s the U.S.pursued vigorously to establish a regional order in East Asia, which shows a clear contrast to the consistent apathy and reluctance since the 1970s