oubt.
Finally, APEC is unusual among international organizations in including members Hong Kong and Taiwan that are not recognized by other members as states. APEC was established well before the formal rejoining of Hong Kong to China. Taiwan has all the functional characteristics of a state, but is not formally recognized as such internationally. Thus APEC members are technically described as "economies" rather than nations.
Given this enormous disparity among its members surely unmatched by any other important regional economic organization it might fairly be asked whether APEC has any natural coherency. Indeed, the range of diversity characterized by APEC has typified the difficulties of forming international cooperative organizations and regimes in Asia. Analyst Barry Buzan is quoted as saying that
*What is remarkable about Asia is its combination of several quite highly industrialized societies, with a regional international society so impoverished in its development that it compares poorly even w
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