the push toward regionalization. In March, 2002, the ASEAN+3 proposed a series of regional financial arrangements that were meant to enhance existing international agreements. In the same year the members of ASEAN+3 met at Chiang Mai and orchestrated the Chiang Mai Initiative, with the main objective of developing a system of regional currency swaps that would help prevent any future economic crises on the scale of the economic and financial crises in East Asia in 1997. However, so far the disparities and disagreements among nations in Asia keep ASEAN from making real progress. As one economic analyst argues, ôASEAN has developed a reputation as a talking shop, unable to push through on agreed policiesö (Risk 2003, 11).
On a more ambitious scale, there has been discussion among ASEAN+3 members of promoting a common currency similar to the Euro that would be known as the Asio. Further, in the late 1990s, South East Asian nations agreed to study the feasibility of constructing an ASEAN currency and exchange rate system along with the proposal for an AMF. The newfound willingness of ASEAN+3 members to institute such regionalism with respect to economic and financial reforms is due in large measure to the economic crisis in South East Asia in 1997. Many members of ASEAN+3 remain wary of international investors, the International Monetary Fund, and the United States becaus
...