Cho, Youngwon

Abstract
Since the turn of the new century, East Asian countries have taken a series of important steps to launch and strengthen institutional mechanisms of monetary and financial cooperation to enhance the region’s resilience to financial instability. Central to these efforts have been the Chiang Mai Initiative (CMI) and its recent multilateralization, a self—managed reserve pool designed to serve as a vehicle for providing regional liquidity support. Despite the significance of these developments, however, progress toward a common framework of monetary cooperation has been slow, its institutionalization shallow, and its prospects uncertain. Beyond a general consensus on the need for greater cooperation, regional actors remain deeply ambivalent toward the extent and depth of institutionalization. This article provides a critical assessment of the progress made so far, the obstacles that remain, and the prospects for the emergence of a more fully institutionalized framework of monetary cooperation in East Asia. I argue that while the CMI and its multilateralization represent a notable break from the past, fundamental political cleavages surrounding its direction are yet to be resolved, and as a result monetary regionalism in East Asia still remains more of a glass half—empty than half—full.
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