From Crisis to Connectivity: The Historical Evolution of Regionalism and Economic Integration in East and Southeast Asia

This article introduces the special issue ‘From Crisis to Connectivity’ by situating its contributions within a broader historical analysis of East and Southeast Asia’s regional integration. It argues that contemporary frameworks such as the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) and the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) represent the cumulative outcome of decades of institutional learning triggered by successive crises—from the 1997–98 Asian Financial Crisis to the COVID-19 pandemic. Through a synthesis of dependency theory, developmental regionalism, and historical institutionalism, the article interprets Asian regionalism as a cyclical and adaptive process shaped by the tension between external dependence and the pursuit of autonomy. The six papers in the special issue illuminate distinct dimensions of this historical evolution: the trajectory of monetary cooperation, the restructuring of global value chains, the rise of competitive mega-regionalism, and the geopolitical reconfiguration of Asia’s economic order. Together they demonstrate that Asia’s integration is not a linear march toward supranationalism but a historically contingent project of resilience and pragmatic adaptation within a shifting global order.