ASIA, like Europe, wants to create regional institutions strong enough to counterbalance the power of the United States. Two apparently different ideas — liberal globalisation and the new empire — have knit together military unions, collaborative economic associations and international political institutions to set up a global order encompassing politics, the economy, culture and the military. This order may be called neoliberal imperialism
European societies have attempted to protect themselves with a form of regionalism. The German philosopher Jurgen Habermas, in an article on why Europe needs a constitution[1], proposes three major tasks in the construction of post-national democracy: to form a European civic society, to build a Europe-wide political public sphere, and to create a political culture which all citizens of the European Union will be able to share.
Regionalism is also the subject of a major debate in Asia. China, for instance, suggested a few years ago that it could join the 10 members of the Association of South-east Asian Nations (ASEAN)[2] through a formula of 0 plus one. Japan immediately followed, suggesting a formula of 0 plus three (China, Japan and South Korea). A Japanese news agency article in 2002 said: if the unification of Asia accelerates .
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