As rapid economic growth has changed the structure of world economic power, it has challenged the old definition of political and security interests in East Asia and the Pacific in the post-Cold War era. With the end of American economic Hegemony, new regional and multilateral political structures are needed to define rules governing the relations between Asia-Pacific states, provide a framework for the emerging strategic significance of Japan and China, and ASEAN, and establish a forum for discussing a wide range of regional and sub-regional security issues.

U.S.-Japan economic tensions are more likely to be manageable if the established framework of security relations remains intact. The United States — a strong stabilizing factor in regional security — is more likely to maintain a presence in the Western Pacific if there is a strong enough economic rationale for it.

In political as well as in economic affairs, the pace of change must encourage experimentation with new structures to manage regional and sub-regional problems. To reflect the impact of economic policy on political and security arrangements, the aim should not be to develop a single over-arching regional structure dealing with economic, political and security issues. Rather, separate structures are more realistic, but to be successful they need to reinforce each other.