As seen from the vantage point of the early 21st century, Pacific Asia is a very different place now than what visionaries of a decade earlier had predicted it would be. Predictions about the region from the 1990s were based on the idea of an Asian miracle. The Asian economic crisis of 1997 and the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, have taken their toll on the region and forced a revision of views on the Asian miracle.

Yet the future of Pacific Asia extends beyond financial crisis and terrorism. In this volume, scholars from seven different fields of study—demographic changes and challenges, the consolidation of trade and investment regimes, information technology (IT) and its impact on the region, the challenge of environmental protection and sustainable development, issues of governance at the national level, the need for a new security order, and the needs and the likely shape and modality of regional institutions—seek to link their thinking on a range of disciplines that are relevant to developments at the national and regional levels. What emerges are sketches of regional futures for Pacific Asia in the first decades of the twenty-first century that take into account the broader significance of the issues observed and the interplay of different possible events.

This book was the final publication of the Asia Pacific Agenda Project (APAP).