East Asia as a region has been traditionally of great significance for the United States. Now trade and other areas of economic interaction between the United States and East Asia represent one of the most important sections of the world economy. After 11 September 2001 (9/11), Washington has started to pay more attention to security issues in East Asia for obvious reasons. Because of that interdependence of economic and security issues, the importance of the region for the United States markedly increased. Besides, China and Japan are two very important economic and political partners of the United States.

After the financial crisis of 1997–98, intra-regional economic ties in East Asia began to develop actively in various areas: trade grew significantly, particularly between China and the other countries of East Asia; new elements emerged in FDI exchanges; finally, a search in the region began for new institutional mechanisms to encourage bilateral and multilateral trade and other economic ties, making the region less dependent on external forces, and thus ensuring greater stability of the economic development of East Asia.

As the United States remains the biggest non-regional economic partner of East Asian countries, these new developments increasingly influence U.S. relations with the region, and require from the changes in its long-term strategy in order to secure its presence in East Asia, and to engage regional countries more actively in the process of globalization.

U.S. ECONOMIC AND TRADE TIES WITH EAST ASIA

The volume of U.S. trade with East Asia is roughly equal to the U.S. trade with Canada and Mexico (combined) who are members of NAFTA and are most important economic partners of the United States. East Asia occupies a particularly important place in American imports where its share has been traditionally larger (with some fluctuations) than that of Canada and Mexico (combined). This fact shows a significant importance of the U.S. market for East Asian exports (see Statistical Supplement II, Table 2). The volume of trade between the United States and East Asia also greatly surpasses the volume of trade between the United States and the European Union (EU-15, see Statistical Supplement II, Table 1).