Regionalism has emerged as a defining feature of the late 1990s and early twenty-first century international political economy, and in East Asia this political process may be seen as a response to continuing globalization, the Asian financial crisis, and the deepening regionalization of economic activity. This interaction between regionalism and regionalization, between private and state actors, is a key dynamic of the East Asian political economy today. Taken together these forces amount to a transformation of the regional political economy which, this book suggests, necessitates a re-evaluation of the way in which we can examine the activities of the multinational enterprise in East Asia. The central question of this study, then, is to what extent has this transformation impacted on the strategies employed by Japanese multinationals in their East Asian operations. Drawing on recent empirical data, this book explores how these firms have responded to regionalism.

Introduction
PART 1: THEORY AND APPROACH
Foreign Direct Investment, Regionalism and Japanese Regional Production Networks
PART 2: ESTABLISHING THE CONTEXT
The Transformation of the East Asian Political Economy
Japan and the Transformation of the East Asian Political Economy
PART 3: RESPONSE TO REGIONALISM IN THE AUTOMOTIVE SECTOR
Japanese Automotive Manufacturers in East Asia
General Strategy and Investment Response
The Rationalization and Reordering of Production Networks
Japanese FDI in East Asia
Conclusions

ANDREW STAPLES is Associate Professor of Japanese Business at Kansia Gaidai University, Japan. He has previously been a Lecturer in Japanese Studies at the school of East Asian Studies, University of Sheffield, UK, where he also gained his PhD.