INTRODUCTION

On 2 September 1945, General Douglas MacArthur made the following remarks during a broadcast to the American people after conclusion of the Japanese Surrender Ceremony:

MacArthur's remarks were to prove relevant and prescient for the next half century.

The post-war period was marked by dramatic transformation in East Asia. The United States established a series of bilateral alliances with Japan, South Korea, Australia, Thailand and the Philippines, which survive to the present day. Security arrangements were gradually cobbled together with many of the major maritime states including Singapore and Malaysia in addition to a de facto military partnership with Taiwan.

A messy but integrated political and economic system developed around this hub-and-spokes security architecture. America offered capital, know-how and access to its immense consumer market to help East Asian economies back on their feet, or in some cases, to embark on the pathway to modernisation for the first time in their history. East Asian states enjoyed protection, stability and economic access to the U.S. economy in return for supporting the U.S.'s geo-strategic presence in the region.

G. John Ikenberry observes, “East Asian countries export goods to America and America exports security to the region.”2 As these states became successful economies, they were expected to gradually democratise, open their own domestic markets, and contribute further to the maintenance of stability and security in the region.

The rules-based order which emerged was essentially a liberal hegemonic rules-based order: a system of rules, laws, institutions and treaties underpinned by a liberal superpower offering protection and public goods for all nations agreeing to play by its (the superpower's) rules.