The Dynamism of Trans-Boundarisation: From the Perspective of Critical Regionalism

East Asia currently faces mounting issues (including a wide range of political, military, and security conflicts), and the ever-intensifying crisis in the region unfolds in sharp contrast with ever-growing economic cooperation and cultural exchange. The term ‘Asia Paradox’ is loaded with such overtones, and it is directly related to East Asian regionalism. Since the 1990s East Asian regionalism has been widely developed in various spheres, but the reality in East Asia today shows that rich experiences of economic and cultural cooperation are powerless to ease current conflicts in the region. Where then can we discover possible ways of overcoming the Asian paradox? This article attempts to find a clue in the perspective of East Asian critical regionalism, focusing on its dynamism of trans-boundarisation as a coexistence of re-boundarisation and de-boundarisation. To that end, this work will first examine the characteristics of boundaries, globalisation, regionalism and critical regionalism theoretically, using trans-boundarisation as a key word. Second, it will examine the possibility that East Asian critical regionalism can show a way forward toward the resolution of conflicts in East Asia, or for the solution of the Asian paradox, using East Asian border disputes as the empirical case.