Japan and the Asian Monetary Fund: An Identity-Intention Approach

Abstract

Why did Japan propose the creation of the Asian Monetary Fund (AMF) that intentionally excluded the United States from membership in the middle of the Asian financial crisis? I argue that the immediate cause of Japan's AMF proposal lies in Japan's interest in defending the Asian model of economic development against the U.S.-led IMF bailout operation in Thailand. The exclusion of the United States was the key in realizing such an interest. Following an identity approach to international relations, I will demonstrate how Japan's Ministry of Finance (MOF) officials' conception of Japan and the United States as the two rivals promoting different models of economic development (i.e., Japan's state-led vs the U.S. market-based economic development) contributed to the making of Japan's AMF proposal. In doing so, I theoretically develop an identity–intention analytical framework designed to establish causation between an identity and a policy choice that emerge from a social, interactive structure. The framework offers a better way of dealing with the overdetermination of given interests as well as the underspecification of the kinds of interests at stake to which rational theorizing of international relations is often vulnerable.

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