Triadization

The concept of the Triad has its roots in the trilateral relationship between the United States, the European Union, and Japan, the three leading powers of the world economy. The concept underwent an expansion to embrace the Triad regions (North America, Western Europe, and East Asia) as a consequence of several factors: the end of the Cold War, the appearance of “new regionalism,” and the emergence of East Asia as the third center of the world economy. It was further strengthened by the establishment of interregional relations among the Triad regions in the 1990s. By the mid-1990s, the new Triad concept had become a major feature in the discourse about the emerging international order.

The three core regions or the Triad are not only economically advanced but also politically stable. Together, they make a large part of the world economy. The Triad accounts for two-thirds to three-quarters of the world economic activity, with shifting patterns of resources across each region. Thus, they also exercise global power. Each of the three regions has been competing to make inroads to the world outside its own region through exercising ideological hegemony.

Reflecting their different traditions, the core countries of the Triad have generally practiced three forms of capitalism: the unregulated capitalism of North America, the administered capitalism of East Asia, and the social capitalism of Europe. Some have speculated that the latter two are better prepared to deal with the growing social and political demands, which may require state intervention and redistributive policies.

Skeptics of globalization have argued that the concepts of triadization, internationalization, or [Page 990]regionalization provide a more valid description of the process mistakenly identified as globalization. Supporters have countered that the causal factors of interregionalism, and of regionalism alike, are the ongoing processes of globalization and regionalization. Thus, interregionalism appears to have become a lasting feature of the international system. A wide array of forms and types of interregionalism are likely to continue to coexist, thereby further enriching (and complicating) the emerging multilayered system of global governance.

Far from an integrated global economy, skeptics say they see an increasing concentration of world economic activity within the triadized blocs, each with its own center and periphery. This triadization of the world economy is associated with a growing tendency toward economic and financial interdependence within each of these zones at the expense of integration between them. The current triadization is different from the belle époque of globalization (1890–1914). Triadization is a posthegemonic order because no single center can dictate the rules of global trade and commerce.

It reflects the macrofacet of the development of regional trade and investment blocs, and that trade, investment, and financial flows are concentrated within these blocs.

To get some order in this emerging web of transregional relations, one can distinguish between relations within the Triad, on the one hand, and relations between the core regions of the Triad and their various regional partners outside, on the other hand. Unsurprisingly, the relations within the Triad are rather tense, due to power balance concerns as well as the somewhat different economic ideologies that were previously referred to. Transregional links within the Triad are constituted by various transatlantic (U.S.-EU) agreements; the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, where the United States is the driver; and the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) process, involving the EU and selected Asian countries. The institutionalized transatlantic links are weak, not to speak of interregional arrangements between the EU and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which, as a matter of fact, are nonexistent. The reason for this is that the United States prefers bilateralism, which prevents the building of institutions of interregionalism.

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