How does the rise of Asia reshape international financial affairs?

Abstract The rules, norms and procedures that govern contemporary cross-border money and finance were put in place by western powers after the end of the Bretton Woods era. The recent rise of novel, often state-linked, Asian financial actors and practices poses questions for the continued centrality of liberal and free-market ideas in global finance. This special section asks: how do Asian financial actors integrate into the global financial system? Do they contest, co-opt or comply with liberal norms of market organization? Conversely, how do global financial actors interact with Asian financial systems? And what are the geopolitical and geo-economic implications of these developments? We offer three avenues of investigation: first, while Asian forms of financial capitalism remain distinct, their resilience in the face of liberal global norms has not hindered a dynamic transformation as local financial systems internationalize and interact with the global order. Second, the internationalization of Asian finance has introduced novel financial practices into the global system that rewrite existing practices in areas as diverse as debt, development and exchange rate management, demonstrating the growing agency of Asian countries in regional and global financial affairs. Third, in these activities Asian finance is seen from the outside at times as a friendly competitor and at other times as an outright threat, creating potential fault-lines subject to growing geopolitical contestations. Through these insights, we move beyond the existing literature that continues to see Asia, and countries within Asia, merely as respondents to financial change and globalization, rather than as increasingly powerful agents in their own right.