Asia-Pacific
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The term Asia Pacific or Asia-Pacific applies to the littoral East Asia and South East Asia states that are near the Pacific Ocean, including Australasia and far east Russia. South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East are generally excluded in the definition.
It is an imprecise and potentially subjective construct - attempting to list countries in the Asia Pacific would be pointless and pedantic. The meaning is more rooted upon common economic, cultural and/or political relationships between countries in the region recently identified. Asia-Pacific as a geographical descriptor became more popular from the late 1980s as the economies within the heterogeneous region flourished on account of increased regional capital flow, trade and other forms of interaction. For this reason it is ironic that Pacific Island states, isolated from and inconsequential to the East Asian economy, are overlooked as being part of the Asia Pacific.
Some commentators may prefer to to employ the term 'East Asia' instead to exclude Western countries like Australia and New Zealand.
[edit] Component areas
The Asia-Pacific region will generally include:
- Australia
- Brunei
- Cambodia
- China
- Fiji
- Indonesia
- Japan
- Kiribati
- Korea
- Laos
- Malaysia
- Mongolia
- New Zealand
- Papua New Guinea
- Philippines
- Samoa
- Singapore
- Taiwan
- Thailand
- Timor-Leste
- Tonga
- Tuvalu
- Vanuatu
- Vietnam
It may also include:
The term normally excludes countries such as:
