A Failed Attempt Toward a Multilayered Safety Net. The Asian Monetary Fund

In September 1997, soon after the collapse of the Thai baht in July and the subsequent outburst of the East-Asian currency crisis, the Japanese Finance Minister proposed the creation of a $100 billion Asian Monetary Fund. The proposal excluded any involvement from the USA and the IMF, causing their violent negative reaction. Although such initiative would radically change the course of regional financial integration in East-Asia and the global balance of power in the forthcoming decades, it received attention only by very specialized authors, who concentrated on single, fragmented explanations of an issue that was multifaceted and complex. The aim of this paper is to reappraise this episode reconstructing the intertwined relationships between – and highlighting the relative role of – economic theories, financial dynamics, and political/strategic considerations. And stressing how it resulted in a missed opportunity to build a multi-layered system of global safety nets for crisis management.