This book is the outcome of a collaborative research project on Global Futures of World Regions started in 2004 organized as an international, interdisciplinary, and multicountry conference series. It reflects three goals of Global Futures of World Regions conferences: first, to illuminate the global present by assessing the globalities of Asia regions; second, to outline the potential global futures of these regions; and third, to develop the analytical tools for further comparative analyses. The authors in this volume also agreed that much of the world s present global history is shaped by the interplay between the North American region, the European Union, and the new Asias. This book revealed the considerable transformation amidst intensified global competition and rapid technological change that Asia has undergone recently. Although the nations of the Asian region have not traveled parallel paths in terms of industrialization and many other respects, the region s economic interdependence is rapidly progressing with the common challenges posed by the pressures of globalization. The very real complexities of concepts of globalization are discussed explicitly in the papers of Hyun-Chin Lim, Wolf SchA¤fer, Gert Schumidt, Dennis McNamara, Markus Pohlmann and Jong Hee Lee, Jan Nederveen Pieterse and Ronald Dore. Various aspects of globalization in Asia, such as Asian capitalism, governance system, trust , immigration policy are discussed by Oskar Jurer, Mark Thompson, Yoshimichi Sato, Hideki Tarumoto and Holger Bungsche.