The book provides an understanding of how international trade and capital flows have engineered the development process in East Asia, and examines the real and potential challenges that the region is expect to encounter in the twenty-first century. It integrates four topics (i.e. capital flows, East Asia, globalization and economic development) that are at the centre of the social, political and economic debate. The text highlights the region's growing strategic importance in the twenty-first century globalizing world, where transnational corporations are playing an increasingly decisive role in the global distribution of production and trade. It blends generalised regional analyses with country-specific case studies in the world's most dynamic region. It is so well designed that each of the seventeen countries that comprise the region gets some space for discussion. Thus, the text is a valuable contribution to the social science and business literature, with a special focus on the now strategic region of East Asia.