Chapter 7 introduces students to the monetary and financial dimensions of East Asian international relations, which are fragmented regionally while tied closely with the Western-dominated monetary order. Monetary power is arguably as important as military power, but it is not well understood and not commonly included in an IR textbook. As a social construction, monetary and financial power are related to but not equivalent to productive power. East Asia does not stand in isolation, because its contemporary monetary and financial practices and theories are integrated into the global system. Thus, this chapter examines U.S. dollar hegemony. Following a broader discussion of the exchange-rate regimes adopted by East Asian nations, the chapter discusses the 1997–1998 Asian Financial Crisis, a monumental event in post-war East Asian international relations triggered by a currency crisis. The chapter ends with a discussion of the 2008 Great Recession.

Having examined cheques and bills of exchange in Chapter 8, we now move onto more contemporary methods of payment. In this chapter, we introduce the regulatory framework and basic concepts, and then discuss the ePayments Code. We then consider two sets of emerging issues: Open Banking and Central Bank Digital Currency.

This chapter covers two important topics, namely equity crowdfunding and central bank digital currency. Equity crowdfunding was once a popular idea in China and almost gained formal recognition of the regulator. However, due to various reasons, equity crowdfunding failed to be written into the 2019 Securities Law. This means that in the foreseeable future, equity crowdfunding is unlikely to be legally permitted as a special Fintech sector in China. A very recent major development of Fintech in China is the Digital Currency Electronic Payment project (DC/EP) initiated by the Chinese central bank. Unlike Bitcoin and other types of cryptoassets, DC/EP has the backing of the credit of a state and is based on a more complicated system of operation. China is at the international forefront of developing central bank digital currency (sovereign digital currency), which has attracted a lot of attention. However, the development is still at an early stage, and only time will tell how the DC/EP will operate in practice and what effects it will bring to the people in China and beyond.