Association of East Asia

The century before the Third Mexican-American War was not kind to East-Asia. The flood left hundreds of millions of people homeless and displaced, the Great Reset ended the dream of China as a rival superpower to the United States, the Second Chinese Civil War and World War III turned China into a battleground given momentary peace before a Third Chinese Civil War would rock the continent only 50 years later, all the while the region's population declined from low birth rates and immigration to the Space Colonies. By the Third Mexican War, East Asia was falling apart, with only Japan and Korea barely holding together as coherent entities, while the rest of the region was set against itself by competing interests from Mexico, the US and countless private organizations and splinter groups.

It ultimately took an invasion from the largest space force in history to end the nightmare of history in East Asia. General Ha-eun Zaya's Planetary Task Force India functionally conquered Asia with techniques that would have done Genghis Khan proud, assisted with relativistic weapons that were in a sense the final word in destructive power in warfare. Zaya established a military regime in Shanghai that did more in four years to rebuild and administer Asia than any regime since the death of the United Federation of China in 2108. The Quantum Economic Model was put in place across the continent, new space elevators brought much needed food and resources to the region and let millions fleet to the colonies on Venus and the outer planets. And while Zaya's regime chiefly ruled over China and Southeast Asia, she negotiated an agreement with Japan, Korea, and Mongolia to incorporate their economies under the Quantum Economic Model, laying the groundwork for the creation of the Association of East Asia.

The Association, is a federation of states that, much like Europe and even Africa, were less than willing to unite initially. The US practically created the entity at gunpoint, with the region largely under US occupation. China and South-East Asia needed little convincing after four years under Zaya's military government which had already introduced the notion of a common legislature with her Regional Council. However Japan and Korea were extremely apprehensive about joining. Had it not been for their own economic and demographic crises, and prodding by the Halvidar administration, they could have conceivably remained outside of the union even to this day. 

As of 2160, the region is largely a cohesive unit, plagued, as many of the Associations are, by separatist groups, but with none being in any position to actually carry out their desire to tear the Association apart, are for the most part a social annoyance. The Association's government gives a considerable amount of autonomy to its constituent states, and its constitution largely limits itself to manage the economy and infrastructure, but not the social order. Free travel is common, and while the nations that founded the Association are certainly more separated than in Europe or Africa, intermarriage is becoming more common and nationalist tensions are continuing to erode, largely thanks to the provincial structure of the Association, with the option to leave for the myriad of American colonies serving as a kind of social relief valve for populations that might feel marginalized at any point.