The main reason for the Asian meltdown is, I would argue, the end of the American Empire. I don't think this was a conscious decision or anything, but rather a strategic improvisation, which made sense only in hindsight. Nixon's response was to scrap the Bretton Woods accord, thus allowing the yen, D-mark and related currencies to strongly appreciate in foreign exchange markets. So those countries got richer, but their export earnings got stomped.
American consumers can no longer purchase the net output of Asian exporters, period.
East Asia and the EU must become the new sources of final global demand. America is deep in rentier debauchery and decadence, and can't fulfill this role any longer. The European Union is neither a purely symbolic gesture nor a utopian dream, but serves an essential function in stabilizing the economic contradictions between the core and the periphery of Europe. Note that currency crises in the Europeriphery have been milder and the consequences less ugly than in Asia.