Asian Economic and Defense Union

The **Asian Economic and Defense Union,** also called the **Asian Alliance** or the **AEDU**, is a supranational union comprised of 23 constituent countries and one capital district. The country is located on **Earth**, mostly within East, Southeast, and South Asia. The AEDU has one extraplanetary holding, the Republic of Tsukuyomi, on **Luna**, and has an extensive colonial presence on **Mars**. With a population of around 3.4 billion, the AEDU is the second-most populous country on Earth, approximately 245 million behind the **African Federation** and 2.7 billion ahead of the **European Federal Union**. The capital of the AEDU is Shanghai, with functions as an independent subdivision directly administered by the AEDU Congress, and the largest city is Tokyo, also the largest on Earth.

## History

### Asia at the turn of the Millennium

More than anything, the nations comprising the AEDU were brought together by necessity. By 2020, the **Chinese Second Republic** was Asia's paper tiger. Still reeling from the end of its second civil war in 2016, the country was economically shattered and politically unstable, at best. Farther east, the **Korean Union** was still trying to integrate its northern half. Devastated by nuclear weapons and already a heavily impoverished backwater, the region was in desperate need of reconstruction. Across the sea, **Japan** was the only nation in East Asia that seemed to have any sense of stability. Still attempting to recover from the Lost Decades and 2008 Recession, the country was at least politically stable and technologically advanced, being the fourth nation to land humans on Luna and being an active member of Lunar colonization as both an economic and diplomatic tool.

### A Changing Landscape

The 2010s and 2020s also brought threats to the region's tentative peace. To the north, the **Union of Eurasian Republics** was becoming increasingly belligerent to the nations of East Asia, especially after the collapse of China, one of the UER's key allies. To the south, an increasingly authoritarian & militaristic **Bharat** and islamist Indonesia threatened to upset the security and balance of power in the region. Thus, in mid-2020, representatives from the Chinese Second Republic, Japan, and the Korean Union would meet in Gwangju. The resulting year-long conference and treaty would result in the formation of the Asian Economic and Defense Union, a shaky mutual economic- and security-assistance organization, in 2021.

### Cooperation

The early AEDU was unorganized, at best. Without a defined political structure or military apparatus, the organization would mostly be the three states jockeying for power over the others. This disorganization would leave the AEDU weak and unable to effectively fulfill its security goals and exert its influence. The AEDU, however, would fulfill its economic goals. By 2025 the Chinese and Korean economies would be larger and more stable than their pre-war levels, and Japan's GDP growth and unemployment levels were finally growing stable for the first time since the late-1980s. The resulting economic growth & security shortcomings resulted in the Shanghai Conference in 2027 and 2028, which ended up creating a bicameral "Pan-Asian Congress", the office of Secretary-General. This would make the AEDU a much more political organization, instead of the merely economic union it was before.

Throughout the **Second Cold War**, the AEDU would continue to expand externally, with nations like Indochina, Thailand, and the Philippines joining the organization in the 2030s. The Union would also expand internally, drawing its members closer together with institutions like AEDU citizenship, the Pan-Asian Aerospace Administration (P3A), and the introduction of an AEDU currency, the Ton, in 2040. The AEDU would also advance in security, performing it's first large-scale military wargames in Korea in 2037 and actively taking part in anti-piracy activities in the Strait of Malacca and the South China Sea in 2042. These military actions would bring the AEDU into direct contention with PESCI, especially after the collapse of Indonesia and the establishment of Sumatra as an AEDU member in 2043. The Union's relationship with the Bharat Republic would be especially tense, with both engaged in their own "Mini Cold War" involving the buildup of both military and space assets.

### Unification

By the middle of the 21st century, the AEDU had expanded across the region, with Bharat as the only nation not apart of the organization. The Union would also continue to grow together internally. Beginning in the mid-2050s, the debate over the next steps the Union should take to draw itself closer together would intensify. While it was generally agreed that a system like the European Federal Union or Union of South American Nations wouldn't work for a region as diverse as the AEDU, many began to suggest the Union could be drawn closer in different ways. The Shanghai Procotol, signed in 2059, would establish a common foreign policy, military, civil law, and trade between all AEDU members, creating a system much more akin to a pre-Federalization EU.