In 1998, during the Asian financial crisis, instead of engaging in beggar-thy-neighbor devaluations and financial protectionism, countries found common ground to guard against future crises. The member nations of ASEAN, along with China, Japan, and South Korea, launched a multilateral arrangement of currency swaps, the Chiang Mai Initiative, which pooled members’ foreign-exchange reserves in order to help crisis-hit countries suffering liquidity crunches.