in 1998, almost all asian countries run under the assumption of high growth and no possible capital disruption. (ie.very low forex, only enough.)
fast forward 2015, each and every single one of pacific countries held giant reserve and run under the assumption they gonna get fucked any moment so better prepared. (reserve size are 10 and in some cases 1000 times the size of 98). All have huge surplus, trade or current account, etc. China held $4 trillion of forex reserve. Enough to fuck US 2-3 times over in the event of currency war.
trade with US has declined significantly in proportion to the rest of economic activity.
Currency stabilization fund are by treaty. (CMIM, $240B. NDB $50B) can be used for rapid fire at moment notice. Enough to cause melt down any wall st. cowboy who tries to attack currency. multilateral and regional surveillance offices are online.
the nature of export economy has changed. All of pacific countries are now exporters of manufacturing that stand to gain in low price. Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, etc have enough industrial base to bring down huge chunk of US industry in the event of price war. Asean are waiting for that "let's do price war". specially car export.
In 1998, china is nobody relative to global economy. in 2015, US is nobody relative to asia's internal trade. And not invincible relative to global trade.
And more importantly. the entire region are watching the entire regime change, terror attack, financial destabilization currently done by US and proxies. Everybody is bidding their time there and ready to pounce when the time come.
in 1998, Krugman was thought to foretell economic instability. In 2015 krugman is just some american regime stooge. He opens his mouth, everybody ready for financial aggression.