地区主义并不新鲜，其存在历史可以追溯至十八世纪。但学术界对地区主义分出新旧来，却是针对本世纪出现的两次世界经济区域集团化浪潮：旧地区主义是指５０—６０年代盛行于全球的区域性经济贸易安排；而新地区主义则是指出现于８０年代、盛行于９０年代的另一轮全球经济区域 Regionalism is not new, its history can be traced back to the eighteenth century. However, the academic circles separate the old from the new regionalism, but they are aimed at the tide of the two groups of world economic regions that appear in this century: the old regionalism refers to the regional economic and trade arrangements prevailing in the world during the 1950s and 1960s; and the new regionalism It refers to another round of global economic regions that emerged in the 1980s and flourished in the 1990s