Book excerpt: Regional integration in Asia has been considerably enhanced over the past 20)years or so. Whether integration helps Asian countries reduce their vulnerability to external shocks or is a channel for spreading external shocks remains an open question. This paper assesses the spillovers from US monetary policy shocks to Asian countries while taking into account country-specific characteristics in explaining differences in timing and magnitude of responses across Asian countries. The results indicate that policy interest rates in Asian countries generally respond to innovations in the Fed rate in the same direction, but typically with a lag of one quarter. However, the size of the responses varies across Asian countries with respect to country-specific characteristics. These results suggest that an independent monetary policy may not be feasible for an Asian developing country that adopts a pegged rate regime while being extensively integrated into the world economy. However, the hypothesis of the impossible trinity may not be relevant in the case of China.