East Asian Regionalism and EU Studies

Abstract

This article examines the development of Asian regionalism and the scholarship on regionalism in Asia in relation to EU studies. It provides a brief overview of the development and relative successes to date of East Asian regionalism. It then examines scholarship on the East Asian region — the principal approaches, concepts and methods before moving on to ask what, if anything, scholars of EU studies can learn from scholarship on the East Asian region and what, if anything, scholars of the East Asian region might learn from scholarship on the EU. It seeks to establish some pathways to deeper dialogue between scholarly understandings of the EU experience of integration and the East Asian experience of regionalism, aiming to contribute to comparative regional integration analysis. It argues that the key characteristic of European integration theory is an ‘institutions plus embedded norms’ framework and that the distinguishing feature of East Asian regionalism is a framework of architecture based on open economic regionalism, normative priors and security imperatives.

Key Words:

• Regionalism
• economic integration
• ASEAN
• security
• institutions

Notes

1. This paper focuses on East Asia — ASEAN Plus Three. The concept of an Asia Pacific community remains contested as to whether it can be regarded as a region or simply refers to the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum (APEC).

2. See, for example, the East Asia Forum (http://www.eastasiaforum.org/); the Singapore Institute for International Affairs (http://www.siiaonline.org/) and the ASEAN Institute of Strategic and International Studies (http://siiaonline.org/?q=node/3144).

3. The Charter stipulates that there will be an ASEAN Summit twice yearly; that ASEAN Foreign Ministers serve as the ASEAN Coordinating Council and that there is a single Chairmanship for key high‐level ASEAN bodies. In addition, there is a Committee of Member States' Permanent Representatives to ASEAN, based in Jakarta (ASEAN 2008, Article 12). The emphasis on consultation and consensus remains a key feature of the Charter, under Article 20, Chapter VII.

4. Its members are: Australia, Bangladesh, Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Canada, China, European Union, India, Indonesia, Japan, Democratic Peoples' Republic of Korea, Republic of Korea, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Mongolia, New Zealand, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Russian Federation, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Timor Leste, United States and Vietnam (see http://www.aseanregionalforum.org/AboutUs/tabid/57/Default.aspx).