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Abstract
This article is an attempt to provide a corrective to a marked Sinocentrism in contemporary debates on regional integration in Asia. In order to do so, firstly, as a heuristic device, a crucial distinction is made between ‘regionalization’, as involving multifaceted integrative socio-economic processes, and ‘regionalism’, defined as a form of identity construction akin to nationalism. Secondly, a degree of historical depth is proposed to better explain recent developments. Finally, throughout the article, an interdisciplinary approach is taken involving employing realist, historical/sociological institutionalist and constructivist perspectives in the area of international relations. The first two East Asian summits are contextualized in relation to various conceptualizations of an Asian Community over the last century or so. Particular attention is given to the 1955 Asian-African Conference in Bandung as a watershed in this evolution. Varying conceptions of East Asia as part of a larger, transpacific regional entity (APEC) and in, and of, itself (East Asian Economic Group/ASEAN +3) are examined. In situating the first two East Asian summits five developments of significance are examined. These are: a continuing Japanese role in setting the regional agenda; the ambivalence of China's positioning vis-à-vis neighbouring countries; the re-entry of Central Asia in the Asian regional equation; India's ‘return to Asia’; and efforts to maintain ASEAN's centrality in regional construction. These factors, it is argued, are militating towards a return to the Sino-Indic Asia of Bandung. It is thus suggested that notions of an Asian Community involving only Northeast and Southeast Asia are now rejoined by a concept of a Greater Asia. While the historical roots of this conception partly explain its salience, it nevertheless competes with other complementary – and antagonistic – definitions of an Asian Community of more recent lineage.
Acknowledgements
A preliminary version of this paper was presented at the conference on ‘Regionalisation and the Taming of Globalisation? Economic, Political, Security, Social and Governance Issues’ at the University of Warwick, 26–28 October 2005. The comments then of Heribert Dieter, T. J. Pempel and Richard Stubbs were most helpful. The author would also like to express gratitude to Lee Chung Min and to the director and staff of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore where he undertook research in December 2005. Finally, thanks are due to Shaun Breslin and the two anonymous reviewers for their suggestions and encouragements. The usual caveats apply.
David Camroux is Senior Research Associate at the Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Internationales (CERI/Sciences Po), Paris.
Notes
1 CitationBjörn Hettne and Fredrik Söderbaum's (2002) proposal for a concept of ‘regionness’ as a kind of yardstick of regional construction is an attempt also to deal with this problem.
2 Few studies offer such an historical perspective. The exceptions are provided by CitationArrighi et al. (2003), CitationHe (2004) and CitationStubbs (2005) which, while not studies of regional integration per se, do provide a series of historical reference points.
3 In this and related sections space has not permitted an examination of the Korean role in Asian regional integration. For a rather rich recent edited volume devoted to the subject see CitationArmstrong et al. (2006).
4 For example, one protagonist/scholar of India's entry in an Asian Economic Community has claimed that ‘in the light of the historical context … it can be argued that the 200-year colonial period was but an interregnum and that traditional links can be revived in the current context’ (CitationShanker 2004: 15).
5 Rizal returned a century later as an emblematic figure for proponents of an Asian Renaissance such as CitationAnwar Ibrahim (1996).
6 The above relies on CitationDeshingkar (1999) and CitationJaffrelot (2003).
7 Bandung is seen, correctly, as leading to the creation of the non-aligned movement including important African as well as other non-Asian countries. However, the participation in the conference itself was overwhelmingly Asian.
8 I owe this point to Richard Stubbs.
9 While the Ministry of International Trade and Industry was generally supportive of the proposal, the Foreign Ministry was largely opposed, despite its in-house China lobby.
10 Quoted in the Nikkei Net Interactive (www.nikkei.co.jp), 29 May 2005.
11 These build on the work of the Japanese Committee on Outlook for a New Asia (1994) which contributed to promoting Mahathir's EAEG. It is also worth mentioning the annual ‘Future of Asia’ conferences organized since 1995 by the Nikkei media group. Summaries of the 2007 conference were published in the Nikkei Weekly (16 July 2007).
12 This theme was taken up at the first Northeast Asia Trilateral Forum held in Seoul in February 2006 in which Nakasone stressed the need for Northeast Asian Cooperation to be within the East Asian Community (Nikkei Weekly, 20 February 2006). Other Japanese voices, however, have called overtly for Sino-Japanese leadership (CitationKohara 2005).
13 The Trilateral Security Dialogue involving the foreign ministers of the United States, Japan and Australia inaugurated in 2001, and which held its first ministerial meeting in Sydney in March 2006, is a further, if minor, institutional expression of the way the Japanese leadership balances the conflicting demands of its East Asian and Asia-Pacific regional memberships and its attempt to contain China.
14 This barbarism implies a two-fold approach of ‘containment’ and ‘engagement’.
15 An example of this is the Asia Leadership Programme financed by the Japan Foundation and the International House of Japan since 1996. For examples of the results of some of its meetings see CitationBolasco et al. (2006).
16 My reference to these two Chinese authors close to the Chinese Foreign Ministry relies on the synthesis provided by Michal Meidan in China Analysis 2 (December 2005): 15–16.
17 The presence of large communities of Chinese origin in much of Southeast Asia has always been problematical. While overseas Chinese business networks have been essential in Asian de facto economic regionalization, their role in contributing to national identities is a source of controversy. This impacts on their place in civil society in contributing to a pan-Asian identity.
18 For the Indonesian commentator CitationHadi Soesastro (2006) it is the multiplication in the number of clubs that is the root of the lack of integrational progress.
19 The original five – China, Kazakhstan, Kyryzstan, Russia and Tajikistan – were joined in 2001 by Uzbekistan. Turkmenistan is the only one of China's neighbours not to be a member.
20 Bangladesh, India, Myanmar (Burma), Sri Lanka and Thailand.
21 For an overview of the issues at the summit see CitationLee et al. (2006), and for the summit itself see CitationMalik (2006).
22 Initial proposals, namely those compiled by a former ASEAN Secretary General, suggested that the Charter would be liberal in tone (Severino 2005). Nevertheless, ASEAN NGOs objected that the Charter was being drafted without any civil society consultation (Independent Press Service, 2 November 2006). The difficulties of the ASEAN foreign ministers in August 2007 to reach agreement on a joint Human Rights body demonstrated yet again the challenges facing ASEAN institutionalization.
23 Continuing disagreements over membership of a putative Asian Community remained apparent at the 12th international conference on the ‘Future of Asia’ held in Tokyo in late May 2006 (Nikkei Weekly, 29 May 2006.