Testing Times for Regionalism: Coping with Great Power Rivalry in the Asia–Pacific

We live in turbulent times. Many of the elements of the international order that had been taken for granted are currently being subjected to searching examinations. Some even question whether the most familiar and apparently stable regional features of the extant international system, such as the European Union (EU), can withstand challenges to their legitimacy (Dinan, Nugent, & Paterson, 2017; Longo & Murray, 2015). Likewise, there are doubts about whether the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) can retain its centrality in the Asia–Pacific (Beeson, 2019). It has become commonplace in some circles and media to declare that liberalism is in retreat, and that the foundations of the institutional order that were created in the aftermath of World War II are crumbling, along with the established patterns of multilateral cooperation that they enabled (Luce, 2017). No doubt some of this is overstated and reflects the concerns of privileged, particularly Western, elites with little direct experience of war and political instability, and who have considerable familiarity with increases in prosperity and opportunity. But that does not imply that such concerns are not without foundation, either.

For the broadly conceived “Asia–Pacific” region these are especially troubling times. The Asia–Pacific has been synonymous with – largely unanticipated – levels of peace and prosperity for at least 40 years, even more in the case of the “miraculous” economic development that began with Japan’s remarkable postwar renaissance (Stubbs, 2005). Sustainable economic development in the Asia–Pacific region remains a general challenge, but millions have been lifted out of poverty. If the foundations of the postwar order are being eroded, then some observers fear that the region could be plunged into the sort of instability and even outright conflict that has been frequently predicted, but seldom seen, in recent times (Friedberg, 1993/94; Kaplan, 2014). On the contrary, many analysts have emphasised the enduring and stable nature of the “long peace of Asia” (Kivimäki, 2014), which defied expectations and seemed likely to underpin further progress in the region. Now such assumptions appear less assured, however. In the United States (US) in particular, there is an influential and growing brand of scholarship that predicts that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the US are on an inevitable collision course that is likely to end in conflict (Allison, 2017).

Although scholars and other observers may be unable to definitively determine quite what the future of the Asia–Pacific might be – or even whether we should continue to describe the region in that way – it is useful to consider the forces and drivers that are likely to influence such outcomes. This is precisely what the articles in this special issue do. Before indicating the approaches the contributors have taken and the conclusions they have reached, however, this introductory article provides an overview of some of the issues that are in play, and some of the forces that will help determine future outcomes in what is arguably the most important economic and strategic region in the world. Having made that claim, we need to set the context for our examination of the region by explaining what we actually mean by a region and why regions are important. We argue that these are testing times for regionalism, in terms of coping with great power rivalry in the Asia–Pacific and in terms of testing the capacity of regional bodies to deal with challenges of rivalry and contestation in the region, while retaining regional identity.

Which Region for What Purpose?

We make the case that comparisons serve a useful purpose. The artificial division between scholars of Asian regionalism and of the EU is an example of the past failure to perceive the comparative potential in each other’s research agendas (Murray, 2010a) and engage beyond what were essentially area studies. Contemporary understandings of the different forms and geographies of regionalism have sought to develop comparative approaches that do not privilege one form of regionalism over another. Many observers suggest that it is no longer acceptable (if it ever was) to suggest that the European region’s historical experience generally, and the development of the EU in particular, might constitute the only point of departure (Sbragia, 2008). At most, the EU serves as a “reference point” for comparative regional analysis (Murray, 2010a; Wong, 2012).

One of the distinctive features of contemporary international relations is the apparent re-emergence of “great power politics” of a sort that had seemed consigned to the 20^th, if not the 19^th, century (Rasler & Thompson, 1994). One of the most consequential, if currently perhaps overlooked, achievements of the EU has been its ability to render great power politics obsolete, at least within the confines of the EU’s continent, among formerly fractious member states. Given that great power rivalries were the definitive driver of international politics in Europe for several centuries, this is a remarkable and historically unprecedented achievement. The question then is not only how durable such institutionalised patterns of intra-regional cooperation prove to be in Europe, but whether there are possible lessons to be learned – particularly cautionary tales – from the European experience (Murray, 2010b). This is not to suggest that the EU necessarily provides lessons or, worse still, models, but that regional cooperation merits comparative analysis (Murray & Warleigh-Lack, 2013). Significantly, the past two decades have witnessed a rise in this comparative analysis, not only of Europe and the Asia–Pacific, but also of Africa and South America, for example.

One possible advantage that “Europe” has enjoyed over the “Asia–Pacific” is a more recognisable identity and cultural heritage, even if it has been contested at times. True, there are currently plenty of disagreements about what the principles and values of the EU should be, and no shortage of hypernationalist, anti-EU sentiment, but the EU has much greater “brand recognition” than the Asia–Pacific (Bruter, 2005), and may actually be strengthened by Britain’s disastrously managed exit process (Erlanger, 2019). Disintegration may not be the order of the day, but rather differentiated integration (Murray & Brianson, 2019, forthcoming). This is one of the reasons that many scholars and policymakers prefer to talk about “East Asia”, “Southeast Asia” or even the newly fashionable “Indo–Pacific” (Beeson & Lee-Brown, 2017). There is more than semantic accuracy at stake here, however: the way regions are defined determines the membership of any regional body, the purposes to which such organisations are put, and their capacity to implement policy. Being a member of a regional body is potentially important, especially when national security and/or prosperity is at stake. It is important to recognise that one of the reasons that policymakers remain interested in regional groupings is that these groupings have the potential to resolve collective action problems, not to mention promoting peace, stability and prosperity (Katzenstein, 2005; Ripsman, 2005).

The capacity to make friends out of former foes has plainly been one of the EU’s great achievements. It still seems unthinkable that Europeans could go to war with each other. The same sort of underlying common sense of purpose and identity, based on what Dahrendorf (1989, p. 9) called the habits of cooperation, has never taken hold in Asia in quite the same way. Even in the more narrowly defined “Southeast Asia”, its distinctive diplomatic style – the ASEAN Way – has been predicated upon consensus-building, face-saving and problem avoidance (Jones & Smith, 2007; Ravenhill, 2009). By design, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has had no capacity to compel its members to take united positions. It has no effective compliance mechanisms and lacks binding legislation. For many observers of ASEAN, as well as many ASEAN leaders, the EU has long been a “model” to avoid rather than to emulate; sovereignty is something to be protected rather than pooled (Beeson & Stone, 2013). Nevertheless, ASEAN has received support from the EU in development assistance and functional regionalism, but attempts by the EU at norm diffusion and policy transfer have been less than successful beyond that (Allison, 2015; Jetschke & Murray, 2012).

There has always been considerable debate about how effective ASEAN diplomacy has been and how much credit it deserves for encouraging a decline in interstate war. This question has assumed renewed importance now, however, as there have been a number of international developments that are posing major challenges for regional organisations everywhere. The Asia–Pacific, and within it, ASEAN, finds itself at the centre of such developments.

Rising Powers and Regional Crises

One of the most disruptive influences on the stability of extant international and regional orders has been the rise, or in some cases the re-emergence, of newly important powers (Gat, 2007; Mead, 2014). With the exception of China and Russia, perhaps, it may not be accurate to describe them as “great” powers, yet they are potentially significant, and in many cases dissatisfied with the prevailing distribution of power. China is obviously the most important newly ascendant great power in the Asia–Pacific and it has been the subject of fairly gloomy prognostications about what this might mean for the stability of the region and the world (Friedberg, 2011). At the very least it is a fundamental challenge for the existing array of multilateral institutions at both the international and the regional levels. The key questions in this context are whether regional mechanisms actually matter or have the capacity to influence or constrain the behaviour of great powers and avoid the possibility of instability if not outright conflict. Much depends on the perception not only of “whose regionalism?”, but also of “whose regional space?”

As one might expect when dealing with regions as diverse and complex as the “Asia–Pacific” or even “East Asia”, generalisations are difficult and the evidence is inconsistent at times across issue areas, especially those related to security and the economy. One of the clearest arguments in support of the idea that “regions matter” is economic. After all, facilitating economic development and integration has been one of the EU’s signature achievements. In East Asia, by contrast, although there has been stellar growth for decades, it has generally been driven by powerful, individual states and the actions of the private sector, rather than collaborative inter-governmental activities (Beeson, 2014). Even the idea of a discrete “private sector” acting independently of the state is somewhat misleading in much of East Asia, as demonstrated most importantly in the continuing “strategic” role of state-owned enterprises in China (Norris, 2016). Nevertheless, the well-known distinction between regionalism, or the actions of states to build organisations and institutionalise cooperation, and regionalisation, or the largely uncoordinated activities of the private sector, remains useful (Breslin & Higgott, 2000).

Even more strikingly, perhaps, the optimistic idea that economic interdependence could promote (and reflect) peace, cooperation and stability may have its limits. Not only have Japan and China been unable to put aside their longstanding differences, but China’s increasingly symbiotic interdependence with the US has led to growing friction, as the recent trade war reminds us (Stephens, 2019). No matter who is primarily responsible for America’s increasingly acrimonious relations with China, it is clear that American power is in relative decline (Beeson & Watson, 2019), and when the US is unambiguously putting its perceived national interests ahead of any previously assumed international obligations, the old international order is in real trouble (see Beeson, 2020). An important question in this context is whether rising powers or regions can fill the leadership gap that the US is apparently vacating. Might regional bodies provide evidence of autonomy from the US or China? Might they be potentially isolated, or could they develop new capacity? In this new regional space is it becoming a case of less US, more Russia, more China, and even more EU?

Although rising powers may generally be seen as a disruptive force and a challenge to the status quo, China in particular has played a surprisingly positive role in championing the existing order – rhetorically, at least. Xi Jinping, China’s increasingly powerful, not to say autocratic, leader, has made a number of landmark speeches in which he has tried to position China as a champion of globalisation and a defender of continuing economic openness (Chen & Wei, 2017). Whether the PRC is actually willing to convert rhetoric into reality and assume some of the costs of leadership, especially economically, remains unclear. What is more apparent is that the sheer material change that China has undergone has fundamentally altered the relative importance and geo-economic influence of the world’s great powers. It is equally apparent that China is intent on developing a military capacity in keeping with its new economic status (Callick, 2017).

The possibility that rising powers pose a direct challenge to the extant geopolitical order and the relative military power of different states is one of the most noteworthy features of the current era. China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea are emblematic of the changing regional and even global strategic order, and raise crucial questions about the US commitment to the region and its supposed stabilising role. The very idea that the US will remain an “Asia–Pacific power” in the way that former President Barack Obama suggested is uncertain (Tweed, 2017). This has major implications for the Western side of the Asia–Pacific in particular and those states, regional bodies and economic actors with interests in the region (White, 2017). Will China, or, alternatively, the region as a collective actor, be able to provide the sort of predictability and strategic stability that the US purportedly did at the height of its powers?

Such questions alert us to the relative capacities and potential roles of regional bodies in filling possible leadership vacuums. The notion of “security governance” is one way of conceptualising the strategic dimension of this question (Bevir & Hall, 2013). While there is no doubt that this concept has a good deal of relevance in a European context (Kirchner & Sperling, 2007), the picture is less certain in the Asia–Pacific, where institutions such as the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) have very modest track records and little capacity or, indeed, willingness to tackle difficult regional security issues (Emmers & Tan, 2011; see also Tan, 2020). It is noteworthy that one of the primary motivations for the development of the rival Indo–Pacific notion has been strategic, driven explicitly by the rise of China and implicitly by the ineffectiveness of the Asia–Pacific as a regional framework with which to address security concerns. At the very least, the need to reconsider regional alliances and strategies in the Asia–Pacific provides an important reminder that there are different kinds of regionalism and different issue areas that regional organisations might seek to address (Söderbaum, 2012). They are influenced by distinctive drivers, constraints and core states.

Whether regional organisations in the Asia–Pacific can tackle a number of key problems or promote some sense of both normative cohesion and common purpose remains moot. ASEAN’s success, such as it is, has been achieved in large part as a consequence of the undemanding impact of its consensual style of policymaking. More effective regional organisations, such as the EU, have been distinguished by more demanding obligations and a shared sense of their ultimate value (see Murray, 2020). ASEAN’s persuasive powers appear less significant in this regard, and the organisation’s ability to persuade members such as Myanmar to change its authoritarian, non-democratic ways has always looked limited (Emmerson, 2008). On the contrary, the unfortunate reality in ASEAN and across Southeast Asia more generally has been a rollback of democratic reforms and a return to authoritarianism (Brownlee, 2007; The Economist, 2018). Indonesia remains the great hope in this context, but even here the rise of a more radical form of Islam and the persistence of patronage politics, coupled with its reluctance to act as a core state within ASEAN, mean that many observers doubt the durability of even this important state’s achievements (Jones & Jenna, 2016).

It is precisely difficult domestic issues such as these, and the absence of a common set of values and political practice, that has made voluntarism and consensus such an attractive modus operandi for Southeast Asian states, and some of their more important Northeast Asian counterparts such as China. Indeed, China may be able to co-exist comfortably with ASEAN’s rather undemanding form of regional diplomacy, especially when the latter is deeply divided about quite how to respond to the rise of China itself (Beeson, 2015) or to strengthen its economic community (Jones, 2016). In such circumstances it is not inconceivable that a form of illiberal and even more permissive regional governance may become prevalent in East and Southeast Asia. After all, Asian states have generally been unenthusiastic about what they perceive as a legalistic approach to regionalism that has been favoured by European states within Europe and in multilateral forums. This is certainly an approach that would suit China, to judge by its rejection of the adverse findings of The Hague’s independent legal tribunal regarding its territorial claims in the South China Sea (Browne, 2016).

This is not to say that regional governance will inevitably be ineffective. On the contrary, for all ASEAN’s shortcomings it has clearly had some impact simply by existing for so long and encouraging a degree of “confidence building” in the process. Indeed, the habits of cooperation remain a potentially important part of socialisation processes. Yet its aspirations continue to fall far short of its achievements. Perhaps a form of “good enough” regional governance can emerge that can mirror the sort that has emerged in poverty reduction strategies (Grindle, 2004) – if it does not exist already. Even then, however, the perennial tensions about membership and purpose – no matter how modestly defined – will remain. Will “the region”, even if it is a more narrowly defined entity revolving around East Asia, rather than the Asia–Pacific, and centred on Chinese rather than American leadership, be able to decide on common goals and operational practices and even norms? Will regionalism have a role to play in shaping the future agendas of the states of the Asia–Pacific? If so, which regional bodies might be involved and which might drive these agendas and their implementation? Is there a need to reconceptualise regionalism in comparative perspective in order to draw lessons and cautionary tales from Asia’s past? Can regional bodies or alliances manage great power rivalries and their interdependence? In a crowded regional space, where exactly do ASEAN, the ADMM+, the ARF, the East Asia Summit and the EU have a role in great power politics?

Introduction to the Articles

This special issue begins to provide some answers to these questions by identifying the factors that will help to determine outcomes in this vital region – however it might ultimately be defined. The articles in this collection consider regional management of great powers and especially great power rivalry from a number of perspectives, and the result is a comprehensive examination of challenges in the Asia–Pacific.

Mark Beeson (2020) makes the case that the unexpected election of Donald Trump is having a major impact on the Asia–Pacific, or even the newly-fashionable “Indo–Pacific” region. This article examines how Trump’s approach seems very different from what has gone before. Trump, it is argued, has drawn a line under Obama’s “Pivot” to Asia and rejected specific initiatives such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The familiar basis of US regional engagement that has been in place for half a century, Beeson argues, is being replaced by a more “transactional” approach to foreign policy that places “America’s national interest” ahead of all others. Beeson considers what this may mean for East Asia in particular by considering some of the deeply integrated geopolitical and geo-economic dynamics that currently drive regional relations, but which seem to have been given little consideration by the Trump administration.

See Seng Tan’s (2020) article on the regionalisation of defence cooperation in the Asia–Pacific focusses on the ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting-Plus (ADMM+). Tan argues that, save for a few bright shining moments, the history of security regionalism in the Asia–Pacific, as exemplified by the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), has mostly been a frustrated enterprise. Against this rather insipid backdrop, he makes the case that the surprise package has been regional defence cooperation. The formation in 2010 of the ADMM+ (the ADMM having been formed four years earlier), which comprises the 10 ASEAN member-states and eight external powers, marked a departure of sorts from the way ASEAN and its dialogue partners have hitherto conducted security cooperation. Tan illustrates that, despite its relative success, the ADMM+ is not without problems. Built primarily to handle non-traditional security challenges such as humanitarian disasters, maritime security and terrorism, the ADMM+ today faces growing expectations to address the South China Sea conflicts, which the ARF has abandoned. The article assesses the prospects and limits of the ADMM+ against the difficult history of ASEAN-based regionalism in the post-Cold War Asia–Pacific.

Philomena Murray (2020) investigates the role of regional bodies in the context of great power rivalry in the Asia–Pacific. In particular, she examines the prospects for a reimagining of the regional role of ASEAN in a period of hegemonic adjustment. The article evaluates ASEAN’s options in a region that is being overshadowed by great power influence and rivalry. Murray considers the prospects for ASEAN to play an effective role, and examines the key drivers, limitations and obstacles to ASEAN’s regionalism. The article offers some comparative considerations with the European Union. Murray concludes that a reimagining of regionalism to manage the challenges in the region is required, with a focus on non-traditional security.

Benjamin Zala (2020) explores the scope for an effective managerial role for great powers in the Asia–Pacific region. Drawing on the English School of International Relations’ perspective on “great power management”, the article analyses how regionalism interacts with the special managerial responsibilities of the great powers in the region. It draws on both the lessons of historical instances of institutionalised great power management in the form of great power concerts and a theoretical reframing of the practice of great power management. Zala argues for a disaggregated approach that prioritises crisis management between the great powers in the short term.

Finally, Baogang He (2020) examines the military contestation between China and the United States that has been dominating the debate on the South China Sea (SCS). Beyond a nationalist approach and alliance politics, He takes a distinctively regional approach to the Sino–American strategic contestation of the SCS. The article investigates the domestic politics of strategic thinking on security regionalism, and discusses security regionalism’s possible role in mitigating conflict in the SCS.

These articles provide food for thought and opportunities for future research agendas, in an era of testing times for regionalism, in coping with great power rivalry in the Asia–Pacific.