Practical vs. identity regionalism: Australia's APC initiative, a case study

Abstract

On 4 June 2008 Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced his ‘vision for an Asia Pacific community’ (APC). Though failing to win support among Asian countries, the initiative offers a useful case study. This article does not focus on the motives and interests of the various governments responding to the proposal but rather on the different (and sometimes conflicting) understandings of regionalism that underpinned those responses. In its diplomatic advocacy of the APC, the Australian government stressed ‘practical regionalism’ – emphasizing the capacity of such a new ‘community’ to deal with security, economic, environmental and other challenges faced in recent times in the Asia-Pacific region. The Australian campaign gave little attention, however, to the influence of cognitive and emotive factors in community planning: it neglected ‘identity’ regionalism. In particular, it did not seem to take seriously the possible role of non-Western perspectives in shaping the development of post-colonial inter-state relations. Through the investigation of key Asian-language terms – relating to the English terms for ‘region’ and ‘community’ – this article seeks to demonstrate the importance of the identity dimension in both policy development and academic analysis. It argues for an analytic and diplomatic skillset that goes beyond the disciplines of international relations and economics and draws upon expertise in linguistics and regional political cultures.

Keywords:

• regional community
• identity regionalism
• practical regionalism
• Asia-Pacific Community
• East Asia

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank for their helpful comments, criticisms, and suggestions, the two anonymous reviewers, as well as, Mark Beeson, Nicholas Farrelly, Frank Frost, Andrei Lankov, Chintana Sandilands, Shahriman Lockman, I-Ling Tseng and Amrih Widodo. Research for this article was assisted by funding from the Australian Research Council [Project ID LP0455473].

Notes

1. He did note that ASEAN had ‘brought together a varied group and forged a common outlook on many questions’ and ‘played a critical role in building and maintaining peace in the region through its work.’ When speaking of the membership of the APC, however, he singled out Indonesia – separating it from ASEAN. The APC as a regional institution, he suggested, should ‘span(s) the entire Asia-Pacific region – including the USA, Japan, China India, Indonesia and the other states of the region.’ He referred to ASEAN again in stating that ‘APEC, the ASEAN Regional Forum, the East Asia Summit, ASEAN Plus Three and ASEAN itself will continue to play important roles, and longer-term may continue in their own right or embody the building blocks of an Asia Pacific Community.’

2. Two important (and impressive) Australian examples of an instrumentalist approach are Gyngell (2007) and Bisley (2009). See also the discussion in Mansfield and Milner (1997), pp. 5–6.

3. See Woolcott (2009a), Rudd (2008d, 2009a, 2009b), and Smith (2009).

4. See the discussion in Higgott (2007), pp. 80, 83, 88; Wunderlich (2007), Camroux (2007b), Wang (2006), Milner (2011). Beeson (2005), writes of the ‘ability to translate a nascent sense of regional identity into a more developed sense of “regioness”’ (Beeson 2005). He quotes B. Hettne and F. Soderbaum describing ‘regioness’ as developing when ‘a geographical area is transformed from a passive object to an active subject capable of articulating the transnational interests of the emerging region’ (Hettne and Soderbaum 2000, p. 461). Fawn (2009, p. 17), notes that ‘cultural connections (vestiges of empire) and especially language have been argued to provide far stronger bonds than geography’. The British Commonwealth, he observes, ‘has been considered a region’.

5. It should be noted that while the Rudd proposal was strongly opposed in East Asia, there were some individual positive responses from regional figures, for example, Soesastro (2008):

Australian critics of Prime Minister Rudd's Asia Pacific Community initiative have got it wrong about the idea not being well thought out. Kevin Rudd's initiative should be seen as an invitation to other leaders, policy makers, and thinkers in the region to join … in a serious discussion about how best the Asia Pacific region could be organised. If Rudd had come up with a fully-baked proposal, the exercise could be self-defeating. Evolving regionalism in Asia Pacific requires that all parties concerned should have an active part in the process, especially in the shaping of a new vision for the region … Indonesia should support Rudd's initiative and the process of deliberations that will follow from it.

6. The literature on key terms includes Williams (1983), Bennett, Grossberg, and Morris (2005), and Gluck and Lowenhaupt Tsing (2009). With respect to international and security relations in the Asian region, see the lexicon of the ANU-ARC linkage project, The Languages of Security in the Asia-Pacific at http://asiapacific.anu.edu.au/blogs/languagesofsecurity/.

7. There are important exceptions of specialists in these areas paying close attention to matters of language and culture. These include Acharya (2003) and Johnston (2012). See further Milner (2011,  2012).

8. Apart from newspaper commentary, negative comments on the Australian proposal were expressed at different regional conferences, such as the annual Asia Pacific Roundtable (held mid-year in Kuala Lumpur), Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific (CSCAP) meetings (held twice a year), and the annual ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand Dialogue (held in December in Kuala Lumpur).

9. The Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa made a similar comment at the Council for Security in the Asia Pacific Conference in Jakarta in November 2009.

10. For the US view, see, for instance, the Wikileaks report: http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/dec2010/rudd-d31.shtml [accessed 1 August 2012].

11. He and Inoguchi (2011) have made a recent and important contribution to the discussion of ideas of regionalism in Asia. They argue that there is no single Asian idea of regionalism; rather, individual countries demonstrate internal differences in developing, modifying and shifting concepts of ‘regionalism’. The authors compare the historical evolution of ideas about ‘region’, as well as investigate how these ideas have interacted with one another and have been revised over time to conclude that the development of indigenous ideas of regionalism in Asia are hindered by the domination of US power in Asia, internal rivalry in the Asia-Pacific, and the nature of domestic politics in individual countries. In a separate article, He (2011) argues that in criticism of Australia's approach to region building too little attention has been given to questions of culture, shared norms and identity politics.

12. See, for instance, the discussion of both Constructivist and English-School methodology with reference to the analysis of ASEAN's durability, in Narine (2006).

13. For a historically informed analysis, see Acharya (2009a).

14. For the Chinese government's relationship with the media, see ‘China's secret media: Chinese whispers’ 2010.

15. This distinction is discussed further in Milner (2011), where reference is made to Australian academic analysis and policy formation.

16. Authors' discussion with Andrei Lankov, Canberra, Australia, September 2010. For further discussion, see Milner and Johnson (2004).

17. See also the discussion by Beeson and Yoshimatsu (2007).

18. For a discussion of diverse concepts of ‘regionalism’ in South Korean domestic politics, see Hundt and Kim (2011).

19. Authors' discussion with Andrei Lankov, Canberra, Australia, September 2010.

20. Authors' discussion with Amrih Widodo, Canberra, Australia, November 2010.

21. See, for instance, Pitty (2003a, pp. 20–24).

22. See, for instance, Pitty (2003b, pp. 66–70).

23. See Acharya (2009b, p. 84).

24. See Wendt (1999), and for further discussion, see Milner (2012).

25. See the summary of Constructivist approaches relating to the analysis of Southeast Asian regional relations in Acharya and Stubbs (2006).

26. See Wang Gungwu's warning against the neglect of such diplomatic skills, made at a time when the Australian and other diplomatic services were being merged with trade ministries (Wang 1986, pp. 73–76).