Australia and the Asia-Pacific R. James Ferguson © 2006
Lecture 11:
Regional Engagement and Competing Regionalisms
Topics: -
1. Regionalism and Regionalization in the Asia-Pacific Area
2. Regional Processes: Beyond Values and Identity Politics
3. Asian Regional Cores Verses the Wider Asia-Pacific?
4. Multiple Cores Or Tiered Multipolarity?
5. Challenges To Regionalism and to an Indo-Pacific Tiered-multipolar System
6. Bibliography, Resources and Further Reading
1. Regionalism and Regionalization in the Wider Asia-Pacific
As we have seen, no single organisation or group of organisations, covers the governance of the entire Indo-Pacific region, with only relatively limited organisations such as APEC and the ASEAN Regional Forum covering different aspects of trade and security cooperation. Even within Southeast Asia and South Asia, the construction of regional organisations (ASEAN and SAARC, see weeks 6 and 10) has been a gradual process with only limited integration and institutionalisation of these groups. The East Asian Summit (EAS) process based on the ASEAN-Plus-Three (APT), has begun to emerge through 2003-2006, but it remains to be seen how strong this will be in shaping the wider region, especially since it suffers from tensions over membership, differences between Chinese and Japanese viewpoints, and a circle of activity that tends to overlap the ASEAN-Plus-Three and the ARF (Strategic Comments 2005.
A clear-cut definition of a region can no longer be given on narrow geographical grounds, and is not merely based on physical proximity. Strong linkages and flows of information, money, people, affiliation or shared concerns and threats are needed form a region: -
The literature on new regionalism stresses several key linkage factors as necessary conditions under which regionalism or regional integration can take place among a group of states, including linkage by geographical proximity and by various forms of shared political, economic, social, cultural, or institutional affinities. Regions are also defined by combinations of geographical, psychological, and behavioural characteristics. (Kim 2004, p40).
Put simply, political regions are not ‘natural’: they are ‘socially constructed and politically contested’ (Kim 2004, p45), they can be built up on historical experience or destroyed by conflict and new trends. Just as modern nations and nationalism projects are partly ‘imagined communities’ (see Anderson 1991), regional grouping are also imagined and invested in by political leaders, domestic audiences, civil society, corporations, and governments (He 2004, p119). Shared security concerns and complexes can also drive regional processes to some degree (see Buzan &Waever 2003): this was partially the case of ASEAN and remains an important factor for the ASEAN Regional Forum. Likewise, multilateral and regional groups may increase the security and ‘voice’ of small and medium powers (He 2004, p121), part of the background ASEAN, APEC and to a lesser degree IOR-ARC. How far they can restrain great powers, however, dependents upon relative power balances in the wider region and whether the stronger powers need a 'concert' or alliance system to support their wider needs and agenda (see below).
In part, this slow progress has been driven by the great diversity of the region, as well as by pressing national and sovereign needs by many Asian states still going through national-building processes over the last fifty years. For Southeast Asia: -
Southeast Asia is arguably the most diverse region in the world. Whether it is measured in terms of differences in economic development, divergent social and religious traditions or differing political regimes, there are few places where such diversity is woven into the very fabric of national life. Indeed, there are considerable grounds for questioning whether what we think of as contemporary Southeast Asia constitutes a region at all. And yet, despite this remarkable difference at the level of individual nations, Southeast Asia has also given rise to some of the most enduring transnational and regional institutions in the developing world. This paradox is at the heart of one of the most distinctive features of modern Southeast Asia: despite the national diversity that is its defining feature, there are a number of region-wide processes that have given Southeast Asia both a particular identity and a set of additional political, economic, social and even environmental dynamics that have in turn shaped national outcomes. (Beeson 2004, p1)
In turn, we can question how deep this integration as been, with limited supranational aspects, with sovereignty and decision making being retained at the level of national governments, and organisations such as ASEAN largely working through inter-governmental agreements, voluntary treaties with little formal enforcement, and an ongoing dialogue process. This has in part been maintained by the non-interference concept with the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation (TAC), but in reality the region is moving towards the understanding that shared action is needed on shared problems.
Religious Diversity in Southeast Asia: Mosque in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
(Photocopy copright R. James Ferguson 2002)
The diversity of Southeast Asia is complicated by its multi-ethnic and multi-religious populations, even within one state, by diversity among nations as to wealth, developmental level, governmental style and religion, as well as sub-regional diversity among South Asia, Southeast Asia, Northeast Asia, the South Pacific, South American states (within APEC and in intensified trade relations with China and North-east Asia), and developed states with European cultural features such as Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United States. Some of this diversity can be seen in Table 1 below, where even states with dominant religious groups also have significant religious minorities, e.g. Christians, Buddhists and Hindus in Indonesia. Even in Vietnam there are Christian minorities, Chinese sub-communities, and a small Muslim community.
Table 1 (modified from Beeson 2004)
Country / Population (approx. million) / Government Type / Main ReligionBrunei / .344 / [Constitutional] Monarchy / Islam
Cambodia / 12.6 / Constitutional Monarchy (from 1993) / Buddhism
Indonesia / 208.9 / Democratic Republic / Islam (plus others)
Lao PDR / 5.4 / Communist / Buddhism
Malaysia / 23.8 / Procedural Democracy / Islam (plus others)
Myanmar / 48.3 / Military Junta / Buddhism (plus others)
Philippines / 78.3 / Democracy / Christianity (plus Muslim minority)
Singapore / 4.1 / Procedural Democracy / Taoism (plus others)
Thailand / 61.1 / Constitutional Monarch/Democracy / Buddhism (plus others)
Vietnam / 79.5 / Communist / Buddhism (plus others)
One key point is that regional processes are not always driven by similarity and convergence, though this may be required in the long term. Rather, complementarity among economies, services and development level can also provide strong regional flows. Furthermore, regional organisations can also be driven by crisis and the requirement for crisis management and preventive diplomacy. Thus, the first phase of ASEAN regionalism from 1967 was driven by the need to reduce political tensions among member states, especially Indonesia and Malaysia, and the desire to reduce great power interventions in local conflicts (see lecture 6). The second phase of ASEAN regionalism after 1998 was driven in part by a reaction to the Asian financial crisis of 1997-1998, and that East Asian states could not rely on a supportive financial and economic environment being generated by the U.S. and other Western states (for different phases of regionalism, see Kim 1998, pp41-42). Likewise, a web of bilateral ties, including free trade agreements under negotiation, have also begun to shape the region, e.g. Australian negotiations with Singapore, Thailand, the U.S., China and Japan, plus a range of proposed free trade agreements focused on Singapore, Korea, and Japan (see Kim 2004, pp56-57).
It is important to distinguish between regionalization and regionalism: -
To make sense of these differences, it is useful to make a widely employed initial conceptual distinction between processes of regionalization on the one hand, in which the private sector and economic forces are the principle drivers of regional integration, and regionalism, in which self-consciously pursued political projects drive closer transnational cooperation on the other. One of the most noteworthy comparative qualities of the Southeast Asian experience in this regard is that regional integration has primarily been uncoordinated and principally driven by multinational corporations and the evolving logic of cross-border production strategies. (Beeson 2004, pp7-8)
Of course, there are strong interactions between regionalization and regionalism. Transnational regionalization processes will make regionalism projects more acceptable to political and economic elites. In turn, regionalism projects tend to create a more transparent civil and economic space, and promote free trade and other multilateral frameworks, e.g. AFTA, the AIA, plus ASEAN’s agreements with China, Japan (ASEAN-Japan Comprehensive Economic Partnership) and India (via and FTA with ASEAN) that are gradually making trade and standards more compatible through 2003-2012 (He 2004, p106), though the ASEAN-Chinese Free Trade Agreement (ACFTA) seems most likely to lock into place first, perhaps causing some ‘angst’ in Tokyo (Kim 2004, p51). We should also note that the China-ASEAN FTA does not include Taiwan, unlike APEC (He 2004, p115). The ‘whole idea is to establish a comprehensive and close relationship between ASEAN and China involving an FTA, and cooperation in finance, regional development, technological assistance, macroeconomic cooperation, and other issues of common concern’ (Cai 2003). Individual agreements with ASEAN are likely to come into play before any formal, wider East Asian Free Trade Area (EAFTA), which has now been shifted into the group of medium-range projects by the ASEAN-Plus-Three (Kim 2004, p56). Likewise, the ASEAN-India efforts to build a free-trade agreement will take time to move beyond a wide range of exceptions and limitations (Gaur 2003), though some 'early fruits' of this process will result in some 105 products having tariffs cut as early 2007 (Xinhua 2005; see lectures 6 & 10).
Political elites have accepted that a conscious regionalism also helps countries to cope with globalization, and give some economic and developmental support to regimes (Beeson 2004, p10) with limited democratic credentials, e.g. in Malaysia, Singapore, and Vietnam. Thus, ‘regionalization can be said to breed regionalism’ (Kim 2004, p40). However, in turn, regionalization make it possible for governments to consider developing shared values, norms, aspirations (Kim 2004, p40), and in cases of deep integration over the long term, a certain layer of regional identity or at least shared cultural processes may be developed. However, it may be dangerous to either to assume or mandate some notion of a shared identity when cultural system remain diverse, as in East Asia. Some general aspirations for minimum standards in terms of treatment of citizens and peaceful codes of conduct (e.g. in the South China Sea) have also begun to emerge, but has had only a limited impact on countries such as Myanmar. Likewise, pluralism and democratisation, though gaining regionally, e.g. Indonesia's transition, remain problematic norms for countries such as Vietnam and PRC, and have not yet become part of a more inclusive pattern of regional governance (see lecture 6). At present, neither Australia nor the US, even with the earlier aid of Thailand, the Philippines and Indonesia, seem able to insist on a democratic-led form of regionalism in the Asia-Pacific (contra Terrill 2005). In turn, the stability of democracies in Thailand and Philippines is limited, and even in Indonesia there are major concerns about the delivery of basic rights in regions such as Aceh (slowly improving through 2005-2006) and West Papua (Strategic Comments 2006).
2. Regional Processes: Beyond Values and Identity Politics
In the past, efforts have been made to built regional projects in Asia, either on the basis of some shared identity, on resistance to Western colonialism and power, and on the notion of shared ‘Asian values’ or at least a ‘shared ASEAN way’. One of the earliest models for this was the intense interaction among earlier kingdoms, mandala systems of prestige and influence and extended trading networks for over two millennia (see Wolters 1992; Higham 1989). Beyond this, however, there was an attempt in the early 20th century to shape a sense of Pan-Asian values and Pan-Asianism in contrast to Western colonial dominance and narrow patterns of nationalism, a trend of though influencing thinkers as diverse as Gandhi, Rabindranath Tagore (the great Bengali writer and thinker), Aurobindo, Sun Yat-sen, Rin Kaito and Major General Kenji Doihara and others (He 2004, pp107-108; Duara 2001). Such ideas would soon founder on Japanese militarism through the 1930s, and come to be rejected in India, China and Korea (He 2004, p110).
The Asian values debate would be revived through the 1980s and 1990s as part of the debate over the causes of revived ‘tiger’ economies in East Asia, leading to a reappraisal of the relationship of traditional values systems (including Confucianism and Taoism) to modern life (see Dupont 1996). Though a tempting move politically, and supported at time by governments resisting outside influence or seeking legitimation for governments with limited democratic credentials, this has been a problematic path for Asian regionalism. In the worst case scenario, support for ‘Asian values’ verses ‘Western’ human rights may be a way of justifying ‘soft authoritarian’ regimes with limited degrees of political freedom (Beeson 2004, p11), e.g. in Malaysia, Singapore, and in a different form in PRC. For a time this ‘New Asianism’ was given some support in Japan, e.g. via the search to create a new, shared contemporary Asian culture, thereby allowing a secondary and safe outlet for some Japanese nationalism (He 2004, p114), but this now seems a minor trend. In the long run, regionalism based on exclusive cultural systems or anti-Westernism may be a kind of ‘trap’ since modern and Western ideas and technology are freely used in much of urban Asia, and trade linkages into the U.S., Canada and Australasia remain important (adapting He 2004, p121). Likewise, emerging middle-classes throughout Asia share elements of modernism drawn from Western culture.
The ‘ASEAN Way’ and Asian values did to some degree drive the proposal for an East Asian Economic Grouping (EAEG) which would exclude non-Asian states on the basis of culture and identity (He 2004, p112), given most vocal support by former Prime Minister Mahathir of Malaysia from 1990 as at first an alternative to APEC. This project was attacked by the U.S. and not supported by Australia, while Japan and South Korea in the end were unwilling to effectively exclude or downgrade relations with major trade partners across the Pacific. This led to the subsequent downgrading of EAEG to the East Asian Economic Caucus (EAEC), a loose grouping within APEC (Kim 2004, p46). However, this grouping was reborn both as the Asian ‘table’ within the ASEM (Asia-Europe Meetings), and as the ASEAN-Plus-Three from 1997 (He 2004, p112), though now driven largely by economic and security concerns. However, narrower grouping might meet the short-term needs of countries such as Malaysia or PRC if they feel that their national needs are too readily constrained by US or Australian influences.