Regionalism in the asia pacific/east asia: A frustrated regionalism?

Contemporary Southeast Asia

Volumn 31, Issue 1, 2009, Pages 110-142

  Nair, Deepak ^a  

^a National University of Singapore   (Singapore)

Author keywords

Asia Pacific; East Asia Summit; East Asian Regionalism; Regionalism; United States

Indexed keywords

EID: 85120733867     PISSN: 0129797X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1355/cs31-1e     Document Type: Article

References (91)

1. See Peter J. Katzenstein, “A World of Regions: America, Europe and East Asia”, Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies 1, no. 1 (Fall 1993): 65–82, and A World of Regions: Asia and Europe in the American Imperium (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2005); Edward Mansfield and Helen Milner, The Political Economy of Regionalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997); David A. Lake and Patrick M. Morgan, eds., Regional Orders: Building Security in a New World (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997); Barry Buzan and Ole Wæver, Regions and Powers: The Structure of International Security (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003).
2. The prefix “new” represents an attempt to study emergent experiments in regionalism in non-European parts of the world such as Latin America, Africa and, of course, Asia. Non-institutional forms of regionalism, the role of non-state actors and the impact of globalization and identity are some of the major themes in these studies.
3. Andrew Hurrell, “Regionalism in Theoretical perspective”, in Regionalism in World Politics, edited by Louise Fawcett and Andrew Hurrell (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), pp. 37–73.
4. I refer to the state and policy elites, as well as epistemic communities within a defined region who shape the agenda for, and practice of, state-led regionalism.
5. Christopher Dent, East Asian Regionalism (London & New York: Routledge, 2008), p. 169.
6. Kuala Lumpur Declaration of First EAS, Point 9 .
7. East Asia Vision Group (EAVG) Report. Towards an East Asian Community, 2001 .
8. Muthiah Alagappa, ed., “The Study of International Order: An Analytical Framework”, in Asian Security Order: Instrumental and Normative Features (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003), pp. 33–69.
9. Shaun Breslin, “Theorising East Asian regionalism(s): New Regionalism and Asia’s future(s)”, in Advancing East Asian Regionalism, edited by Melissa G. Curley and Nicholas Thomas (London & New York: Routledge, 2007), pp. 34–35.
10. Alastair Ian Johnston, “Socialization in International Institutions: The ASEAN Way and International Relations Theory”, in International Relations Theory and the Asia-Pacific, edited by G. John Ikenberry and Michael Mastanduno (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003), pp. 107–62.
11. Peter Katzenstein, A World of Regions, 2005, op. cit., pp. 6–13.
12. Thus, the author’s use of an “Asian region” and “Asian regionalism” in this study is not based on any significant conceptual improvement these terms may offer. Instead, it is used only to convey a more overarching concept that subsumes both East Asia and the Asia Pacific, which among themselves, and in their varying permutations, have come to include states from South Asia, Central Asia/Eurasia, and even across continents like Europe, North and South America. This, however, excludes regional formations specific to South Asia (notably, South Asia Association for Regional Cooperation) and Central Asia (the Shanghai Cooperation Organization).
13. Brian L. Job, “Matters of Multilateralism: Implications for Regional Conflict Management”, in Regional Orders: Building Security in a New World, edited by David A. Lake and Patrick M. Morgan (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997), pp. 169–70.
14. Johnston, “Socialization in International Institutions: The ASEAN Way and International Relations Theory”, in International Relations Theory, edited by Ikenberry and Mastanduno, op. cit.
15. Simon W. Sheldon, “Whither Security Regionalism? ASEAN and the ARF in the Face of New Security Challenges”, in Reassessing Security Cooperation in the Asia-Pacific: Competition, Congruence and Transformation, edited by Amitav Acharya and Evelyn Goh (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2007), pp, 121–25.
16. Rosemary Foot, “Modes of Regional Conflict Management: Comparing Security Cooperation in the Korean Peninsula, China-Taiwan, and the South China Sea”, in Reassessing Security Cooperation, edited by Acharya and Goh, op. cit., pp. 93–112.
17. John Ravenhill, APEC and the Construction of Pacific Rim Regionalism (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001).
18. Akihiko Tanaka, “The Development of the ASEAN+3 Framework”, in Advancing East Asian Regionalism, edited by Curley and Thomas, op. cit., p. 55.
19. Michael Wesley, “The dog that didn’t bark: The Bush Administration and East Asian regionalism”, in Bush and Asia: America’s Evolving Relations with East Asia, edited by Mark Beeson (London & New York: Routledge, 2006), pp. 68–69.
20. Tanaka, “The Development of the ASEAN+3 Framework”, in Advancing East Asian Regionalism, edited by Curley and Thomas, op. cit., p. 56.
21. Julie Gilson, Asia Meets Europe: Inter-regionalism and the Asia-Europe Meeting (Northampton, Mass.: Edward Elgar, 2002).
22. Richard Higgott, “The Asian Economic Crisis: A Study in the Politics of Resentment”, New Political Economy 3, no. 3 (November 1998): 333–56.
23. John Ravenhill, “A Three Bloc World? The New East Asian Regionalism”, International Relations of the Asia-Pacific 2, no. 2 (2002): 167–95.
24. Wesley, “The dog that didn’t bark: The Bush Administration and East Asian regionalism”, in Bush and Asia, edited by Mark Beeson, op. cit., pp. 74–77.
25. Dent, East Asian Regionalism, op. cit., pp. 153–68.
26. Tanaka, “The Development of the ASEAN+3 Framework”, in Advancing East Asian Regionalism, edited by Curley and Thomas, op. cit., pp. 64–65; Dent, East Asian Regionalism, op. cit., p. 153.
27. East Asia Vision Group (EAVG) Report, Towards an East Asian Community, 2001 , pp. 14–17.
28. East Asia Vision Group (EAVG) Report, Towards an East Asian Community, 2001 , pp. 11–13.
29. East Asia Study Group (EASG) Report, Final Report of the East Asia Study Group, 2002 , p. 4.
30. See Press Statement by the Chairman of the 6th ASEAN+3 Summit, 2002, Point 22 .
31. Melissa G. Curley and Nicholas Thomas, “Advancing East Asian Regionalism: An Introduction”, in Advancing East Asian Regionalism, edited by Curley and Thomas, op. cit., p. 3.
32. See “Strengthening ASEAN+3 Cooperation”, Chairman’s Statement of the 8th ASEAN+3 Summit, Vientiane, 29 November 2004, Point 10 .
33. Dent, East Asian Regionalism, op. cit., p. 169; Tanaka, “The Development of the ASEAN+3 Framework”, in Advancing East Asian Regionalism, edited by Curley and Thomas, op. cit., p. 65.
34. Peter J. Katzenstein, “Regionalism in Comparative Perspective”, Cooperation and Conflict 31, no. 2 (1996): 123–60; Breslin, “Theorising East Asian regionalism(s): New Regionalism and Asia’s future(s)”, in Advancing East Asian Regionalism, edited by Curley and Thomas, op. cit., pp. 32–35.
35. For APT’s preoccupation with transnational security concerns, see “ASEAN Plus Three cooperation”, Point 5 . Also, see Chairman’s Statement of the 9th ASEAN+3 Summit 2005, Point 12 ; and Chairman’s Statement from the 11th APT Summit 2007, Point 6 .
36. On the rejuvenation of APEC around security issues, see Ravenhill, “Mission Creep or Mission Impossible? APEC and Security”, in Reassessing Security Cooperation, edited by Acharya and Goh, op. cit., pp. 136–40.
37. Shaun Narine, “Economic Security and Regional Cooperation in the Asia-Pacific: Evaluating the Economics-Security Nexus”, in Reassessing Security Cooperation, edited by Acharya and Goh, op. cit., p. 195.
38. This belief in an unproblematic and linear progression from regional economic cooperation to security cooperation is current in state discourse and academic literature. Chu Shulong argues that “a realistic approach for the APT is to stress economic operation and economic security first”, and that once consensus is reached on “soft security” issues it is “logical and natural” to enter into “hard security” issues. See Chu Shulong, “The ASEAN Plus Three Process and East Asian Security Cooperation”, in Reassessing Security Cooperation, edited by Acharya and Goh, op. cit., pp. 163–64.
39. East Asia Vision Group (EAVG) Report, Towards an East Asian Community, 2001, p. 17 .
40. Shaun Narine, “Economic Security and Regional Cooperation in the Asia-Pacific: Evaluating the Economics-Security Nexus”, in Reassessing Security Cooperation, edited by Acharya and Goh, op. cit., p. 216.
41. Ravenhill, “Mission Creep or Mission Impossible?”, in Reassessing Security Cooperation, edited by Acharya and Goh, op. cit., pp. 136–40.
42. Natasha Hamilton-Hart, “Financial cooperation and domestic political economy in East Asia”, in Advancing East Asian Regionalism, edited by Curley and Thomas, op. cit, pp. 116–36.
43. Dent, “East Asian Regionalism”, op. cit., p. 165.
44. Narine, “Economic Security and Regional Cooperation in the Asia-Pacific: Evaluating the Economics-Security Nexus”, in Reassessing Security Cooperation, edited by Acharya and Goh, p. 195.
45. Narine, “Economic Security and Regional Cooperation in the Asia-Pacific: Evaluating the Economics-Security Nexus”, in Reassessing Security Cooperation, edited by Acharya and Goh, op. cit., p. 216.
46. Acharya and Goh, eds., “Introduction”, in Reassessing Security Cooperation, op. cit., p. 7.
47. Katzenstein, Asian Regionalism, op. cit., p. 22.
48. Wesley, “The dog that didn’t bark: The Bush Administration and East Asian regionalism”, in Bush and Asia, edited by Beeson, op. cit., pp. 72–74.
49. Beeson, “American Hegemony and Regionalism: The Rise of East Asia and the End of the Asia-Pacific”, Geopolitics 11, no. 4 (2006): 541–60.
50. Michael Mastanduno, “Hegemonic Order, September 11, and the Consequences of the Bush Revolution”, in Bush and Asia, edited by Beeson, op. cit. pp. 24–41.
51. Ikenberry and Mastanduno, International Relations Theory, op. cit, p. 7.
52. Michael Mastanduno, “Incomplete Hegemony: The United States and Security Order in Asia”, in Asian Security Order: Instrumental and Normative Features, edited by M. Alagappa (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003), pp. 146–50.
53. Ikenberry and Mastanduno, eds., “Introduction to International Relations Theory”, in International Relations Theory, op. cit., pp. 7–8.
54. Evelyn Goh, “Great Powers and Hierarchical Order in Southeast Asia”, International Security 32, no. 3 (Winter 2007/08): 131–38.
55. Breslin, “Theorising East Asian Regionalism(s): New Regionalism and Asia’s Future(s)”, in Advancing East Asian Regionalism, edited by Curley and Thomas, op. cit., pp. 34–35.
56. Ravenhill, “US Economic Relations with East Asia: From Hegemony to Complex Interdependence?”, in Bush and Asia, edited by Beeson, op. cit., pp. 42–63.
57. Kuala Lumpur Declaration of the 1st EAS, Point 3 .
58. Chairman’s Statement of the 3rd EAS, Singapore, 2007, Point 12 .
59. See Chairman’s Statement of the 2nd EAS, Cebu, 2007, Points 4, 5 and 6 ; Chairman’s Statement of the 3rd EAS, Singapore, 2007, Points 5 and 6 .
60. See Chairman’s Statement of the 3rd EAS, Singapore, 2007, Points 8 and 9 .
61. The overlap with the APT is conspicuous; see Chairman’s Statements of the 9th APT Summit 2005, Point 12 , and Chairman’s Statement of the 11th APT Summit 2007, Point 6 . For EAS documents mirroring these issues see Chairman’s Statement of the 2nd EAS, 2007, Cebu, Points 9 and 10 , and Chairman’s Statement of the 3rd EAS, Singapore, Points 3–18 .
62. See APT Summit Chairman and Press Statements for 2002, Point 23 ; 2004, Point 4 ; 2005, Point 15 ; and 2007, Point 7 . For references to North Korea and the Six Party Talks in the EAS, see the 1st EAS 2005, Point 3, the 2nd EAS 2007, Points 14, 15 and 16 (has a separate section on the “Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula”), and the 3rd EAS 2007, Point 2. All available at .
63. See Chairman’s Statement of the 3rd EAS 2007, Singapore, Point 3 .
64. Dent, East Asian Regionalism, op. cit., p. 179.
65. See APT Summit Chairman’s Statements for 2004, Point 11; 2005; and 2007, Point 2. Interestingly, the APT’s role in East Asian community-building is referred to as a “key role” rather than “main vehicle” in the 2007 document.
66. Authors’ italics. See Kuala Lumpur Declaration 2005 ; Chairman’s Press Statement for the 7th ASEAN+3 Foreign Ministers’ Meeting, Kuala Lumpur, 26 July 2006 ; the 3rd EAS Chairman’s Statement, Point 21 .
67. Michael Mastanduno, “Incomplete Hegemony: The United States and Security Order in Asia”, in Asian Security Order, edited by Alagappa, op. cit., pp. 153–57.
68. Beeson, “American Hegemony and Regionalism”, op. cit., pp. 550–54.
69. Progress by the minilateral frameworks such as the Six Party Talks would challenge this argument, but in response it should be noted that US initiative in seeking a genuine solution to the North Korean nuclear crisis have been borne from the threat such a development would pose not only to the non-proliferation regime, but also to the status quo of US power on the Korean peninsula and on the US position as the nuclear guarantor for both Japan and South Korea.
70. Muthiah Alagappa, “Managing Asian Security: Competition, Cooperation, and Evolutionary Change”, in Asian Security Order, edited by Alagappa, op. cit., pp. 594–600.
71. Malcolm Cook, “The United States and the East Asia Summit: Finding the Proper Home”, Contemporary Southeast Asia 30, no 4 (2008): 293–312.
72. “We agreed for the eventual establishment of the East Asian Community”, Chairman’s Statement of the 8th APT Summit, Vientiane, 2004, Point 11 .
73. See for instance, the overarching vision of the APT in the call for the “promotion of peace, stability and prosperity in the region” in the Joint Statement on East Asia Cooperation, 1999. See Point 2 .
74. See Kuala Lumpur Declaration of the 1st EAS 2005, Point 4 .
75. Muthiah Alagappa, ed., “The Study of International Order: An Analytical Framework”, in Asian Security Order, op. cit., pp. 33–69.
76. Evelyn Goh, “Great Powers and Hierarchical Order in Southeast Asia”, International Security 32, no. 3 (Winter 2007/08): 131–38.
77. APEC Leaders’ Economic Vision Statement 1993 .
78. APEC Economic Leaders’ Declaration: Delivering to the Community 2000 .
79. 13th APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting, Economic Declaration 2005 .
80. 14th APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting, Hanoi Declaration 2006 .
81. See for instance, Nagesh Kumar, “Towards a Broader Asian Community: Agenda for the East Asian Summit”, RIS Discussion Papers 2005 .
82. Joint Communiqué of the 38th ASEAN Ministerial Meeting, Vientiane, 2005, Point 57 .
83. East Asia Vision Group (EAVG) Report, Towards an East Asian Community, 2001, pp. 10–11 .
84. On the elite nature of ASEAN regionalism and community-building processes see Emmerson, who describes ASEAN as a “consociational democracy”. Donald K. Emmerson, “Challenging ASEAN: A ‘Topological’ View”, Contemporary Southeast Asia 29, no. 3 (2007): 424–46. Chavez emphasizes the need for regional cooperation from below to foster regional identities. She argues that ASEAN’s preoccupation with trade and investment and other forms of economic cooperation has limited cooperation in areas where deeper cultural and historical roots do exist. See Jenina Joy Chavez, “Regionalism beyond an elite project: the challenge of building responsive subregional economic communities”, in Advancing East Asian Regionalism, edited by Curley and Thomas, op. cit., pp. 158–78.
85. See Kuala Lumpur Declaration of APT Summit 2005, Point 6; see Chairman’s Statement APT Summit, Kuala Lumpur, 2005, Point 7.
86. See Alan Collins, “A People-oriented ASEAN: A Door Ajar or Closed for Civil Society Organizations?”, Contemporary Southeast Asia 30, no. 4 (2008): 313–31.
87. East Asia Vision Group (EAVG) Report, Towards an East Asian Community, 2001, p. 1 .
88. Hans W. Maull, “The European Security Architecture: Conceptual Lessons for Asia Pacific Security Cooperation”, in Reassessing Security Cooperation, edited by Acharya and Goh, op. cit., pp. 253–74.
89. Shin-wha Lee argues for a more “problem-driven” and “issue based” approach to East Asian regionalism. See Shin-wha Lee, “A Problem-Driven Approach to East Asian Regionalism”, in Do Institutions Matter? Regional Institutions and Regionalism in East Asia, edited by See Seng Tan (Singapore: RSIS Monograph no. 13, 2008), pp. 39–51.
90. T.J. Pempel, ed., Remapping East Asia: the Construction of a Region (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2005), pp. 12–28.
91. Simon S.C. Tay, “ASEAN Plus 3: Challenges and Cautions about a New Regionalism”, in Asia Pacific Security: Challenges and Opportunities in the Twenty-first Century, edited by Mohamed Jwaher Hassan, Stephen Leong, and Vincent Lim (Kuala Lumpur: ISIS Malaysia, 2002), p. 103.