China-Japan-ASEAN heralds new regional order

China-Japan-ASEAN heralds new regional order

Park Sang-seek, The Korea Herald, Asia News Network, Seoul

The Japan-ASEAN summit was held on Dec. 11-12 and issued the
Tokyo Declaration. The declaration stated, among other things,
that Japan and ASEAN will contribute to the creation of an East
Asian community and will promote the development of regional and
trans-national frameworks such as the ARF, the ASEAN Plus Three
process, APEC and ASEM.

It also declared that they would enhance political and
security partnership in addition to cooperation in the economic,
social and cultural fields. In concrete terms, Japan decided to
accede to the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia
of ASEAN and to expedite an FTA with ASEAN countries.

It seems that the Tokyo Declaration is a mirror image of the
Bali Declaration issued by China and ASEAN in October this year.
The China-ASEAN declaration said that they agreed to establish a
strategic partnership in the political and security fields as
well as cooperation in economic, social and cultural areas.

For this comprehensive partnership, China decided to accede to
the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation and to speed up the FTA
agreement with ASEAN.

These almost identical movements by the two major powers in
Asia are not co-incidental, but calculated ones. Both emphasize
that their partnerships with ASEAN are not to supersede or
undermine the existing Asia-Pacific regional organizations, but
to supplement them.

In this connection, it is interesting to note that the comment
of the People's Daily on the Bali Declaration said that China's
move was to spur Japan to join in the movement for regional
integration in Asia. It argued that China and Japan, two major
powers in Asia, should jointly promote regional cooperation in
East Asia.

There can be two motives for this "flanking tactic." One is to
camouflage its expansionist intentions. The other is to wean
Japan away from the U.S. so that China and Japan can jointly
counter U.S. domination in the Asia-Pacific region. It seems that
Japan has similar motives from a long-term perspective. The
reason why Japan has not taken the initiative was that Japan did
not want to antagonize the U.S.

Here, it should be noted that there are two kinds of movements
for regional cooperation in the Asia-Pacific region, according to
whether the U.S. is a participant or not. The China-ASEAN
partnership, the Japan-ASEAN partnership, ASEAN, and the East
Asian community idea, exclude U.S. participation, while APEC, the
ARF and the Northeast Asian community idea involve the U.S.

In the immediate post-cold war period the U.S. was wary of
multilateral organizations in the Asia-Pacific region because it
believed that bilateral security arrangements were the best way
to maintain its predominant position in the region.

However, it gradually has realized that multilateral
cooperation in the security field, as well as the economic field,
is inevitable because the nature of security has changed and
globalization requires global markets. This was the reason why
initially the U.S. reluctantly joined, and now is actively
participating in APEC.

The China-ASEAN partnership and the Japan-ASEAN partnership
portend the emergence of a new regional order and these two
movements are a direct challenge to U.S. domination in the
region. But the implications of this challenge are more serious
and complex, because the two potential superpowers have begun to
seek their spheres of influence in the identical sub-region of
the Asia-Pacific.

Contrary to the Chinese claim that China and Japan should and
can cooperate in Southeast Asia, they are most likely to compete,
and eventually conflict, with each other. The U.S. may benefit
from such a conflict, but at the cost of diminution of its
dominant position.

The East Asian Community idea complicates the situation. It is
well known that the idea was not actively supported by Japan and
South Korea until very recently, mainly due to U.S. opposition.

Since 1997, however, the ASEAN Plus Three summit has become a
regular meeting, and it has been trying to institutionalize an
East Asian Community. The East Asian leaders have not reached a
consensus on the nature of the community: Should it be a
multipurpose, or an economic organization? Which countries should
be its members?

The prospects for the East Asian Community as either a
multilateral or an economic organization will become less
promising, because the U.S. will try to use APEC as its
counterweight and there will be a power struggle between Japan
and China.

There is already a cobweb of regional organizations in the
Asia-Pacific area. They are less likely to complement each other
and more likely to complicate the security environment in the
region. China will challenge the U.S. in Southeast Asia first and
East Asia next, and Japan will challenge China jointly with the
U.S. first and independently later.

The U.S. will not acquiesce to these challenges. It is likely
to strengthen and expand bilateral security ties and to use APEC
and the ARF as a counterweight to those regional organizations
from which it is excluded. Therefore, the U.S. is likely to
promote the Northeast Asian Security Community more actively.

The writer is rector of the Graduate Institute of Peace
Studies, Kyung Hee University.