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.