E. Asian economic regionalism becomes reality

Bunn Nagara, The Star, Asia News Network/Selangor, Malaysia

The first summit of East Asian leaders is due on Dec. 14, capping many years of hard work. But this will only be a beginning, at a time when relations in North-East Asia are in disrepair and the summit includes Australia, New Zealand and India

Finally, the vision of East Asian regionalism heaves into policy reality, as Malaysia hosts the first East Asia Summit in 10 days' time.

It has been 15 years this month since Malaysia proposed the idea of an East Asia Economic Grouping. Since then, there have been ebbs and flows in the regionalist concept, amid political upheaval, natural disasters and an East Asian economic crisis. Although it may not seem like it, the wait has been longer for Japanese advocates of the regionalist idea.

Even leaving aside the ill-conceived notion of an imperialist Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere, Japanese thinkers and leaders including former premier Yasuhiro Nakasone had conceived of nearly a dozen regionalist concepts in the last half-century.

But ironically, now that these ideas approach fruition for the first time, it is Japan that stands in the way of further progress.

In recent months, the government of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has presided over a decline in bilateral relations with Beijing, Taipei, Seoul and Pyongyang, with reverberations fanning out to the rest of Asia from the Yasukuni Shrine as epicenter.

The shrine commemorates the exploits of 1,000 Japanese war criminals, alongside other Japanese troops slain in war. In 1979 some of the leading war criminals were proclaimed martyrs, leading to the controversy that remains to this day.

Koizumi has dismissed protests and criticisms from abroad as merely the objections of China and South Korea. That is a strategic miscalculation, because the issues go far beyond Yasukuni and impact on matters of collective interest.

Adding to the problem is a sense of Koizumi's insensitivity. As prime minister he has paid homage to the shrine a record five times, then in May this year lambasted foreign critics on the eve of an official visit to Tokyo by Chinese Vice-Premier Wu Yi.

Koizumi kept up his uncompromising bent throughout, and in late October appointed two reactionary conservatives to key Cabinet positions. These were incoming Foreign Minister Taro Aso and Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe, both notoriously unapologetic about Japan's war conduct and strong candidates to succeed Koizumi next year as prime minister.

This rightward lurch has caused concern in various parts of Asia, including Japan, where the critics include outgoing foreign minister Nobutaka Machimura. At a stroke, consensual diplomacy appeared to have been replaced by muscular brinkmanship.

Besides Yasukuni, Japan is also seen as culpable on issues like government-approved revisionist history textbooks whitewashing its war conduct, disputed ownership of islands in the East China Sea, and control of undersea mineral deposits.

All of these are happening at a time when Japan is also seeking a permanent seat on the UN Security Council to decide on war and peace, while also hoping to refashion its armed forces for foreign missions. It amounts to policy over-reach that is not only undiplomatic but impolitic, by politicians who are more old- style ideologues than modern strategic thinkers.

All these years when East Asian regionalism was being nurtured carefully by policy thinkers in the region, there was a consensus that the gains of each member state would be based on the collective gains of all. Underpinning this was an implicit need for greater cooperation for enhanced integration.

The 11th ASEAN Summit (Dec. 12-13) would also see the 9th ASEAN + 3 Summit and the first East Asia Summit (Dec. 14), and also what would have been the 7th North-East Asian Summit between China, South Korea and Japan on the sidelines. Beijing has said the latter is now impossible, and Seoul appears to concur.

China has placed the responsibility for the chill in relations on Japan, and Japan has put the initiative for proceeding with the trilateral summit on China. Summits are useful within limits as gestures of substance, but Koizumi has crafted events as to impoverish gesture and substance.

So what are the prospects of the first East Asia Summit, albeit one with EAEG "plus three" countries Australia, New Zealand and India? Skeptics might say that success seems bleak, but realpolitik suggests otherwise.

In terms of context, virtually all the other countries Japan will be meeting had been invaded, humiliated and brutalized by Japanese war criminals. That defines the sub-text, in which China and South Korea have already won the PR battle over Japan.

There is still time for Koizumi's advisers to be savvy enough to recognize this, and work towards a more conciliatory position. That might mean taking the initiative to warm relations for a trilateral summit with its immediate neighbors in Kuala Lumpur.