From ASEAN+3 to Asia-Europe

Bunn Nagara The Star Asia News Network Selangor, Malaysia

From regionalization, a process in which countries within a region cooperate and integrate over a range of issues, comes inter-regionalism.

This involves regional entities like the European Union (EU) and the impending East Asian economic community working more closely together.

This particular pairing, involving the most dynamic economies of Asia and Europe, has in recent years been expressed in the Asia-Europe Meetings (ASEMs), Asia-Europe Forums and Asia-Europe Summits. Singapore is also the site of the Asia-Europe Foundation, while Kuala Lumpur is where the Asia-Europe Institute is based.

All of these grew from Malaysia's proposal for an East Asia Economic Grouping 14 years ago.

Inter-regionalism does not conflict with or detract from regionalization, but complements and enhances it.

As European and East Asian cooperation develops, Europe (as in the EU) and East Asia also grow as distinct regional entities through extra-regional achievements.

After Hanoi hosted an Asia-Europe Forum and then an Asia- Europe Summit (ASEM V Summit) earlier this year, the Asian Strategy and Leadership Institute (Asli) hosted another Asia- Europe Forum in Kuala Lumpur this month.

The fourth session is business territory best left to industry captains to explore, which they did. The "ambassador's roundtable" was a diplomatic play in which some of the more verbal diplomats predictably tried to promote the image, if not also the interests of their countries.

The first session as a report on the ASEM V Summit in Hanoi was partly reflective stocktaking, and partly a projection towards some imagined futures.

The second session, dwelling on what Asian regionalization might learn from Europe, was based on certain interesting starting points.

Regionalization in East Asia, which comprises giants China and Japan, is implicitly led by ASEAN, among the world's most successful regional organizations.

Principal member states of the EU are world leaders on several fronts, just as East Asian cultures have been the bedrock of civilizations for millennia.

The prospects for creative synergy and productive reciprocity between the regions are therefore promising.

The New Europe of the forum session, and as represented by the EU today, is one that is modern, progressive, wary of being drawn into another war, respectful of others, and open in its relations with other regions like East Asia.

Many East Asian countries are already aware of what might be learned from Europe's regionalization experience, even when a formal East Asian regional entity has yet to be formed.

This learning experience encompasses greater speed, volume and ease of doing business through a single entity; larger economies of scale, as in the speed and size of turnover through bulk transactions; better integration into a collectivised market, whether regional or global; and added clout for member states in dealing with others outside the grouping.

These benefits, however, do not come without some costs. The costs include restrictive groupthink and loss of individuality; lack of national creativity under a collective bureaucracy; and occasional compromises in national interest and policy.

Other object lessons include stumbling upon stragglers, doubters and naysayers in the regionalization drift.

In Europe these include, to varying degrees, Britain, Scandinavia and parts of central Europe.

East Asia has seen fewer problems in harmonizing intent, even with the socialist countries of Indo-China and China itself.

But some countries on the cusp of East Asia, which have shown antipathy for the region's international identity, are actually saying they do not want to be included in a regional grouping of Asians.

Their stand should be respected and they should be left to themselves.

Among the documents, declarations and positions that help make for East Asian identity is ASEAN's Treaty of Amity and Cooperation. The countries of north-east Asia have joined ASEAN in upholding it, so that East Asian regionalism can proceed and prosper.

After nationalism came regionalism, and beyond that lies globalism. Volumes have been written and published on them, but what do they all mean?

Nationalism is the struggle of individual nations to be sovereign and free from the yoke of colonialism, imperialism and hegemony of external powers. It is a universal path to self- determination, arriving at and then proceeding from independence.

But as the rich-poor, strong-weak and powerful-marginalised gaps in the world grow wider, prospects for many developing countries grow fainter as they fall further behind.

Meanwhile, powerful multilateral organizations in trade matters, based on the economic clout of the rich and powerful, widen the gaps even more.

Regionalization among the rich further multiplies the clout they enjoy, particularly over the poor, weak and marginalised.

But regionalization can work for all: Countries in the world's developing regions, like Asia, can also develop it for themselves.

Globalization means that the stakes that were once only national are now much greater, or global.

This growth has meant new pressures which, if unheeded, might threaten the needs and interests of individual nations, particularly the poorest ones.

Regionalism, already on the agenda before, now comes into its own to lend greater clout to member states by shielding them from the excesses of globalization.

In the process, common national interests are identified as, and subsumed by, regional interests.

Globalism also means something more: That the strength and equilibrium of the whole system is imperative, such that if any significant component of it staggers, the disequilibrium could jeopardize the global system as a whole.

In trade relations, the Pacific leg connecting Asia and the Americas is strong -- as is the Atlantic leg connecting Europe and the Americas.

But the Asia-Europe leg is less strong, and requires urgent remedy.

Any leg that is too weak would be out of joint, moving out of sync, threatening the health and future of the other limbs.

If left unchecked, the Eurasian leg could be the weakest link in the global system and its Achilles heel.