Integration, no; Major power rivalry, yes

Integration, no; Major power rivalry, yes

Eric Teo Chu Cheow, Jakarta

The inaugural East Asia Summit (EAS) will be held in Kuala
Lumpur on Dec. 14 under Malaysian Chairmanship, organized in
concurrence with the ASEAN and "ASEAN+3" Summits. But its odds
are probably greater in geo-strategic and political than pure
economic and trade terms.

First, big Asian powers have their own agenda, with the latest
thinking in Beijing of perhaps "downplaying" it in favor of the
existing "ASEAN+3" or "10+3".

Second, and consequently, the "numbers" game has begun for the
EAS, between "ASEAN+3+3" and "ASEAN+6", as India battles
tenaciously for the second formula, with Japanese
"acknowledgement".

More importantly, it could prove to be decisive for Japan and
China in their future role and leadership in East Asia, just as
smaller Asian nations fear of being caught between them in their
increasing rivalry within the region.

But where does its future of Asia (integrated or not) really
lie in geo-strategic, economic and psychological terms, with
Washington's shadow looming behind?

Symbolically, Malaysia has been lobbying hard for the EAS as a
fruition of the idea of former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir
Mohammed, who had mooted an East Asia Economic Caucus or Grouping
(EAEC/EAEG) in the early 1990s to "bring Asians together". But
the situations then and now widely differ.

Some Chinese scholars have in fact recently mooted the idea of
the EAS as a sort of an "Asian coordinating group" for APEC (just
as the existing "ASEAN+3" grew from the necessity for Asians to
coordinate their positions in the face of the EU at ASEM); but it
has one fundamental problem --- India is not a member of APEC and
would need to join APEC for this logic to work! Understandably,
Beijing may be seeking to assuage American concerns of being left
out from the EAS (as expounded by a senior Chinese official
recently), as well as to probably "downplay" this event, so as to
consolidate its own influence within existing "ASEAN+3"
mechanisms. Big power politics may already be at play behind the
EAS before its effective launch!

Two geo-political factors have already influenced the final
ASEAN choice of participants to the EAS, which should stand at
sixteen when launched.

First, the United States will be absent, unlike the recent
APEC Summit in South Korea, and is taking a wait-and-see attitude
on the EAS; hence there is a real "need" to cater for its "non-
participation" in this "pure Asian grouping", which is on the
minds of many Asians.

Second, the rapid rise of India in the past few years has made
it necessary for ASEAN to bring India into the mainstream of
Asian regional integration, even as a counter-balance to China,
as some smaller Asian nations would bashfully admit.

Bearing in mind these two trends, ASEAN Foreign Ministers in a
retreat in Cebu, Philippines in May, agreed on three criteria for
membership to the EAS "club". Firstly, they must be dialogue
partners of ASEAN; secondly, they must have substantial economic
linkages with the region, and lastly, they must sign the ASEAN
Treaty of Amity and Cooperation (TAC), before being admitted to
the EAS.

China, Japan and South Korea automatically qualify; India
qualified too, when it signed the TAC. But it was only after
careful consideration and negotiations that Australia and New
Zealand agreed to sign the TAC (because of Canberra's special
military alliance with the United States); the last two countries
were probably included in the EAS as a "strategic assurance" to
Washington, viz to allay the latter's concerns that the EAS would
not be in any way against American fundamental interests within
the region, as was initially feared.

But although the EAS' orientation appears to be logically
tilted towards economic cooperation (given the present
difficulties of bridging serious and fundamental political
contentions, especially between Beijing and Tokyo), some
observers wonder if the EAS could perhaps "mesh" into APEC's
agenda, as informally put forward by some Chinese analysts; this
would also have the added advantage of balancing Washington with
the two Asian feuding giants, as well as India.

Socio-economic issues should thus naturally form the crux of
the EAS agenda (for geo-political reasons!), whether in symbiosis
with APEC or not.

Many observers had in fact thought that the EAS could envision
a sort of pan-Asian Free Trade Area (FTA), a precursor of an
Asian Economic Community, whilst others have mooted the
possibility of building first an Asian Energy Community, along
the lines of the European Coal and Steel Community (amongst its
initial six members) in the 1950s.

Energy cooperation would certainly be high on the agenda, as
Asian countries, ranging from China and Japan to Indonesia and
the Philippines battle the current oil price hike and the ensuing
inflationary spiral that may slow down Asian economies. Still
others had hoped for an Asian Financial Community, based on the
existing Chiang Mai Initiative. But initial hopes and aspirations
of a nascent Asian Economic Community of sorts may now prove
premature in KL.

More fundamentally, at stake is the future relationship
between "ASEAN+3" and the EAS, as the former already has
intensified cooperation and linkages in almost all fields, which
the three new members could "tag" on to. But India would feel
more comfortable with it was an "ASEAN+6" grouping, as it would
then not be relegated to the "third circle" in KL.

In fact, the future relationship between the EAS (either as a
"ASEAN+3+3" or "ASEAN+6") and the current "ASEAN+3" could
probably become the thorniest issue in Kuala Lumpur; this
"numbers game" is clearly a manifestation of the deeper geo-
politics that run beneath the EAS.

But the ultimate bottleneck at the EAS would remain
undoubtedly the Sino-Japanese feud, which could turn out to be
the unfortunate "highlight" of this Summit. Japanese PM Junichiro
Koizumi would be trying to meet bilaterally with Chinese Premier
Wen Jiabao in Kuala Lumpur on the margins of the Summit, a
bilateral, which Chinese President Hu Jintao had clearly denied
Koizumi in Busan during APEC.

Beijing has argued that the last Sino-Japanese bilateral in
Jakarta during the April Bandung 50th anniversary commemoration
proved futile, as Koizumi still visited Yasukuni Shrine, though
briefly, on Oct. 17. Moreover, it appears that there are enormous
difficulties this year in organizing the "traditional" China-
Japan-ROK breakfast summit (as in the past five years) on the
margins of the "ASEAN+3" Summit, given the serious unhappiness in
Beijing and Seoul over Koizumi.

In reality, as long as Beijing-Tokyo relations do not
effectively mend, the EAS and its future organization would have
little hopes of taking off effectively and Asia would remain
unfortunately split (amidst growing Sino-Japanese rivalry) and
"non-integrated" (with neither a Chinese or Japanese or Indian
leadership, or even their co-leadership of Asia); after all,
politics still prime over economics (to quote the words of the
former Chinese Chairman Mao Tse-toung), and especially in Asia
today!

The writer, a business consultant and strategist, is Council
Member of the Singapore Institute for International Affairs
(SIIA).