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).