Speeding up East Asian integration

Zhao Huaipu, China Daily/Asia News Network, Beijing

As regional integration remains one of today's world's trends, booming East Asian cooperation is becoming a precursor of Asian integration.

How to push forward steady and continuous cooperation among East Asian countries, which are still divided on numerous concrete issues, must be resolved by regional members with time and experience.

The success of European countries, who once differed from each other on many issues, in advancing and realizing an integration on their continent, can lend this kind of experience for East Asian countries.

The emergence and development of integration in different regions at different historical periods needs different driving forces.

With economic globalization rapidly sweeping every corner of the global village, the world has irreversibly entered a new global era, during which peace, development and cooperation remain the mainstream.

On the one hand, globalization can provide underdeveloped countries with more channels to enjoy new information and new technology created by other members, thus making it possible for them to make strides in economic development. On the other hand, the process also makes it possible that crises and risks within one country rapidly spread beyond to others.

The domino reaction of other East Asian members to an economic crisis first in Thailand in 1997 demonstrated how vulnerable other members are to local disasters.

The 1997 financial crisis has made East Asian countries aware that they have no choice but to stand together to avoid suffering a similar attack again.

The formation of the 10-3 framework, an annual summit between leaders of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and China, Japan and the Republic of Korea (ROK) to discuss all-dimensional cooperation between them, has shown a collective resolution to overcome negative factors caused by globalization.

Regional integration worldwide has also been a key factor driving East Asian members to deepen cooperation with each other.

Since the 1990s, the development of the trend has led to the global market being split up into different pieces, thus forming several monopoly markets across the world, such as the EU, the North American Free Trade Area (NAFTA) and the African Union (AU).

A great stimulus to East Asian nations, the formation of these regional markets has caused a sense of urgency among them that they should strengthen dialogues and co-ordination, expand cooperation, and sharpen the overall competitive edge in the region to avoid being marginalized in the waves of booming globalization and regional integration.

The formation of an increasing economic interdependence among East Asian members since the end of the Cold War has led to the emergence of common regional interests. That has made it possible and also necessary for members to co-ordinate and unify varying positions to safeguard common interests.

Global issues and non-traditional security threats have also played a role in pushing East Asian countries to accelerate cooperation and integration efforts.

It has become undeniable that in a globalized era, the number of terrorist activities, financial crimes, and drug trafficking, which are all non-traditional issues that any individual country cannot effectively curb and resolve, have been on the increase.

To effectively deal with these threats, strengthening cooperation is the only choice.

Currently, a pessimistic tone about East Asian cooperation is spreading and prevailing among some scholars, at home and abroad.

Arguing the United States was a key factor prodding European nations towards integration, they said East Asian nations do not have a similar factor.

There have been no signs that China and Japan, two key East Asian members, can reach conciliation before historical problems are solved, making East Asian integration unrealistic, they said.

It is true there are numerous obstacles in the way of East Asian cooperation, especially lack of reconciliation between Beijing and Tokyo, but it is hard to deny that regional cooperation serves as the only way to East Asian peace and development in a globalized era. The story of Europeans tells that any obstacle to integration is conquerable.

The integration of the ASEAN has already set an example for East Asian cooperation.

That initial confrontations between Singapore and Malaysia and estrangement between Malaysia and the Philippines did not stop Southeast Asian nations' efforts to forge a collective body presents a model for cooperation within a wider region.

For East Asian nations, the establishment of a security relationship through cooperation on the basis of mutual benefit and mutual trust is an applicable path to their deepened cooperation.

The establishment of security links between EU members on a mutually beneficial footing, which has ensured peace, stability and development in their continent, has offered an important reference for East Asia.

Given its numerous potential uncertain factors, pursuing security through cooperation is undoubtedly a top choice for the region.

Actually, East Asian nations can completely settle their security predicaments by developing regional systematized cooperation and establishing a sense of mutual trust.

At the same time, cultural cooperation and exchanges between East Asian members can also play an important role in advancing regional cooperation.

Although culturally different, regional members still have much in common.

Through strengthening cultural cooperation and exchanges on the basis of Confucianism, it is possible for East Asian countries to become more intimate, thus forming a collective cultural consciousness and then a common sense of regional identity.

It is under just this emerging "East Asia consciousness" that regional members have resolved many thorny issues between them in recent years, such as the signing of the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea, a document signed between China and ASEAN members in 2002 aimed at preventing conflict in the region.

With this kind of spirit, regional members will also have the ability to settle similar ticklish issues through dialogues in the future. And by that time, East Asian integration and even a regional community would no longer have been a dream.

The writer is an associate professor at the China Foreign Affairs University.