Speeding up East Asian integration

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.