Time to institutionalize East Asia cooperation

C.P.F. Luhulima, Jakarta

East Asia Cooperation has so far three formats -- ASEAN Plus Three, ASEAN+1 and ASEAN+3 from the East Asian side (China, Japan and the Republic of Korea).

ASEAN+3 is the cooperative framework, albeit the most important framework that advocates East Asian regionalism among the 10 ASEAN members and China, Japan and South Korea.

At the 2004 ASEAN Vientienne Summit, a fourth format was adopted to encompass wider regional cooperation, the East Asia Summit that is to be inaugurated in Malaysia in 2005.

ASEAN+3 was established in 1997, at the height of the financial crisis. The ASEAN leaders, however, produced their first joint statement only in 1999, which comprised the need for cooperation in economic, social, and political and security fields.

ASEAN+3 has since emerged as an organization with a wide range of agenda activities at the senior official and ministerial levels.

This cooperative framework will need to have institutions capable of driving the cooperation forward, setting its direction and devising its programs. They are thus created as a consequence of the uncertainties involved in human interaction; they are the constraints devised to structure that interaction.

The Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia has now also become the code of conduct for the "Plus Three" countries. It will structure their interaction, their desire to cooperate in "peace and good neighborliness".

Since ASEAN+3 and ASEAN+1 are regularized meetings rather than institutionalized structures, emphasis is thus put more on processes.

The rotating ASEAN Chair is the highest decision-making body of ASEAN+1 and responsible for conducting its annual meetings, preparing the Summits, inviting new members, setting agendas, building consensus among members, drafting documents, and on the basis of different strategies, optimizing its position.

It was in 2000 that Malaysia proposed the modification of the ASEAN+3 Summit into an East Asia Summit. Thailand also proposed the establishment of a free trade agreement (FTA) among ASEAN+3 members.

Prime Minister Goh Cok Tong, the Summit chair, admitted the possibility for Japan, China and South Korea to assume the role of chairmanship at ASEAN+3 Summits.

ASEAN, China, Japan, and Korea agreed to establish the East Asia Vision Group (EAVG) in December 1998 and the East Asia Study Group (EASG) at the ASEAN Summit in Brunei Darussalam in November 2000.

The EASG submitted its Final Report to the 2002 ASEAN+3 Summit in Phnom Penh and recommended "the evolution of the annual summit meetings of ASEAN+3 into the East Asia Summit". Next, an East Asia Summit "is a desirable long-term objective, but it must be part of an evolutionary process that builds on the substantive comfort levels of the existing ASEAN+3 framework.

Further the study group recommended that there should be "clarity of objectives and issues which the East Asia Summit should pursue", and that the "ASEAN+3 framework should remain the vehicle in the East Asia process of integration". The EASG also recommended the "institutionalization of regional dialogs, including regular meetings of foreign ministers and leaders of other sectors on the range of political and security-related subjects" as a means to further strengthen this cooperation.

At the 2004 Vientienne Summit, ASEAN leaders agreed to hold the first East Asia Summit in Malaysia in 2005.

The ASEAN+3 and the East Asia Summit frameworks should both continue to play important roles in the multilayered regional (and global) governance structures. It means that both could contribute to those roles if they are and remain connected to the existing bilateral, regional and global institutions, and thereby strengthen their institutional capability to tackle issues facing the region.

However, the ASEAN+3 framework should remain the principal means of transmitting the East Asia process of integration. Hence, the chair should remain the highest decision-making body of the East Asia Summit as well and be responsible for setting agendas, drafting documents, and optimizing the EAS position.

The most probable scenario of the East Asia Summit is that it will also become, like ASEAN and ASEAN+3, a forum in which members initiate their own bilateral or unilateral activities and seek endorsement of them as part of the East Asian cooperative dynamics.

But powerful countries like China and Japan should, from the start, be warned not to view the East Asia Summit as an arena in which to promote their narrowly defined national interests. Otherwise the East Asia Summit and ASEAN+3 will become worthless designs.

This is perhaps the reason why we should not interpret East Asia as a geographic concept but rather as a functional one. The dynamics of the economic, political and security interdependence in the region are constantly changing the extent of East Asia. The participation of India, Australia and New Zealand in various types of cooperative endeavors in East Asia could be considered as part of the functional concept of East Asia.

But then the United States cannot be excluded, as it is also an essential part of East Asia given its political, security and economic roles. The tsunami and its catastrophic impact and aftermath in the region have shown how much the United States, with its impressive relief work is part and parcel of the region.

This means that the East Asian Community the EAVG recommended should be conceptualized along these lines, beyond the geographic confines of East Asia and thus expanding the multilayered regional governance structures.

The writer is Senior Fellow at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), and the Center for East Asian Cooperation Studies (CEACoS). The article is an excerpt from the writer's paper presented during a bimonthly discussion held here by CEACoS and The Jakarta Post.