Time to institutionalize East Asia cooperation

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.