Asia-Pacific Regionalism Prof. Philip Yang National Taiwan University 2019/1/13

Asia Pacific or East Asia Northeast Asia 東 北 亞 Southeast Asia 東 南 亞 South Asia 南 亞 Central Asia 中 亞 2019/1/13

2019/1/13

2019/1/13

主題二 2019/1/13

Asian Fragmentation The region has at least a century-long history of internal divisiveness, war, and conflict. It also remains the site of several territorial disputes. It is also exceptionally diverse economically, politically, culturally, linguistically and religiously. 2019/1/13

Overcoming Fragmentation The Cold War played out very differently for regional integration in East Asia compared to Western Europe. In Europe, the U.S. built its alliance structure around the NATO, a militarily multilateral organization. In Asia, the U.S. forged bilateral alliances and basing arrangements with each of its anti-communist allies – Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and the Philippines. 2019/1/13

Starting the 1970s, three factors helped closer ties in Asia: First, Japan’s economic success allowed the country to play a larger role in regional economic development. Through trade, investment, technology transfer, and official aid, Japan played a leadership role at the head of a flock of East Asian “flying geese.” => but Not a Leader 2019/1/13

Second, China began to shift its strategic orientation, opting first for autonomy, and then later, for greater openness to Western capitalist economics => China’s Rise This Chinese shift also improved the overall security climate across the region, provided an additional intra-Asian counterweight to U.S. dominance. => a strong China better than a weak China? 2019/1/13

Third, the creation of ASEAN in 1967 and its expansion of collective mission from security to economic, social and cultural cooperation and development. ASEAN developed a bargaining style – the ASEAN way, that cooperation could take place despite only low levels of formal institutionalization and legalization. 2019/1/13

Three Drivers of Linkages The three main drivers of connections across national borders in East Asia have been governments, corporations and ad hoc problem-oriented bodies. First, governments have been key agents driving much of the region’s integrative activities. 2019/1/13

The focus is on multinational governmental cooperation in creating formal regional organizations: ASEAN, ARF, APEC, ASEM, PECC, China-ASEAN FTA, EA Summit. They have cooperated across borders through foreign aid, cultural exchange agreements, technology sharing arrangements, and ad hoc agreements over particular extra-national problems such as smuggling, piracy, migration, organized crime, environmental problems, and the like. 2019/1/13

The second set of drivers are: private corporations and financial institutions. Corporations are playing a substantial role in regionalizing East Asia through cross-border promotion of products linked to “Asian popular culture” including animated cartoons, manga, J-pop and K-pop. 2019/1/13

The Third driver of regional integration is problem-oriented cooperation. These include numerous problems in the area of the environment, energy, water, migration, crime, non-state terror, boundary disputes, or pandemics such as AIDS or SARS. 2019/1/13

Asia-Pacific Regionalization (not regionalism) Regionalism involves primarily the process of institution creation. It occurs when nation-states come together through “top-down” activities – deliberate projects involving government-to-government cooperation. 2019/1/13

Regionalism has at least three key elements” it is top-down; it is biased toward formal agreements; and it involves semi-permanent structures in which governments are the main participants. 2019/1/13

Regionalization, in contrast, develops from the bottom-up through societally-driven processes. Key elements in regionalization are: the bottom-up process, social construction, and results that do not necessarily involve governmentally-representative bodies. 2019/1/13

The principal impetus toward closer integration in Asia came less through explicit and formal organizations, but more from the bottom-up processes tied to economic and problem-solving regionalization. 2019/1/13

Closer Integration in Asia-Pacific An increasingly dense network of cross-border cooperation, collaboration, interdependence, and even formalized institutional integration => AP Regionalism Rise of China Emerging normative system 2019/1/13

Development of AP Regionalism PBEC 1967 PECC 1980(Japan: Asian Network) APEC 1989 (EAEC 1990) ARF 1994 ASEM 1995 APT 1998 EAS 2005 China-ASEAN FTA 2010 2019/1/13

Regionalism in Asia-Pacific APEC emerged: trade liberalization and facilitation Open Regionalism: WTO consistency Voluntary Compliance 2020, 2010 2019/1/13

ASEAN and ARF ASEAN: ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) One Voice: Conference Diplomacy ASEAN way ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) Regional security forum Not limited to SEA issues Two tracks dialogue 2019/1/13

ASEAN Plus Three (10 + 3) Since the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997-98, the ten ASEAN countries have initiated a regular series of meetings at the cabinet and head-of-government levels with their counterparts from Japan, China, and Korea. Economic, financial, and security cooperation 2019/1/13

ASEAN-China FTA In 2000, in the ASEAN + 3 summit, Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji tabled a proposal to set up an ASEAN-China free trade agreement, signed in 2001. 2010: ASEAN-China Free Trade Area (FTA) within 10 years The world’s biggest free trade area embracing 1.7 billion 2019/1/13

Discussion Question Kim argues with respect to East Asia: "..the region's normative and economic diversities and disparities are not preprogrammed to doom regionalist projects, but they do make it more difficult for security regionalism-- and to a lesser extent, trade regionalism-- to grow and flourish." (p. 58) Do you agree? What to you think the future prospects for East Asian regionalism are? 2019/1/13