From conflict to collaboration: institution-building in East Asia.

There is so much written about China these days that we sometimes forger that there is a good deal more to East Asia than one massive country. Shaun Narine's article takes us through the fascinating and important story of the building of regional institutions in East Asia, centering on the birth in 1967 of ASEAN--the Association of Southeast Asian Nations--and its development over the past four decades. It is a story of Southeast Asian countries collaborating to promote security and increasing prosperity for their peoples while jealously guarding their sovereign independence. ASEAN has grown from the original five to a membership of ten countries, and has been the principal organization within which China, Japan and South Korea, are developing their relationships with the countries of Southeast Asia.

On entend tellement parler de la Chine ces temps-ci qu'on tend a oublier que l'Asie ne se compose pas uniquement de cet important pays. L'article de Shaun Narine relate l'importante et fascinante histoire de letablissement des institutions regionales de l'Asie orientale, tout en se concentrant sur la creation de l'Association des Nations de l'Asie du Sud-Est (ANASE) en 1967 et son evolution au cours des 40 dernieres annees. C'est l'histoire d'une collaboration entre les pays de l'Asie du Sud-Est pour promouvoir la securite et accroitre leur prosperite, tout en protegeant jalousement leur independance souveraine. L'ANASE, qui ne comptait a l'origine que cinq pays, en compte maintenant dix et represente la principale organisation par laquelle la Chine, le Japon et la Coree du Sud elargissent la portee de leurs relations avec les pays de l'Asie du Sud-Est.

INTRODUCTION

Over the past forty years East Asia (1) has been fertile ground for the building of regional institutions in a process that has accelerated during the last decade. Today, the region is home to an alphabet-soup of inter-state political and economic arrangements, and appears to be pursuing ever greater levels of regional organization. What is driving these developments? How far may it go in the direction of greater integration of these countries? What are its implications for the structure of the global political economic and security systems? And finally, how should Canada respond to these developments in order to remain an active and meaningful player in the region?

Asia is an indispensable part of the world's economic and political power structure. The rise of China and India as economic powers and the strains they are placing on non-renewable resources are critical examples of the way in which Asia, by its sheer economic weight, is redefining the global order. China's influence on the world stage is being felt well beyond Asia, most notably in Africa and Latin America, and it like India and other so-called 'emerging powers' is acting to shape existing multilateral institutions to further its national goals. Asian states hold more than $3 trillion in foreign reserves (most of this in US dollars) and major Asian states hold more than $1 trillion of US debt. These realities are just a few of the indicators underlining the symbiotic relationship that has evolved between Asia and the rest of the world. In light of these developments, it is important to understand the shape and purposes of institutionalization in East Asia, a region where history continues to be shaped by a mish-mash of contradictory and complementary forces, all operating at once. Economic considerations push Asian countries toward regional integration even as other economic realities lead them to compete with each other economically and in other ways. Political and military rivalries argue against closer cooperation between Asian states even as these rival states benefit from stronger and deeper economic ties. The institutional development that has occurred in Asia over the past decade reflects the complex interplay of these competing forces.

The following discussion examines a few of the most important institutions in the East Asian region. Asia is of course much larger than East Asia, but it is really only in East Asia that institutionalization has progressed rapidly. The focus of the following discussion is on the ASEAN, which is the linchpin regional organization. Most of the other regional organizations are offshoots of ASEAN or are linked to its structure. The other institutions to be considered are the ASEAN Plus Three (APT), the East Asian Community (EAC), and the East Asian Summit (EAS), as well as one institution outside the ASEAN family, the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum (APEC).

East Asian states are building closer relations among themselves and constructing regional institutions to facilitate those linkages. The process has at times seemed halting and uncertain, but has advanced considerably over the past 40 plus years and helped to create a stable, prosperous region. East Asia will not be forming the equivalent of a European Union at any time in the foreseeable future. Too much still divides the region. But a far more coherent East Asia--perhaps one capable of acting as a unified whole, under certain circumstances--is gradually taking shape in a region that has been wracked by conflicts. The Chinese civil war ended in 1949; the Korean War ran from 1950 to 1953; war in Vietnam, in its French and then American stages, continued from 1946 until 1975; Cambodia and Laos were destabilized by the Vietnam conflict, and Cambodia was the scene of genocide in the 1970s; Myanmar has been under dictatorial rule since 1962; Indonesia's political upheaval in the late 1960s resulted in at least 500,000 deaths. And insurgency was a problem in much of Southeast Asia during these years and remains a concern even today. It has been no small accomplishment that against this background of disputes and violence a far more coherent and peaceful East Asia has emerged.