Asia-Pacific%20Regionalism%20%20Prof.%20Philip%20Yang%20National%20Taiwan%20University

1
Asia-Pacific RegionalismProf. Philip
YangNational Taiwan University
2
Asia Pacific or East Asia

• Asia Pacific ? ?
• East Asia ? ?
• Northeast Asia ? ? ?
• Southeast Asia ? ? ?
• South Asia ? ?
• Central Asia ? ?

3
(No Transcript)
4
(No Transcript)
5
???
6
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.

7
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.

8

• Starting the 1970s, three factors helped closer
  ties in Asia
• First, Japans 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. gt but Not a Leader

9

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

10

• 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.

11
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 regions integrative activities.

12

• 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.

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.

14

• 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.

15
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.

16

• 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.

17

• 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.

18

• 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.

19
Closer Integration in Asia-Pacific

• An increasingly dense network of cross-border
  cooperation, collaboration, interdependence, and
  even formalized institutional integration gt AP
  Regionalism
• Rise of China
• Emerging normative system

20
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

21
Regionalism in Asia-Pacific

• APEC emerged trade liberalization and
  facilitation
• Open Regionalism WTO consistency
• Voluntary Compliance
• 2020, 2010

22
ASEAN and ARF

• ASEAN
• One Voice Conference Diplomacy
• ASEAN way
• ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF)
• Regional security forum
• Not limited to SEA issues
• Two tracks dialogue

23
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

24
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 worlds biggest free trade area embracing 1.7
  billion

25
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?