助成

Institute forInternational Policy Studies
・Tokyo・

IIPS International Conference“Building a Regime of Regional Cooperation in
East Asia and the Role which Japan Can Play”

Tokyo
December 2-3, 2003

“Leadership change and its effects on East Asia’s international relations,security and economy”
By
Dr. François Godemen
Director of centre asie ifri
(Institut français des relations internationales),Professor at Inalco(Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales)
FranceLeadership change and its effects on East Asia’s international relations, security andeconomyFrançois Godement
Director, Centre Asie at IFRI
November 24, 2003.

Whether one believes in the idealist and constructivist views of international democratic
peace and cooperative security, or in the realist approach of geopolitics as primarily a balanceof power, the personality of leaders and their place in political systems and institutions matter.
One needs only to look at the present international array of positions regarding Iraq to findthat beliefs and almost as importantly, the ability to translate these views into concrete action,
makes an immense difference. Other examples from the recent past abound: when Argentina’s
generals took on the United Kingdom over the Falkland Islands in 1982, they had probably
factored in more the difficulty of power projection far from home and from friendly bases for
the UK, and less Mrs. Margaret Thatcher’s personality. The retreat from a perilous path ofincidents and confrontation between China and the United States in 1996-1999 probably owes
much to former president Jiang Zemin’s overwhelming desire to go down in history as aninternational statesman.
1) How the leaders of a decade ago shaped the region
There is little analysis of East Asia’s international relations from the perspective of leadershipchange. Yet, personalities were very much in display a decade ago, at the heyday of thecoming new Pacific Century, when the “Asian way” of regional cooperation was largely
based on decision-making by consensus, conflict avoidance and high level networking at oneof several Asia-Pacific networks that came to symbolize a new Asian regionalism: Asean,
Pecc and Apec, Asem as a late-comer in 1996, the Asean Regional Forum and its North-east
dialogue extension more recently. The cognoscenti of these fora, and of their second-track1

two versions, knew what they owed to personal relationships, long standing friendships (orcompetition), and to surprisingly small circles of participants into these networks. “Elites” andtheir perceptions mattered more in the area of international than the expression of public
opinion. And East Asia did not lack political leaders of durable prospects, who gained
acceptance as spokesmen or symbols of the region, and did not hesitate to play this role overtheir more transient Western counterparts.
Little does one realize how much that situation owed to the stability – or the rigidity – of mostAsian political systems, and how much this has changed since. Were one to sum up theleadership and political arrangements of East Asia one decade ago, one would find:-an array of military regimes or political systems ran and influenced by former military
figures: from Thailand, most of the time, to Indonesia’s Suharto, to the Philippines
where president Fidel Ramos provided the country’s best compromise between
stability and democracy, to South Korea where Roh Taewoo was the country’s lastgeneral in presidential clothing – and its first liberalizer in power. Not to mention
Myanmar, where general Ne Win was still around, or North Korea, where the army
was inseparable from the party. The military were also very influential in China andCambodia, and beginning to fade in Taiwan.

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Several “one and a half party” democracies in North-east Asia, to borrow from T.J.
Pempel’s famous phrase. Japan was the model, where the LDP met with its second
interregna in a half century at the time of Mr. Murayama’s government. Moredemocratic than any other Asian country, Japan had already compensated for the longrule of the LDP with a frequent turnover of government leaders representing various
factions: so much so that the question of leadership and continuity was already askedof Japan. South Korea and Taiwan were also in the one and a half party phase – which
for them represented great democratic progress. But the conservative party in the ROK,
the Kuomintang in Taiwan, were still in power.

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Communist systems of Asia – from the DPRK and PRC to Vietnam – were theexception in a world of post-communist evolution, and strikingly they have remainedso, although with very diverse paths.

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Finally, the stability of political systems favoured statesmen of stature who worked inconcert, after much competition and conflict in the preceding decades. China’s Deng
Xiaoping, Singapore’s Lee Kwan-yew, Korea’s Kim Daejung (who actually reached2power only in 1998), Malaysia’s Mahathir (finally leaving power in 2003), and evenIndonesia’s Suharto – courted by the Clinton administration for the first APEC summitof 1993, if otherwise berated, provided continuity and perspective – at a high cost forpolitical democracy in most cases, one might add.
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Another factor should be mentioned, without putting any value judgment into it:
America’s influence over the region, although still predominant from the military
point of view, was often judged to be on the wane from other perspectives. Tradedeficit and budget woes, issues of lagging productivity growth and dollar weakness, a
new and rising tide of interventionism based on human rights that alienated the oldnational security allies of South-east Asia and antagonized the Communist states: East
Asian leaders had reason to upgrade their regional cooperation, diversify their external
relationships. Some of them also reinvented a discourse of Asianism and Asian values
that, along with much ill-conceived historical heritage, also symbolized a new pride ineconomic growth.

2) The widening of democracy and the weakening of leaders

Today, this situation has vanished, and the political scene of much of East Asia resembles
much more in many respects that of mature democracies. Although exceptions remain, evensome leaders of authoritarian regimes are at least playing the game of transparency and morepolitical accountability to the public, if not to voters. In North-east Asia, the following trends
can be summarized:-

Japan has moved closer towards a two-party system with the November 2003 elections,a trend that could be deduced from PM Koizumi’s own situation and predicament: an
opponent within his own party, carried to power by the rank and file more than by thefactions, playing both on the issues of reform and on the strength of continuity. By
straddling the space with the opposition, he left no choice to political opponents but toregroup. Other changes also heralded these trends: new rules allowing more personal
competition within parties at local elections, and the general rejection of professional
politicians by voters – which looks very much like what has happened in other mature
democracies. The disaffection of public opinion also involves the other poles ofJapan’s power triangle – big firms and bureaucrats. In foreign policy, theconsequences are plainly visible.
3-South Korea and Taiwan have experienced complete political turn-over to the former
opposition – and also a political disillusion that seems to have come more quickly thananywhere else. ROK’s Roh Moo-hyun and his Millenium Democratic Party, Taiwan’s
Chen Shuibian and his Democratic Progressive Party embody the advent of complete
democracy. They are very deeply challenged, however, and have alreadyexperimented what the French call political “cohabitation” with an opposition majority
in the legislature, and for the ROK politico-financial scandals that will have a deep
impact on the country’s foreign stance.

In South-east Asia, the changes are even more important, so much so as to make the regionboth a laboratory for democracy in emerging economies and also a cesspool of political risk.
True, the picture is not universal. Myanmar is still ruled by its military junta – without Ne
Win, however – and plays a cat and mouse game with its opposition, symbolized by Mrs.
Aung San Suu Kyi. Vietnam’s grey leadership combines piecemeal economic reform andoutward liberalization with the same eternal debates between “reform” and “conservatism”
before each Party plenum. Incredibly, both Norodom Sihanouk and PM Hun Sen survive botheach other and the test of nationwide elections – the political system is still in balance with
two of the three political camps that agreed to the Paris conference and compromise of 1991.
Singapore, an island of prosperity that has much to fear from regional communautarianism
and the advent of mass terrorism, practices social and economic reform with politicalcontinuity: with the transfer of government from PMGoh Chok-tong to Lee Kwan-yew’s
talented technocratic son, Lee Hsien-loong, it will have completed a change of generation, but
not a political transition that is as yet unthinkable and mostly felt as needless, given theperformance of the existing arrangement . Elsewhere, however, changes are enormous:-

Indonesia, the only political revolution ever engineered and achieved by the IMF in
1998, is now a multilayered political society. A parliamentary democracy withcompeting national leaders, an army in check at the centre, unleashed from time totime in the peripheries of Aceh and Irian Jaya, a communal furnace of Islam where thetwo large Muslim organizations can no longer contain the rise of Islamic preachersand sects, it is both soft and unexpectedly resilient. Indonesia’s financial reforms are anightmare for management orthodoxy, and this combined with a perception of terrorist
threat drives away foreign direct investment as well as tourists. Yet the country’s
economy has picked up, its press and political debates are lively: just don’t expect any
4international stewardship to emerge from Asia’s third largest country. Playing off
Washington requests for the fight against terrorism and the domestic balance with
Islamic forces exhausts the energy of the Megawati government, itself divided onthese issues. May we point out, as a hypothesis, that the future of Indonesia may lie
more in the example of Turkey than, say, Algeria or Iran. A comeback of the army,
crushing radical Islam in the process, seems unrealistic if one examines military
weakness and corrosion. Conversely, the accession to power of the sole Islamic parties– if they could agree among themselves, itself an unlikely event – would antagonize asizeable segment of Indonesian society which, apart from the question of religious or
ethnic minorities, is only nominally Muslim. By the late summer of 2004, however,Indonesia will have known its second complete transfer of power since 1998, and a
new system of direct presidential election that creates much opportunity for public
emotion.
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Malaysia is also undergoing a change of leadership under difficult circumstances. The
rise of political Islam is no longer confined to the North-eastern provinces, andMahathir’s Umno party is condemned to a perilous act of relying more and more on
the minority (Chinese, Indian, Tamul) vote while paying lip service to safer
international issues of Islam: this is probably what explains Mahathir’s recent antiSemitic and anti-Western outburst at the World Islamic Conference. His anointed
successor, PM Badawi, will certainly find it hard to play such a high profile role inregional politics. Malaysia will also undergo elections in 2004, as will the Philippines.
Here, social fragmentation, political gridlock under President Arroyo after the bizarre
populist interlude of President Estrada, are subjects of real concern. The United States
come-back with anti-guerrilla support, often portrayed as very limited, is in fact more
substantial if one takes into account an under equipped Filipino army and corrupt local
administrators. The Philippines are now primary material for Al Qaeda and its
accomplices, and need strong economic and development aid to reverse that trend.

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Thailand, which will also holds nationwide elections in 2005, is very much on therebound after the shock of the Asian financial crisis. Its billionaire populist prime
minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, is sometimes heralded as the region’s next leader ofprominence. An outside observer might dryly note that Mr. Thaksin, like Italy’s Silvio
Berlusconi, takes more interest in economic and business related issues than ininternational relations per se – where both men have also inherited their country’s
ingrained trend to follow international currents rather than lead them. We shall see this5

translated into the area of economic international relations with the deepening ChinaThailand relationship.

3) The consequences of the new political framework for Asia’s international situation

Authoritarian regimes can manage well a balance of power – as Europe’s restored monarchies
showed in 1815. Democratic states build democratic peace through interaction, mutual
confidence and ultimately collective security. The problem in the Asia-Pacific is that it has abalance of power situation – renewed by China’s rise and very lively military modernization
throughout the region -, combined with an increasing abundance of democratic states,
however imperfect these democracies might be judged by a puritan or neo-liberal politicalscientist. The balance of power suggests a need for resolve, the democratic trends brooks
much irresolution concerning security and other international issues. This plays differently inNorth-east and South-east Asia. In the former, we witness the following trends:-

an unprecedented rise, at least for the postwar era, of the importance and influence of
public opinion. In Japan, bureaucratic disgrace has hit the main ministries, weakening
their ability to contain issues and shape outcomes. DPRK bluster and blunders havestirred public opinion repeatedly – more deeply that another sensitive issue such asthat of the Northern Islands ever did. The August 1998 ballistic launch over Japan, thekidnapping issue which rebounded after PM Koizumi’s visit to Pyongyang in
September 2002 have had a deep influence. Some of China’s nationalist rhetorics, andincidents such as a police incursion into Japan’s Dalien consulate in 2001 have had thesame effect. Yet the aftermath of Japan and Asia’s succeeding financial crises, theOkinawa bases issue, and the Japanese public’s revulsion at any risk-taking ininternational action have also weakened support for the Japan-US alliance: the popularconsensus today is against, not for the U.S.led coalition in Iraq. This makes all themore remarkable the Koizumi government’s support for this action, but how long canit brave public opinion? Although the Bush administration has reaffirmed the value ofJapan as an ally, it has not really broken with the Clinton administration’s philosophy
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of economic isolationism and avoidance of monetary and financial responsibility. It isstriking that Japan, after thinking hard, has cancelled its public campaign for reevaluation of the Chinese yuan after US secretary of the Treasury John Snow carried
the same message to Beijing. Evidently, the two countries do not think in synch onmonetary issues, and that also fuels long-term skepticism on the positive value of thealliance. After more than a decade of “reluctant realism” (Michael Green) in theinternational area, we may see a more polarized Japan: détente and economic moves
towards China, back pedalling on some elements of the US-Japan alliance, would be
one option. It would be opposed by a strategic rearming and reinforcing of Japan as a
resolute partner of the United States in the region. There is nothing that Japan dislikes
more in the international arena than hard choices. It may be forced by China’s rise andthe difficulties of the alliance to move towards those choices.
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South Korea’s government is evidently in a domestic and international predicament.
An even more progressive leaning president than Kim Daejung ever was is forced bycircumstances to lead through the most dangerous crisis of the DPRK’s relation to theoutside world, and at the same time to display a deeply unpopular support for theAmerican coalition in the Middle East. Here also, public opinion has become a force
in international relations: Mr.Roh’s election perhaps owes more to the politically illtimed trial and acquittal of two American soldiers in December 2002 than to any otherfactor. But this precisely demonstrates that the future of alliances in the region can nolonger be left to strategic considerations and top-down processes. Over the Iraqi issue,
in fact, East Asia as a whole is every bit as restive as “old” Europe. Meanwhile, theSouth Korean government, plagued by its own Pyongyang-gate scandal over funds
transferred to pay the North for the June 2000 summit, has very little room formanoeuvre in the present crisis or in the six-party talks started in August 2003 in
Beijing.

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Taiwan’s democracy has discovered public opinion and the role of international
relations in elections at the same time. President Chen Shuibian is a more grassroot
politician than his coming rivals, former PM Lien Chan and James Soong can everhope to be. He is also trapped, internationally, by China’s resolve to tone down its
rhetorics, if not its longer term encirclement, regarding Taiwan. Where his predecessor,
Mr. Lee Tenghui, could infuriate Beijing with a single sentence – and rally Taiwan
around him, Chen Shuibian undertakes a more perilous path: conscious
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understatement (as yet again during his recent “private” visit to New York), balancedby an encouragement of popular demonstrations in favour of self-determination in thestreets. Much of the region, in its quest for accommodation with China, will hope that
Taiwan’s tendency to stick out as a nail fades away, and that pro-reunification
politicians come into office: it is doubtful that this will happen any time soon.

How does South-east Asia’s new political situation and its leaders play into foreign policy andsecurity issues? It is now trivial to say, yet again, that Asean has lost momentum. The changeof the guard means much less historical experience among the first line of officials, anddemocratic instability means that when a political leader becomes significant, he is soon
swept away by political change: such was the case for the former minister of Foreign Affairsof Thailand Surim Pitsuwon, Asean’s most vocal and diplomatically outspoken actor in recent
years. Reluctance towards institutional and interdependent construction, a politically wellconceived opening to the “new” members of former Indochina (which has, however,cancelled any hope of deepening Asean construction at the level of its 10 members), andfinally obsession within each country around the political, religious or community debate:
there does no seem to be much room left for genuine institutional construction in the shortterm. True, a European can easily recognize some symptoms that we experience as well at ahigher level of achievement in region-building. Some dilemmas stand out:-terrorism and the issue of political Islam. The region has had an orgy of institutional
meetings and agreements around the fight against terrorism – words that also have thevirtue of placing in agreement South-east Asia’s two godfathers, the United States andChina. Without underestimating some cases of intelligence sharing, it seems that statesovereignty and caution prevail over the process of cooperation in that area too. At
two extremes, Singapore advocates stringent region-wide measures to deny haven andbreeding grounds for terrorists, while Indonesia is caught in the dilemma of avoiding
martyrdom status for many radical islamists while stopping terrorist cells. Although
the fight against terrorism today is a world-wide priority, it is debatable that it can in
itself define the security architecture of a region such as South-east Asia.

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Leaders and public opinion are therefore caught between three trends: the alliancewith the United States, reinforced by events, proven by military deployments andmodernization, but a political liability in front of most domestic audiences today (at8least at the public level, since attraction towards the United States has of course notreceded); insurance seeking with China, or what some call “bandwagoning”, a processthat is in itself fuelled by economic trends, but also by the weakening of Asean resolve
among some of its historical members; and finally, a path of its own built on noninterference and neutrality, and in practice on continual balancing of important outside
actors. But what is left of Asean’s leaning towards India and growing strategic
inclusion of New Delhi when the Vajpayee government and China launch their new
rapprochement? Japan, of course, a primary provider of ODA and a growing security
partner, has more potential to play the role of an alternative or at least balancing
partner.
Some in South-east Asia today see the advent of a renewed, peaceful tributary system of
relations with China. China’s offer of a free trade agreement with Asean by 2010, which took
Japanese economic diplomacy by surprise, its “early harvest” offer to Thai agricultural
exporters, its concessions to the poorer countries of Asean – which are also closest to its
continental sphere of influence are strong political arguments in favour of this thesis.

4) China’s leadership and its foreign policy
There is no easy way to sum up the changes, some of them subtle or largely formal, some ofthem more substantial and a harbinger of further moves, that have happened in China sincethe 16th CCP Congress in November 2003. None of the analyses on other countries’
leadership apply to China: neither the move in much of maritime Asia towards politicians
based on elections and competition for popularity rather than on bureaucratic network or
heritage; nor the relative immobility that remains the hallmark of other Communist ruled
countries in the Asia-Pacific. Most observers predicted, after the Party Congress, that acarefully stage-managed transition toeing the rules of collective leadership would be
uneventful – and at the same time that the new top leaders, Messrs. Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao,
would have difficulty establishing their own authority and prestige over the cluster offollowers left over by their predecessors at the top. Neither has happened. The transition has
been eventful indeed, from Sars, the Korean peninsula crisis, trouble in Hong Kong and overTaiwan, and also a major military mishap with a sunken submarine that has broughtinterrogations. Yet these events have served to reinforce the visibility of the new leaders, and9have been the occasion of debates and transparency at least in the policy circles andpublications that surround the Party. Very briefly, the following changes can be assessed:
Party representation at the intermediate level of the Central Committee has been widened
regionally, and slightly rejuvenated. Formal respect of Party rules is emphasized – including
the publicity given to top Party meetings that traditionally went unannounced. The campaign
around former president Jiang Zemin has abated, and the inclusion in the new Party
constitution of his “three representations” theory does not extend to his authorship. Debates inpolicy journals on policy issues – whether foreign policy (Japan, India, energy dependence) or
the economy (gap with countryside, the status of private property) are important andmeaningful. For the first time in its history, China’s government has quickly reversed majordecisions on two important occasions – Sars and the anti-sedition law for Hong Kong.
Because of the concern to protect “face”, this would have been previously unthinkable. Yet,
limits to freedom of expression are easily found, and would-be political critics often jailed ifthey speak out outside the Party: so much so that the European Union and the Bushadministration recently expressed, separately, the same concern for human rights. Elections,
often thought to be tested at the city level, have not been extended beyond the rural localities– as yet.
At the same time, China gives the impression, more than at any time in its history, of acountry on the move, and mostly in the direction of interaction and integration with the region.
This is of course tied also to its economic rise, one which leads to spectacular inter-trade with
Asian neighbours, and ultimately huge trade deficits for the industrialized countries of theWest: a June 2003 World Bank report has aptly summarized this growing integration of Asian
trade which is progressing fast, even in the absence of much institutional or political progress
among partners. This linkage with neighbours that often also have dollar-denominatedcurrencies lessens the impact of an undervalued yuan on their economies – although not on
Japan or Europe. China has plans that are more specific to sub regions of the Asia-Pacific: thefree trade area with Asean, as mentioned; participation in the Mekong projects at a higher
level than previously; a turn of the Shanghai Cooperation organization to free trade projects,
and ambitious oil and gas projects extending all the way to the Caspian Sea (for 2015) with
Kazakhstan or in well-known competition with Japan over Siberian resources from Angarsk.
The revamping of China’s depleted industrial North-east also seems destined to place thisregion at a crossroad of opportunity, should history speed up on the Korean peninsula: here,
yet, although China increasingly strong-arms North Korean leaders to ensure that they come10

back to the negotiating table, it is also defensive of North Korea’s long-term security needs
and has by no means began to push openly for a reunification that would involve muchstrategic uncertainty.
Unquestionably, China’s leaders have used the twin occasion of the post 9/11 convergence on
the fight against terrorism, and of their political transition, to adopt much more pragmatic,
often detailed, policy outlooks with their international partners. This is also inseparable fromthe extraordinary benefits that China is reaping from its acceptance of the WTO based system,
and from the growing orientation towards China of most of its neighbouring economies. This
mixture of political and economic considerations allow China’s leaders to transform theircountry into a center for the region – with at the core, however, an ambiguous relationship toJapan.
Preserving the advantage of political stability in spite of all the political and social unknowns
in China’s future, yet increasing practical influence and leverage on the outside world, meansthat of all Asia-Pacific countries, China is the one that is most able to have strategic designs atleast in part shielded from the winds of public opinion. This may not last forever, but presentsa challenge in creativity to Asian neighbours working under more domestic politicalconstraints.

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