Waseda University Doctoral Student Network (WUDSN)

3 Presentations on East Asian Regional Integration

Date：
Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010
Time：
16:30 ~ 18:30
Venue：
Waseda University, Building No.19, Room 310
Discussant： Shujiro Urata, Professor at Waseda University***PRESENTATION 1
United States of Asia-Pacific?
Bernard Ong
The paper discusses the United States’ (US) motivation in uniting the states of Asia-Pacific. It
examines the prospect of US’ involvement in shaping the regional architecture of the Asia-Pacific inlight of its recent high-signature overtures to the region, such as its accession to the Association ofSoutheast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Treaty of Amity and Cooperation (TAC), a pre-requisite to themembership of the East Asia Summit (EAS), and its intention to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
In a stinging response to calls for a new regional framework such as Australian PM Kevin Rudd andJapanese PM Yukio Hatoyama’s respective proposals for the creation of an Asia-Pacific Community
and an East Asia Community, US President Barack Obama declared in November 2009 that “as anAsia-Pacific nation, the US expects to be involved in the discussions that shape the future [of theregion] … and to participate fully in appropriate organizations as they are established and evolve”.
Less than a year into his presidency, Obama also agreed to an unprecedented meeting with theheads of state from the ten ASEAN countries, including Myanmar. More recently, at the 16thASEAN Summit in April 2010, the ten leaders of the Southeast Asian countries announced its
intention to look into the proposal of an ASEAN+8 grouping, including the US, Russia and the 16
EAS countries. An ASEAN+8 grouping, if endorsed, will see the 18 countries meeting at thesidelines of the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit, which will be hosted
in 2010 and 2011 by Japan and the US, for the first time.
Yet, the regionalism movement in the Asia-Pacific which started in the late 1980s, has been caught
in a Prisoner’s Dilemma because any moves to expand a state’s economic reach throughmembership in an exclusive regional grouping will challenge the security of non-participating states,
causing the latter to turn towards other regional groupings to protect their own interests. It was in
the face of such a dilemma that US APEC Senior Official Kurt Tong conceded during a testimony tothe House Foreign Affairs Sub-committee in October 2009 that “America risks becoming
disadvantaged economically if we do not participate constructively in the process of economic
integration that is already underway in the [Asia-Pacific] region”. Similar to the analogy of an arms
race, the pursuit of economic security in Asia-Pacific has therefore led to the inevitable creation ofmore regional entities or expansion of existing groupings, with or without any significant
improvement to the overall integration efforts. The “regionalism dilemma”, in part, explains the riseof institutions such as the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA) in response to the North American Free
Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the expansion of current grouping like the ASEAN+3 to the EAS.
Employing the key elements of Robert Axelrod’s game theoretic framework on The Evolution ofCooperation, the paper discusses US’ revived interest in Asia, and assesses whether or not its
participation will hasten the progress of regional cooperation in Asia-Pacific.

PRESENTATION 2The role of Preferences in Japan's FTA Policy Formation: the implications of bilateral andminilateral FTAs with East Asian partners for the prospects of a region-wide trade agreement.
Anna Jerzewska
Using Japan's existing free trade agreements (FTAs) with East Asia, and in particular theoverlapping treaties with ASEAN members, this paper looks at the formation of domestic
preferences regarding the proposed region-wide FTA and the type of connections between theoverlapping treaties the country prefers. Putnam's two-level game metaphor is combined with theinternational political economy (IPE) approach in order to analyse the complex interaction between
various levels of factors influencing Japan' main actors preferences regarding a region-wide FTA.
Attempting to adapt the two-level game to the study of Japan's foreign policy, the paper follows in
the footsteps of Schoppa's (1993) and Campbell's (1993) work. Japan's FTAs with East Asia cannot
be explained purely by analysing international situation and trade liberalization theories such ascompetitive liberalization or the juggernaut effect (Baldwin 1994, 2004). This study includes atheoretical model of Japan's policy formation influenced by domestic, international as well as
political and economic factors and based on the expected or achieved gains from previous tradetreaties. Incorporating the above levels of analysis improves the existing narrative of Japan's FTAs
policy. Based on Aggarwal's classification of the types of links between trade agreements (2006), I
focus on how actor's preferences constitute the relationship between different levels of FTAs.
Furthermore, the paper defines the difference between actors' preferences and state's preferences
and their role within Putnam's metaphor. In this way, the study furthers the understanding ofpreferences' impact on foreign policy (Moravcsik 1997, Krauss 2003, Yoshimatsu 2003). The
novelty of this study is focusing on actor's preferences in explaining the relationship between
bilateralism and multilateralism. The research is set within the context of the overarching theoreticaldebate on 'multilateralizing bilateralism', which attempts to establish the feasibility of harmonizing
separate FTAs into a region-wide or global one (Bhagwati 1993, 1996, Baldwin 2006).
Anna Jerzewska is a third year PhD student at the University of Leeds (UK), currently conducting
fieldwork research at Waseda University on a scholarship from the White Rose East Asia Centre(WREAC). Previously she has completed an MA in International Relations in East Asia at theDepartment of International Relations and Political Studies, University of Lodz. She has also spent
one year at the Department of Management and Department of Japanese Language and Culture,
University Jean Moulin Lyon 3, France.

PRESENTATION 3
China’s Soft Power in its Foreign Policy in Asia: Ideas, Institutions, and Responsibilities

Ying ZHOUAs China’s influence in the world is continuously rising, many scholars and officials becameconcerned with China’s power. A significant part of them thinks that besides increase in economic
and military power, the strengthening of China’s soft power has been pivotal in expanding thecountry’s growing influence. This paper applies Joseph Nye’s analytical framework on soft power
to the China case in order to provide a more updated analysis of the country’s power status in Asia.
In Nye’s work, soft power is composed of cultural attractiveness, political values, and foreign policy.
Putting China’s soft power in the context of ongoing Asian cooperation, this paper will mainly
examine China’s soft power thinking in its foreign policy. It will focus on the substance and style of
China’s foreign policy in Asia. Firstly, it goes to exam how Chinese government adopted theconcept of soft power in its foreign policy and answers the question why Asian cooperation can be
as a context for China’s soft power projection. Then, it looks at how China builds its soft power
through promoting ideas, engaging regional institutions, and assuming responsibilities in the region.
Based on this, through using public poll and some journals data, it is to evaluate China’s soft powerin the region in individual level and in multi-context level. In the conclusion, it points out theconstraints and limits of China’s soft power in the region and its implications for the progressive
Asian cooperation. In this part, it goes to argue that China’s soft power in its foreign policy iscompatible with the Asia cooperation. It is the part of Asian’s soft power. In this sense, China’s soft
power is not only for reducing its strains of rise, but improving the ongoing Asian cooperation aswell.
Zhou Ying is a 2nd year PhD student at the Graduate School of Asia-Pacific Studies (GSAPS) at
Waseda University. She obtained her M.A. degree from Wuhan University, Hubei Province, China.
Her research interest revolves around China's soft power and foreign policy.