CEAC Commentary introduces outstanding news
analyses and noteworthy opinions in Japan, but it
does not represent the views of CEAC as an institution.

August 18, 2005

East Asian Community: Intelligently Aimed Evolution
By ITO Kenichi
The Council on East Asian Community (CEAC), which was established in May 2004 in Japan,
has recently published a policy report titled “The State of the Concept of East Asian Community
and Japan’s Strategic Response Thereto.” The pr oduct of y earlong discussions at the CEAC’ sPolicy Plenary Meeting, the report was signed by 58 members of the council.
In retrospect, the most shocking event for me during the past y ear has been the anti-Japanesedemonstrations that erupted in China in April.
If such violence is condoned as an act of patr

iotism, and if the govern ment concerned offers

neither an apology nor com pensation for the vandalism and refuses to punish the perpetrato rs,
how can friendly relations be maintained with such a country?
It would be all the more out of the question to form a community with such a country. I do n ot
deny this ar gument; I fully support it. Actually, within the CEAC, there weremembers whocontended that past discussions should be undone and that the council should start from scratch
again.
In a situation like this, it i s important to go back to the starting point to rethink the issue. It isnecessary to remind ourselves that the c oncept of an East Asian Community is an evolving one
within the in ternational framework of ASEAN (10 member Association of Southeast AsianNations) Plus Three (Japan, South Korea and China).
At one tim e the United Nations im posed an international order that a defeated Japan hadnochoice but to accept, however unfavorable and unreasonable it might have seemed. That was thereality in which Japan found itself.
Japanese tend to be blind ed by the phrase “East Asian Community,” and rush to express th eirpositions either fo r or against such a co mmunity without thinking much about it. They don’tnecessarily look at the realities squa rely. The fact is that, whether the ph rase “East AsianCommunity” is used or not, a regional order is steadily taking shape in East Asia.
At the very least, in the economic fields of trade, investm ent, currency and finance, an1

irreversible and accelerating tendency of interdependence is prog ressing among nations in theregion. And in other fields, such asenergy, environment, terrorism, piracy, and infectious

diseases, functional cooperation is strengtheni ng. As aresult, a regional order is being

formulated day after day.
It must be an aim of Japanese diplomacy to keep watch over and exert pressure on moves toward
the evolving order to make it as desirable as possib le for the nation. Refusing or boy cotting
moves toward a new ord er will only result in reproducing the adverse relations that existed
between defeated Japan and the U.N.
Still, we cannot overlook the transform ation of China, which is ruled by a single-party
dictatorship, into a hege monic military power that i s likely to c ontribute to instability in theregion. Against the background of this reality, the concept of an East Asian Community may end
up as nothing more than a pipe dream.
However, if we remove prejudices from the word “community,” we may realize that the security
purpose of an East Asian Community is not to transform “community” into a quasi-nation power
center but rather to stabilize peace in the region by easing political tensions.
No major war has occurred in East Asia since the c ivil war in Cam bodia ended more than adecade ago. It is the securi ty purpose o f the Ea st Asian Community concept to perpetuate thi sstate of peace in the region. It is conce ivable that he lp from the U.N. and/or t he United States
may need to be mobilized. It is also conceivable that North Korea and/or Taiwan may be brought
into the “community.”
The policy report just published bythe CEAC proposes that Japan’ s strategic principles

emphasize freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law. These might look like distantgoals against the background of East Asian reality, but the important thing is to show dire ctions
toward policy goals.
On Aug. 21-23 in T okyo, the annual conference of the Netwo rk of East Asian Think-T anks(NEAT) will meet, and representatives of think tanks from 13 East Asian countries will gather todiscuss proposals to be presented at the East Asian Summit in Ku ala Lumpur in December. At
this conference, we wish to convince our East Asian colleagues of the im portance of CEAC
policy recommendations, especially with regard to values such a s freedom, democracy, humanrights and the rule of law.
(This is the text of an article by Prof. ITO Kenichi, President of both the Council on East
Asian Community and the Japan Forum on International Relations, which originallyappeared in the “Seiron” column of the “Sankei Shimbun” on July 14, 2005 and wastranslated into English and posted in “The Japan Times” on August 16, 2005 with some2

revisions made by the author to update the contents.)

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