"East Asia at a Crossroads," East Asia at a Crossroads; (eds. Jusuf Wanandi and Tadashi
Yamamoto), Tokyo: Japan Center for International Exchange, 2008, pp. 7-16

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East Asia at a Crossroads

Tadashi Yamamoto and James Gannon

Ten years have passed since the Asian economic crisis exposed the darkside of the region’s growing interdependence. Since then, the region’s
economies and wellbeing have only become more interconnected, andregional leaders have embarked on a drive to build up a framework for
greater regional cooperation and integration under the rubric of an East
Asia community. This is not an entirely new movement; there have beena series of halting efforts to construct some sort of regional community
since at least the 1960s. However, there has been a palpable feeling thatthese efforts have been infused with a greater sense of purpose overthe last decade. The result has been the emergence of a complex set ofoverlapping multilateral forums and mechanisms in the region, complemented by a growing web of bilateral economic agreements.
While many of these arrangements are still nonbinding and fragile,
they present a historic opportunity to reshape the region to better deal
with the increasingly complex realities of an interconnected world and,hopefully, propel it toward a future in which war might be as unthinkable as it is today in Europe. In a sense, East Asia community building
is now at a historic crossroads, where it can be further advanced anddeepened or where it can succumb to the many disparities and emerging
rivalries that characterize this rapidly changing region.
In this volume, leading experts from around East Asia, as well asfrom Europe and North America, analyze the dynamics of regional

Copyright 2008, Japan Center for International ExchangeEast Asia at a Crossroads

community building, which they agree is still at a beginning stage. As
they note, this round of community building started in Southeast Asiaand has spread outward. In the mid- to late-1990s, ASEAN expanded
to include all of the countries in Southeast Asia, and in December 1997,
half a year after the onset of the economic crisis, the heads of government from China, Japan, and Korea gathered with leaders of ASEAN’s
member countries along the sidelines of the annual ASEAN summit
for what would be the first ASEAN+3 leaders meeting. In the ensuing
years, its meetings have become regularized and ASEAN+3 has started
to serve as an umbrella for a range of cooperative mechanisms in thefields of finance, trade, and cross-border “functional issues.”
In 1998, the ASEAN+3 leaders established the East Asia Vision
Group (EAVG) to develop a set of proposals for regional cooperation,and these recommendations were then debated by a committee of
ASEAN+3 government representatives meeting as the East Asia Study
Group (EASG). When it wound up its deliberations in 2002, the EASG
selected 26 concrete proposals for priority, ranging from the promotion of nongovernmental networks and exchanges in the region to theestablishment of an East Asia free trade area.
The process of building regional institutions was unexpectedly accelerated by the political maneuvering that led to the launch of the East Asia
Summit in December 2005, which had been cited only as a long-term
objective in the EASG final report. This new summit gained widespreadattention, even if it was lacking in clearly delineated objectives, and nations outside of East Asia, such as Australia, India, and New Zealand,
scrambled to be included.
The result has been two institutional tracks for regional community
building: a narrow ASEAN+3 and the more expansive East Asia Summit.
On the ground, though, the picture has been further complicated by the
rapid proliferation of bilateral and multilateral economic partnershipagreements and free trade agreements throughout the region, as wellas the evolution of the Six-Party Talks into a more regularized forum inNortheast Asia. Meanwhile, however, over the course of the decade sincethe 1997 economic crisis that many came to associate with American
detachment from the region, the track record for broadly gauged
multilateral forums linking the world’s one superpower—the UnitedStates—to the region has been mixed at best. One broader forum, theASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), which involves the United States, theEuropean Union, Russia, and 23 other countries, has become a useful8East Asia at a Crossroads

discussion forum on regional security issues. However, APEC, the main
multilateral institution linking the United States with East Asia, has losta great deal of its momentum.

The Nature of East Asia Community
Building
Underlying these varied efforts is a sense that it is important to forge
a regional community not only to better reflect the economic integration that has been proceeding on its own but also to help manage theseismic shifts that are now underway in terms of the regional and global
balance of power. In this volume’s second chapter, Jusuf Wanandi places
the community-building process in a historical context by explaining
that, provided its economic ascendance continues, it is likely that East
Asia “will indeed become the most important region of the globe” andthat the balance of power between the United States, Europe, and Asia
is bound to tip in the middle of this century, first in terms of economics
and then perhaps politics and security. The uncertainties surrounding
this power shift are intensified by rivalries within East Asia among
regional powers, particularly China and Japan, and by the declining
regional influence of a distracted United States. In essence, we seem to
be witnessing simultaneous shifts in both the global balance of power
and the regional balance of power.
Such shifts tend to breed instability, and history warns that economic
dynamism is often not enough to forestall conflict. The experienceof Europe in the late 19th century and first half of the 20th century,
until the European powers were drawn into an economic and security
community, is an object lesson in this regard. One of the overarchingrationales for East Asia community building is thus to help ease thistransition by “complementing the new balance of power in East Asiaand strengthening the stakes that every country has in preserving peaceand stability in the future.”
Of course, this regional community has to develop in a manner befitting East Asia’s unique circumstances rather than along the path that
Europe has successfully taken. As Wanandi notes, community-building
efforts in the region are by necessity a work in progress. Realities
on the ground dictate that, for the time being, cooperation can only
move forward easily in certain areas—for example, on economics and9East Asia at a Crossroads“­functional issues”—and it is much more difficult where issues of sovereignty come into play. Meanwhile, the stakes that East Asia has in the
global economy, as well as in the broader international system, compel
it to pursue a very open form of regionalism rather than build up walls
to the outside world.
These efforts to embed East Asia’s powers into a stable and cooperative
regional order have to overcome an imposing set of obstacles, which are
adeptly analyzed by Carolina Hernandez in the following chapter. She
breaks these down into three categories: structural and historical, political, and socioeconomic obstacles. The most acute of the structural andhistorical obstacles involves the major powers in the region—China andJapan—which are potential rivals whose relations both with each otherand with other countries in the region are tainted by lingering historical animosities. An intensified competition for regional predominancebetween these two countries has the potential to unravel many of thegains made to date in terms of East Asia community building.
The political obstacles to community-building efforts are equallypressing, ranging from the difficulty in finding effective leadership forthe regional community-building project to the region’s diversity interms of political systems and the difficulty East Asian governments
have in mobilizing domestic political support for an East Asia community. Hernandez makes the case that ASEAN needs to be in the driver’s
seat for any regional community-building effort because neither China
nor Japan can accede to the other’s leadership. But internal dynamics
in ASEAN itself make this challenging. Moreover, visionary personalleadership is still lacking; the fact is that “the region does not have theequivalent of a Monnet or a Schumann, who so successfully advocatedthe creation of a European Community.”
Hernandez reminds us that socioeconomic obstacles also cannot be
overlooked, especially since they are closely interconnected with thestructural and political obstacles. The stark differences within the regionin levels of economic development, say between Japan and Lao PDR,
are much wider than any seen in Western Europe when it started on its
drive to build a regional community. Therefore, sustainable community
building requires concerted efforts to narrow regional disparities interms of human development by working on poverty, health, education, and other issues affecting the living conditions of the broad massof East Asia’s populace because “community, in the final analysis, isabout people.”10

East Asia at a Crossroads

In the eyes of Qin Yaqing, these obstacles are ultimately rooted in thebasic tensions concerning sovereignty and the role of nation-states ina globalized world. He argues that the key challenge to regional community building is the difficulty that East Asia faces in overcoming its
Westphalian culture, or at least in reducing its intensity. Every nationin East Asia is highly sensitive to issues involving national sovereignty,
yet regional cooperation is urgently needed, and not only in terms of
economics but also to sufficiently meet the region’s growing numberof nontraditional security challenges—running the gamut from communicable disease and environmental degradation to terrorism andtransnational crime.
Therefore, Qin asserts that moving forward on regional community building requires facing up to the limitations that the current
Westphalian culture places on regional cooperation. It is natural forthere to be numerous disagreements about the potential shape of an
East Asia community and how it should be built. In the face of theselimitations, it is important to accept that this Westphalian culture
cannot be changed overnight and that the key to success is to “amasssufficient political will to at least maintain the momentum of regional
cooperation and integration.”
In order to do this, Qin offers several recommendations that go to theheart of the nature of the East Asia community-building process. For
one, it is important to recognize that, at this stage of community building, process is often more important than results since it is necessary tobuild habits of cooperation. In other words, “once nations are involvedin the process, they are integrating and being integrated.” A continued
emphasis on economics is key, since progress in this area is one of themost effective ways to push forward the regional process. Special careneeds to be taken to avoid exacerbating major power rivalries in theregion, particularly between China and Japan, by refraining from using
community building as a tool to balance one another’s influence andavoiding situations that encourage China and Japan to compete forregional leadership in the community-building process. And there isa need for greater efforts to build public awareness and popular support for regional community building among the region’s citizens if theprocess is to be sustainable, for East Asia community building “cannot
be an elite program forever.” The key to progress on all of these points,
he argues, is the demonstration of strong political will on the part of
the region’s leaders.
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A Vision for Moving Forward
The study’s authors generally agree that a gradual, step-by-step process
of expanding cooperation is the most effective way of moving forward
the regional community-building process right now. In his chapter,
Wanandi maps out one possible institutional framework for regional
integration that can bring some order to the region’s overlapping forums
and mechanisms while better reflecting the actual balance of power inthe region. He proposes that the East Asia Summit be converted into akind of East Asia G-8, a concert of powers for the region that serves asa forum for discussing high-order strategic issues. For this to succeed,
the inclusion of the United States in the East Asia Summit is integral.
Meanwhile, in his view, ASEAN+3 should be the main institution fordeepening economic and functional cooperation in the region, although
it can still involve outside countries such as Australia and the UnitedStates on a case-by-case basis when tackling individual issues. Politicalrealities necessitate that ASEAN remain in the “driver’s seat” of regional community-building efforts for the time being, which means that
ASEAN must find ways to strengthen its internal capacity. At the sametime, the ARF can serve as an important vehicle for confidence-building
measures and initiatives in the area of nontraditional security.
The authors of three other chapters call for deeper regional co­
operation in particular issue areas. Jesus Estanislao argues that there are
numerous opportunities for deeper cooperation in the field of economics
that remain untapped. Considerable attention has been paid to the flurryof bilateral trade agreements recently forged between economies in theregion, and there is a need for greater regional efforts to harmonize thewide array of conflicting rules associated with these. He also proposes
regional initiatives to promote innovation by deepening exchangesof knowledge and technology through greater cooperation between
research institutes and universities in the region. And he argues that
regional financial cooperation should go beyond the limited steps wehave seen so far to include joint work on risk management and greater
efforts to strengthen the region’s corporate bond markets. Combined,
these steps can improve the conditions for what he describes as themarket trinity of trade, innovation, and finance.
However, Estanislao also makes the case that there is a need tobroaden the regional economic agenda beyond these areas. In lightof East Asia’s rapid urbanization, there is a growing need to continue
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improving public governance in a farsighted manner so as to make theregion’s cities more livable and economically competitive. Meanwhile,
steps need to be taken, particularly in terms of education, skills training, and social services delivery, to respond to rising income inequality. Also, it is important to continue to support the transition toward
the rule of law that has been underway throughout East Asia in order
to meet the challenges that corruption poses to the workings of theregion’s increasingly free and open markets. In Estanislao’s eyes, theseneeds make a compelling case for prioritizing governance issues on theregional community-building agenda.
Rizal Sukma, meanwhile, focuses on the many opportunities fordeeper cooperation on nontraditional security, particularly through theintroduction of human security approaches to the growing number ofcross-border problems in the region. States in East Asia face a widening
array of human security threats—ranging from environmental degradation to piracy and transnational crime—and these can only be effectively
countered through regional cooperation. By and large, East Asian leaders
are increasingly receptive to efforts in the field of human security, which
recognize the interconnectedness of the various causes of insecurity inpeoples’ lives and endeavor to protect them and empower them to better
respond to these challenges. This, Sukma argues, leaves the region ripe
for the mainstreaming of human security approaches and their institutionalization as a key component of the regional community-building
effort. In the end, concerted joint initiatives to face these challenges
would help build up habits of cooperation in a region characterized byinsufficient mutual trust and low levels of institutionalization, and thiscan have positive spillover effects that add momentum to the broader
community-building project.
Meanwhile, Hitoshi Tanaka, writing with Adam P. Liff, echoes Sukma’s
calls for greater cooperation on nontraditional security issues by proposing the establishment of an “East Asia Security Forum,” which would
focus on common threats such as piracy, terrorism, and communicabledisease. This would be designed to supplement a regional security
regime that, for the foreseeable future, should continue to necessitate
active US involvement and be underpinned by the web of US alliancesand security guarantees in the region.
Instead of just promoting dialogue on security issues, as the ARF
currently does, an East Asia Security Forum would be designed to takespecific, proactive steps to respond to nontraditional security threats
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East Asia at a Crossroads

and, as states in the region become accustomed to working together, theinstitution’s mandate could be gradually expanded to deal with threatsthat are more traditional in nature. They believe that in a region divided
by the rise of nationalistic sentiments and a lack of common values,
participation in rules-based institutions such as this forum and theother institutions that undergird an East Asia community would play an
integral role in cultivating the trust, confidence, and interdependency
that is needed to avoid an intensification of great-power rivalry.

East Asia Community in the
Global Context
In the volume’s final section, two authors from outside of the region, one
from the United States and one from Germany, assess efforts to build
regional community from a global perspective. Writing on the basis of
his experience on Capitol Hill, Frank Jannuzi concludes that the deep-set
resistance found in US policy circles to regional community-building
initiatives is starting to soften, although American leaders continue toharbor considerable skepticism and are not prepared to invest heavily
in new, untested regional organizations. He argues that it appears that“as time goes by, the United States seems poised to embrace regionalism
in East Asia, first as part of a mixed strategy and perhaps eventually asa genuine alternative to the bilateral alliances forged during the ColdWar.” This shift is likely to be driven by a growing sense that although
the American hub-and-spokes system of bilateral alliances needs tobe maintained as the backbone of any US approach to the region, anarrow reliance on bilateral ties alone is increasingly out of touch with
regional realities and the preponderance of new transnational security
challenges. Instead, so long as the community remains an open one, USinterests can be better served over the long term by the emergence ofa regional community that can play a meaningful role in responding totransnational challenges and stabilizing the region, even if the UnitedStates is not a formal member. This means that it is likely that future US
administrations will be increasingly inclined to play a more active andsupportive role in regional forums, if only to ensure that US leadershipis not diminished in a rapidly changing region.
Meanwhile, Karl Kaiser’s closing chapter goes to the heart of one
overarching question inspiring this volume—how regional community
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East Asia at a Crossroads

building can contribute to better governance. He notes several ways inwhich regionalism helps improve governance in and among participating
countries. The development of regional cooperation enhances states’
capacity to better manage the type of heightened economic interdependence that is so prominent in East Asia, and it helps them respond more
effectively to transnational problems and common domestic challenges.
Ultimately, successful integration should help advance regional peaceand stability through the creation of shared interests in preventing
political crises from getting out of hand.
Kaiser explains that regionalism does not just help improve regional
governance; it also can make important contributions to global gov­
ernance. The most difficult challenges facing the world today tend to be
those that cross national boundaries, such as terrorism, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and global warming. Effectively
responding to these issues requires multilateral action and global co­
operation, and interregional cooperation is one important componentof these responses. The development of regional institutions is crucial inthis context because it can facilitate interregional cooperation and support global initiatives by mobilizing regional consensus and providing
focal points for regions to interact with one another. In the end, stronger
regional community in East Asia can provide a firmer platform for AsiaEurope and Asia–North America cooperation on key global issues.

East Asia at a Crossroads
The changes unfolding at the regional level and the region’s increasing
weight in global affairs have brought East Asia to a crossroads where
cooperation can be advanced through greater regional community
building or its momentum can dissipate in the face of a host of deeply
rooted obstacles. All of the contributors to this volume recognize that
there is a natural speed limit built into this process; East Asian states
inhabit a Westphalian world where they are generally loathe to cedeeven limited degrees of sovereignty to regional institutions. Yet East
Asia’s leaders increasingly see the utility of binding one another into
cooperative mechanisms in order to help decrease the prospects ofregional instability and more effectively respond to a growing numberof cross-border and regional challenges. In this context, it seems thatthe best way forward is through a sort of strategic functionalism that15

East Asia at a Crossroads

encourages the development of habits of cooperation in a gradually
expanding number of key areas where states are willing to commit toregional action. The goal is to do this in a way that feeds a virtuous
cycle that can ultimately strengthen the institutional framework of theregional order.
In the end, it is also important to recognize that a central aim of East
Asia community building should be to contribute to better governance.
Moves to build cooperation on a range of noncontroversial issues should
help improve governance at the regional level, not just by continuing
to encourage the consolidation of peace in the region but also by facilitating more effective responses to the challenges facing the people of
the region. However, East Asia community building is not just about
the region. With global power shifting toward East Asia, the region
has a duty and obligation to take on a more active role in supporting
global governance in cooperation with those outside of the region. It
seems clear that the development of mechanisms to encourage regional
cooperation can be one step to help strengthen global governance byenabling East Asia to participate more fully and effectively in responding to global challenges.
While the road toward a true East Asia community is bound to be
an arduous and uncertain one, if handled well, the strengthening andinstitutionalization of regional cooperation should not only enhancepeace, prosperity, and wellbeing among the states in the region but alsoenable East Asia as a whole to better live up to its growing responsibilities as a stakeholder in the international community.

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