Asian integration: an appreciation

 

Very solid piece in World Politics Review by an American U. (DC) prof, Amitav Acharya, who's clearly spent a good chunk of his career building up this expertise.

I trip through the piece as so:

To begin, it might help to quickly summarize some of the most familiar criticisms of Asian regional institutions (while noting that I find some to be more accurate than others). The first is that they have not played a role in the major and longstanding regional conflicts, especially those that are holdovers from the Cold War period, such as the PRC-Taiwan conflict, or those between North and South Korea, and India and Pakistan. Neither have they mattered in the management of maritime territorial disputes, such as the Spratly Islands dispute involving China, Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia, Philippines, and Brunei. Similarly, territorial disputes between China and Japan over the Senkaku/Daoyutai islands, or between Korea and Japan over Takeshima/Tokdo islands, have not been addressed by any of the regional groupings.

A second criticism relates to their failure to make use of available instruments of conflict-prevention and resolution . . . 

Third, the failure of regional trust-building, which is supposed to have been brought about by regional groups like the ASEAN or ARF, is reflected in the emergence of what seems to be a significant arms race across the region . . . 

Fourth, on the economic front, there has been no regional free-trade area under the auspices of APEC, which was created partly with that objective in mind. Instead, bilateral trade arrangements have flourished . . . 

Fifth, while the region is regularly visited by natural calamities, there is no standing regional humanitarian and disaster assistance mechanism in place, despite periodic attempts to create one . . .

Finally, on human rights and social issues, Asia continues to lag behind other regions, including Africa and Latin America, not to mention Europe, in developing regional human rights promotion and protection mechanisms . . . 

Yet, skepticism about Asia's fledgling regionalism should not obscure its contributions to regional order. One major contribution has been the socialization of China. In the early 1990s, China was wary of regional multilateral cooperation. It viewed regional institutions like ARF or ASEAN as ways for the region's weaker states to "gang up" against Chinese interests and territorial rights. Yet, China significantly revised its view of Asian regionalism and has now become a key player driving it. 

Without engagement in this nascent regionalism, China would have had little option but to deal with its neighbors on a strictly bilateral basis, which would have given it far more leverage and coercive ability over its individual neighbors at a time of rapidly expanding national wealth and power. In that event, China's re-emergence as a great power might have been much rougher and more contentious. Many Chinese analysts agree that involvement in Asian regional institutions was a major learning experience for China with regards to wider international cooperation . . .

Skeptics may argue that the Chinese "charm offensive" that flowed in conjunction with its participation in regional multilateral institutions is little more than a "time-buying" tactic, until such time as China has built up its economic and military muscle to show its true aggressive colors . . .

But such skepticism can be challenged. Which country would totally eschew bilateralism in its foreign affairs? And which country, great power or not, would forsake aspirations to some sort of a leadership role in the international arena, at least over some key issue areas? And while China may have initially made some strategic calculations about its interest in regional participation, it is not immune to the logic of socialization and learning fostered through the habits of dialogue and continuous interaction. Chinese policymakers are aware of the costs of switching from a policy of engagement to a posture of confrontation . . .

Asian regional groups are not problem-solving or law-enforcing mechanisms, but norm-making and socializing agents. In this respect, they do conform to the general model of international organizations, which generally lack coercive enforcement power, but act as instruments of socialization and legitimation. 

Asian regionalism is often compared, mostly unfavorably, with the European variety. Yet, even the much-vaunted European Union is not without significant shortcomings. Compare, for example, the EU's approach to Russia with Asia's approach to China . . .

. . . the relationship between U.S. military presence and alliance structure in the region and the development of multilateral institutions in Asia is not a zero-sum situation. Indeed, in recent years, U.S. military assets in Asia and the Pacific have been increasingly used for addressing common regional challenges, such as natural disasters like the Indian Ocean Tsunami in 2004. U.S. military exercises, like Cobra Gold, have expanded beyond their original missions (in this case, of supporting Thailand) to include a range of other regional countries, serving as a platform for multilateral coordination. Multilateral cooperation featuring American forces and those of non-allied nations, such as Malaysia and Indonesia, has also been on the rise in efforts to ensure maritime security in vulnerable parts of Asia, such as the Straits of Malacca. The rationale for regional security institutions need not conflict with U.S. military alliances. Rather, the two can be mutually supportive. 

None of the above assertions would imply that Asian regionalism is in no need of reform and change. To be more meaningful and relevant, Asian institutions need to address four challenges.

The first is the challenge to overcome the 19th-century mindset of sovereignty and non-intervention . . .

Second, Asia needs to reconcile competing proposals for regional architecture that have cropped up . . . 

Third, Asian institutions need to move beyond the ASEAN Way of informal, strictly consensus-driven cooperation, to adopt greater institutionalization and legalization . . . 

Finally, Asian regional institutions should widen their focus to embrace transnational issues, and move beyond being forums for consultations and dialogue to become instruments for problem-solving . . .

To sum up, criticisms of Asian regionalism and regional institutions are not without merit. Yet, they do not warrant the view that investing in Asian regionalism is a waste of resources and time, or that the Asian institutions have not made positive contributions to regional stability and prosperity. Much depends on what sort of yardstick we use to judge their performance. In general, the benefits of regionalism and continued institution-building far outweigh its costs, and the region would be a more dangerous and uncertain place without them.

Very nice piece.