East Asian Summit - just another talkfest?

For the first time in 60 years, sixteen countries gathered at an historic summit in Malaysia’s capital on December 13 to launch a new grouping that could reshape the region’s political architecture.

The East Asian Summit (EAS) promises to be an unprecedented milestone in the development of Asian security discourse that has hitherto been characterised more by bilateral relationships and alliances with extra-regional powers. This article examines the undercurrents that will shape the trajectory of the summit.

The broader geopolitics of Asia will shape how future summits evolve in the coming years. The EAS could be viewed as an intellectual and strategic step forward in co-operative security, which should ameliorate the simmering hotspots in the Asia-Pacific region. The inaugural summit, which has excluded the United States, will be seen in Washington as an anti-US hegemonic institution.

The prospects of the EAS as a new security mechanism would depend on the relationship of big powers such as the US, India, China and Japan. Smaller powers such as the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) do matter, but more in terms of facilitating dialogue than in shaping agendas. The EAS could turn out to be just another glorified talkfest, however, the value of greater institutional collaborations cannot be discounted.

EAS: An intellectual and strategic step forward

The historic East Asian Summit will include leaders from ASEAN, China, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand and India. The willingness of the three North-East Asian countries to come together should be a boost for regional confidence-building particularly as it comes amid growing tensions.

The North Korean nuclear crisis remains unresolved, and the recent round of Six Party Talks held under the leadership of China, experienced no breakthrough into the diplomatic impasse. North Korea appears to have won the game of political brinkmanship with the US as China has given it more energy and food aid, without any obligation from Pyongyang to dismantle the nuclear weapons program.

The US-China summit in November failed to address the growing suspicions that both states have about each other’s strategic intentions. Beijing and Washington have missed yet another opportunity for a mutually strategic reassurance to avert a continued drift towards an adversarial relationship in the decades to come.

Meanwhile the Sino-Japanese relationship is experiencing yet another round of animosity with Beijing reacting aggressively to Prime Minister Koizumi’s visit to the Yakuzuni war shrine. The chain of events appears to be less than promising but as in the nature of international politics, current developments may not have a bearing on future outcomes.

The prospect of the EAS becoming a productive institution enhancing regional security should not be dismissed. Singapore’s Foreign Minister George Yeo has described the region’s unprecedented collective response to three dramatic changes that are taking place: globalisation, the re-emergence of China and India, and the challenge of international terrorism.

The inclusion of Australia and New Zealand, traditionally Anglo-Saxon and Western-oriented countries, and India means that the geographical definition of East Asia has become elastic.

The EAS is an intellectual and strategic step forward for three vital reasons.

First, it is a shift from the traditional emphasis of bilateral security to multilateral security. Since the end of the World War II, the “hubs and spooks” model of bilateral ties between the US and allied nations has predominated the Asian security architecture. Unlike Europe, there was no NATO equivalent of a multilateral forum in Asia. The US security umbrella provided the overarching guarantee of political sovereignty for a disparate group of nations, emerging from colonialism, to develop their economies and strengthen security. Specifically, it stabilised the security situation in North-East Asia, where a militaristic Japan was rehabilitated under the US-Japan alliance.

Second, the “domino theory” of communism did not materialise, as Washington feared it would, when Vietnam became a communist state in 1975. ASEAN was formed in 1967 and remains a robust sub-regional diplomatic community - gradually winning converts to its “ASEAN Way” of informal and consensus-driven diplomacy. In 1994, the group formed the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), which has 24 member-states to date. Most of the ARF dialogue partners will be represented in the EAS, with the exception of EU, Canada and the US.

Third, the formation of the EAS represents the most visible sign that countries are seeking to abandon the Cold War mentality and there is a willingness to collaborate on win-win gestures compatible with shared prosperity.

An anti-US hegemonic institution?

There are lingering concerns the EAS could be seen as an anti-US hegemonic institution. Since 1990, the US has been opposed to an East Asian-only grouping, saying that such a format would tear the Pacific apart. Washington was more concerned about China's key role in the region and the possibility of Washington's influence waning as a result. Washington had muscled Japan for nearly a decade against participating in an East Asian grouping, first mooted by former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad.

Australia has gained formal admission into the EAS by acceding to the ASEAN Treaty of Amity and Cooperation. Alexandra Downer, Australia’s Foreign Minister, said it would be keen to participate in the East Asia Summit, although some countries have opposed its membership. Australia has long baulked at signing the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation - a non-aggression pledge with the 10-member ASEAN grouping - claiming it could conflict with obligations under its security treaty with the US. But Canberra has since made a 180-degree policy reversal to join the historic summit and asserted that signing the TAC will not compromise its alliance obligations with Washington.

The exclusion of the US at the inaugural EAS is not a definite indication of anti-US hegemonic intent. Pro-US states in South-East Asia, such as Singapore, are still open to the idea of Washington’s future involvement. The city state has consistently championed the stabilising role of the US. Foreign Minister George Yeo said the US should continue to play a key role in the region, citing the enormous relief efforts by the American military during the tsunami disaster that ravaged around a dozen countries located along the Indian Ocean coast.

The US deployed 16,000 military personnel, 26 large ships, 58 helicopters and 43 fixed wing aircraft in the relief and recovery effort following the December 26, 2004 tsunami that left at least 288,800 people dead. Future summits could well include the US as a dialogue partner or an observer country in a situation where membership can be fluidly defined and so expanded.

Admittedly, the exclusion of the US does point to Washington losing diplomatic influence to China. Outgoing deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage lamented that China has done well in its “charm offensive” to win over the Asian states by investing heavily in multilateral initiatives. China is very active in the ARF and signed a Code of Conduct in 2002 with ASEAN over the South China Sea territorial claims. It has also resolved most of its border disputes with Russia, India and Vietnam, and in some cases, to Beijing’s disadvantage.

Speaking at an economic forum on the sidelines of the ASEAN summit, Prime Minister Wen Jiabao said international stability was essential and Beijing wanted win-win relations with the rest of the world. China’s intention is to seek peace and implement development through co-operation. Meanwhile Washington has lost ground in Asia, due to its obsession in fighting the war on terror and perceiving Asia as the second front for terror activities. By frowning on multilateral initiatives, such as the ARF and regarding them as merely a talk shop, Washington has unwittingly defaulted the leadership to Beijing.

Washington has now retrospectively begun to seek to engage China more constructively with the hope of recovering lost influence in the region. The Bush administration, guided by Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick, is engaging in potentially the most far-reaching redefinition of US policy towards China for many years. In an interview with The Inquirer, Zoellick repudiates any suggestion of containment as a basis for US policy throwing it into the dustbin of history, Cold War parallels or 19th century balance-of-power concepts as the foundation for Washington's management of China's rise.

Zoellick says:

Our discussions with China focus on how this concept can be applied across a whole range of policy issues: economic, energy, security, nuclear non-proliferation, terrorism and regional security. The challenge of the dialogue is not only to engage people at a conceptual level but start to connect it to operational implications. What I am suggesting to the Chinese is that rather than keeping China contained or at arm's length or in balance, we are trying to urge China to play a role in this system of systems that has evolved.

Notably, the more enlightened view by Zoellick is in direct contrast to Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld’s June 4 speech in Singapore on China’s growing military spending.

Getting the big power relationships right

Getting the big power relationships right will be crucial for the future workings of the EAS. The starting point to understand US-China relations lies in the realisation that they encompass many stories and many policies. There is no single US policy towards China. Zoellick, who oversees the US-China dialogue, offers a new optimism about the most vital relationship of the coming century. At the same time, India and Japan will be Asian heavyweights, and depending on one’s political outlook, the closer alignment of New Dehli and Tokyo to Washington will be seen in Beijing as a new era of containment even as all leaders pledge greater co-operation.

Russia has joined the inaugural EAS as an observer state and its return to great power status is a matter of time as it grows in importance by leveraging on its gas and oil reserves.

There is inconclusive evidence that great powers are forming blocs to balance each other. Closer economic integration may not translate naturally into political alliances, and neither should expressions of closer security co-operation be viewed in offensive terms.

The key agenda will be free trade negotiations. This is a positive move forward as ASEAN has embarked on an ambitious round of free trade negotiations to reduce trade barriers to its own exports and hence increase its attractions to investors. ASEAN’s FTA may be small but it is comprehensive, and this week’s EAS will bring forward the final completion of economic integration to 2015. India and Korea have also begun talks with ASEAN and an FTA will soon be ironed out.

So where will the EAS be heading? The optimists say it will herald the dawn of a new Asian co-operative security - the promise of a new political community where the sense of oneness and “we-ness” are more important than long-standing differences. This optimism is visibly displayed on all banners lining the streets of Kuala Lumpur - “One Vision, One Identity, One Community”.

This idea of one community extends beyond the ASEAN-10, although the sense of cohesion is never perfect nor the commitment to multilateralism equally strong among all states. While the geographical location of nations in Asia will impact on how “Asian” states will feel, the landmark summit promises to build greater co-operation even if countries, such as Australia, feel that their participation in the first summit was marginal due to a late entry.

The pessimists will adopt a watch and see attitude. Unlike bilateral relations, the nature of multilateral dealings is such that it will take time before the dividends are seen. As Alexandra Downer noted, it will be years before the East Asian summits will amount to anything. It is far from clear whether Australia, China, India or Japan will seek to be key players in the summit. Equally uncertain is which country will be driving the summit so as not to create the impression that it is an anti-US hegemony.

The notion of ASEAN seeking to be a hub of a community linking the greater powers in the region is tenuous, as it has no material clout to compel big powers from imposing their agendas on the summit. Big powers will forge their own relationships of accommodation and rivalry rather than being constrained by rules of smaller neighbours. Even if each of the three big Asian powers portray themselves as gentle elephants, the reality of smaller nations being the grass they trample upon is unavoidable.

The summit holds great promise to unite Asia but the old quarrels and persistent political differences will remain. It is premature to speculate as to whether it will be a dawn of a new era of co-operative security or just another glorified talk shop. The verdict is still out on how close the reality and rhetoric will be.