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Following World War II, Southeast & East (SE&E) Asian regional integration was for many years largely dominated by Japanese influence. The rise of China and the decline of the Japanese economy have however disputed the Japanese hegemony and the power balance in Asia is changing. Powerful nations often set the agenda in international or regional matters and China looms as an increasingly important power in East Asia. With its increasing economic and political power it is obvious to look to China for regional leadership. However, China is yet to emerge as a clear leader and the question remains if China has the vision, ambition and capacity to create an independent multilateral framework for regional cooperation. Despite the absence of clear leadership, the integration of China into the global economy and political scene has not gone unnoticed on either a regional or a global level. Three articles, this article and two more in the following months, will explore how China’s increasing political and economic power has affected its integration with the SE&E Asian region, and if the country is willing and able to step up as a one of the leading, if not the leading, nation state of the processes that promotes integration of the region.

Regionalism vs. Regionlization

There has in recent years been an increasing focus on regions and the processes of regionalism that function as a global driver of trade, security and relations among nation states. In general there is three main drivers of regional cooperation in East Asia; governments, private corporations and ad-hoc problem oriented institutions. Regionalism and regionalization have been the two major processes driving cooperation in the region, with regionalism being the top-down process of government to government institutions and regionalization being the bottom-up process of cooperation between non-governmental actors. Focus of these three articles will only be on the top-down processes and regionalism and interaction of nation states and governments. This will help to clarify the incentives for deeper integration or disintegration of sovereign states in SE&E Asia, how China is utilizing its increasing power and how it is received by other countries in the SE&E Asian region.

No More Wind for the Flying Geese…

For many years, one of the most popular metaphors/theories to explain the Japanese dominance in SE&E Asia has been the flying geese paradigm. The metaphor of a powerful nation action like a leading goose and growth center for other developing economies in SE&E Asia is obvious to use to explain the current development in the region with a China of growing economic and political power. However, the paradigm proves incomplete in the Asia that exists today and the theory is difficult to apply in the case of China as the leading goose, as the country is full of contrasts in terms of economic development and differ greatly from the development path of Japan.

Open Regionalism, Informality and Consensus

On a more contemporary notion, three characteristics of East Asian institutions has been identified; the “ASEAN-way” of informality, consensus and open regionalism. Open regionalism accepts full engagement with globalization and has become the dominant model in theory as well as in practice as the approach signals openness and inclusion across borders in both economic, political and security matters. The level of informality is also a unique characteristic within cooperation across Asia, that in terms of process favors dialogue, meetings and consultations; in terms of outcome, it favors general principles and codes of conduct. The notion of informality prevails among institutions that aggregate members retaining a strong attachment to sovereignty. Last, but not least, SE&E Asian institutions are very consensus oriented. This rule allows member states that benefit the least from an agreement to influence the terms of this agreements, a principle that is in contradiction with the notion of hegemony by powerful states. In practice, consensus does not mean that everybody must agree, but that at least no one objects to the proposal. This requires a nonconfrontational approach to cooperation, a characteristic that works well with the Asian notion of “face”. Nonetheless, overall the cooperation in SE&E Asia is still dominated by weak institutionalization.

Institutionalized cooperation in Asia

Cooperation between sovereign nation states takes various shapes throughout SE&E Asia. Some have grown into actual organizations with a somewhat degree of institutionalization; others are only consultative processes and not yet actual organizations. Common for them all are the high degree of informality and weak institutionalization.

China is involved with a number of organizations and forums across Asia and the Pacific at the top level among governments. Table 1 gives an overview of the most extensive ones.

Table 1: China’s organizational involvement across Asia

Sources: ASEAN website, ARF website, APEC website, SCO website, ASEM website

The processes of regionalism in SE&E Asia are often difficult to distinguish from one another, as governmental involvement in regional cooperation often extends beyond those of government to government cooperation. As a consequence, China is participating in a number of track II involvements and other forms of diplomatic cooperation, often on governmental initiative, but without the formal institutionalization or direct governmental involvement.

The article next week will take a closer look at the various organizations and forums China is involved with.