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China is involved in a number of regional collaborations on various levels, from informal cooperations between non-governmental institutions to Track II relations to top-prioritised government to government collaborations across borders. This article takes a brief look at the regional collaborations the Chinese government has involved itself with at the highest governmental and diplomatic levels. (See last article for a table overview)

ASEAN + 3

Originally, then Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir, was the biggest proponent of creating an exclusive East Asian institution that could rival that of the APEC a

nd US dominance, but an actual organization was not realized until the Asian financial crisis hit the region. After the Asian financial crisis, the creation of an Asian Monetary Fund was proposed, but

the suggestion was opposed by external actors, mainly the US who pushed Japan into opposing it as well, but China was also strongly opposing the idea. Nonetheless, the ASEAN leaders met with their Chinese, Japanese and South Korean counterparts in December 1997, as a sideline of the second ASEAN informal summit. The official institutionalization came when the leaders of ASEAN, China, Japan and South Korea issued a joint statement on East Asia Cooperation in 1999.

Nevertheless, the Asian crisis had exposed the regions vulnerabilities and the finance ministers of the APT established the Chiang Mai initiative in Thailand in 2000. Later in the same year, APT leaders established the East Asia Study Group that consisted of government officials. The group later put forward several measures to pursue the East Asian vision. Since then, APT has developed into 64 mechanisms coordinating cooperation: 1 summit, 16 ministerial, 23 Senior Officials, 1 Directors-General, 17 technical level meetings and 6 other tracks meetings. APT has proven to be the most comprehensive governmental effort to create an institutional framework to promote SE&E Asian regionalism. APT is however still categorized as a consultative process, where the ASEAN-way is deeply integrated in the institution.

ASEAN Regional Forum

The ARF was established in 1994 in order to address Asia Pacific security issues and diplomatic relations in the region. The organization was promoted by ASEAN as a consultative mechanism along the lines of ASEAN’s own, thus becoming the driving force behind ARF. The foreign ministers of the member states meet on a yearly basis, usually preceded by the ARF Senior Official Meetings. In between these meetings, inter-sessional workshops on specific topics are also being held.

Even though ARF functions as the regions primary security institution, it has not been able to assert itself above confidence-building measures. The ARF does not perform any preventive diplomacy, where the six-party talks on the security issue with North Korea that has been led by China, proves an example hereof. China has in general been exhibiting resistance to any binding decisions or conflict-resolution processes and the ARF does not have any enforcement mechanisms or a separate secretariat where ASEAN hosts all annual meetings. The concept and principles of preventive diplomacy and the need for enhancing the role of the ARF’s chairman in between the annual sessions has been discussed, but the ARF still remains the least institutionalized forum compared to ASEAN and APEC.

Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation

APEC began as an informal dialogue, but the principal basis for government to government cooperation emerged from a trans-regional concept rather than a strictly East Asian geographical one. As a consequence, APEC consists of member states beyond the boundaries of Asia (see table). APEC was fully established in 1989 to “further enhance economic growth and prosperity for the region and to strengthen the Asia-Pacific community”. In the beginning, the organization only met as on an informal senior official and ministerial level, however, in 1993 then president of the United States of America (US), Bill Clinton, established the practice of annual economic leaders meeting. China became a member in 1991 along with Hong Kong and Chinese Taipei. Today, APEC gather ministers and senior officials to discuss agenda setting purposes, as well as organize working groups, seminars and workshops (Solingen, 2005). The secretariat is located in Singapore and was established in 1993 and today employs 29 people. The secretariat is however considered too weak and underfunded to support a more dynamic agenda; “the actual meeting of leaders (heads of states) have been described as the single most important of APEC’s achievements”. APEC’s response to the Asian financial crisis lacked substance and showed how weak the forum in reality was.

China has been severely opposed to binding codes and Malaysia and Japan has been resistant to APEC functioning as a free trade area. APEC has therefore not evolved into the vision of a formal institution the US and Canada had hoped for. Instead, APEC has been following the ASEAN-way and the informal style of other institutions in SE&E Asia. APEC has no mechanism of enforcement and cannot coerce its members to take action. As a result, APEC has never been able to lift itself much higher beyond that of a forum for dialogue and is yet to prove itself as a serious institution of regionalism in Asia.

Shanghai Cooperation Forum

Originally known as the Shanghai Five, the group was established in 1996 by China, Russia, Kirgizstan and Tajikistan as a forum for settling border disputes and boosting regional trade. In the summer of 2001, the Shanghai Five officially became the SCO following t

he inclusion of Uzbekistan. The Headsof State Council functions as the highest decision making body and meets once a year in order to discuss and outline the agenda of the SCO; this State Council is chaired by a rotating presidency. The Heads of Government Council also holds annual meetings where they discuss the strategy for multilateral cooperation as well as economic issues. The Council of National Coordinators of the member states is the body coordinating interaction within the established framework. The SCO secretariat is located in Beijing and the Region Counter-Terrorism Structure established in 2004 is located in Tashkent in Uzbekistan. Mongolia, Iran, Pakistan and India have all been giving observer status, while Belarus and Sri Lanka have been giving the status of dialogue partners.

Even though the SCO is not made up of SE&E Asian countries, besides China, the organization still follows the ASEAN-way to a large extend: “…the SCO has stressed non-interference in domestic affairs of sovereign states […] and support for each member state’s right to choose its own part of development”. The SCO has not made any legal binding agreements and institutionalization remains weak. The outcome of the latest meeting was merely a joint communiqué signed by the prime ministers of the member states.

Observers have begun to view the SCO as a Russian and Chinese led opposition to American global hegemony and see it as an expressing of the wariness of the strong US presence near Central and SE&E Asian borders. If SCO should choose to include the observer states as conclusive members, the organization would then represent approximately half of the world’s population.

The final article next time will discuss what all these international relations the Chinese government is establishing indicate for the future of the Asian relations and what role China will play in the shaping of a political strong region.