Towards Regional Cohesion?

East Asia and South-East Asia are, due to economic linkages, becoming hard to separate from each other, and will be even more converging in the future, as countries such as Malaysia and Thailand (apart from Singapore, which is already known as an NIC) are more or less successfully trying to apply the NIC strategy. Thus, the Asian core of the Pacific rim, east and south-east, will probably follow its own economic course.

South-East Asia, like Europe, has been divided in two economic and political blocs: ASEAN (Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines and Brunei) which has existed since 1967, and the "Indochinese" area (Viet Nam, Kampuchea and Laos). The latter subregion has been under Communist rule, with Viet Nam exercising subregional hegemony. This role is now played down at the same time as market-oriented economic policies (doimoi) are implemented. Viet Nam, and behind it the Soviet Union, was earlier seen as a threat by the ASEAN countries. This threat was a crucial factor behind the relative cohesiveness of the organization in the Cold War era. The source of common cause and identity was thus partly an external threat, and there were few incentives for economic cooperation. Only recently (January 1993) a free trade agreement, AFTA, within the 330-million-people ASEAN region was agreed to be realized within a fifteen-year period. The planned tariff slopes of the different countries differ according to starting point and speed, which complicates the competitive situation in the intraregional trade of the constituent countries. The more protectionist countries will probably use AFTA to dump into more open economies. Many therefore doubt that this free trade zone will be realized. ASEAN countries are direct competitors in many areas and it will take a long time for them to develop into complementary economies. From the very beginning ASEAN was a political, rather than economic, organization (Yamakage 1990), and now the political preconditions have changed.

In fact there are strong inter-state, as well as intra-state, tensions in the two subregions. The latter can be exemplified by ethnic tensions (Malaysia, the Philippines) and the former by old territorial disputes (Indonesia vs. Malaysia), as well as contrasting views on regional security (Singapore vs. Indonesia and Malaysia). As in Europe, the dismantling of the Cold War system will change the pattern of conflict rather than eliminate the conflicts. We can therefore expect more relaxation between the two subregions, but more conflicts within them. Possibly the ASEAN framework is now strong enough to deal with them. The recent ASEAN meeting in Manila, for instance, addressed the tension over the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, which triggered a wider ASEAN interest to discuss a future security arrangement "in the post-Cambodia era" (The Nation, Bangkok, 23 July 1992). Ad hoc consultations may no longer be sufficient (Leifer 1992).

The countries in ASEAN could be described as capitalist in economic terms and conservative in political terms, although, for instance, Singapore and Indonesia differ significantly in their economic policies. The organization assumed importance as a regional organization only after 1975, when there were increasing political uncertainties in the region. The economic integration that has taken place so far is rather modest, and the figure for intraregional trade is only about 20 per cent. The external dependence on Japan is felt to be problematic.

The national economies are outward oriented, and the political systems are formally democratic or semi-democratic but in practice more or less authoritarian. The Confucian model has a strong impact on this region as well, so authoritarianism in fact constitutes the homogenizing political factor. The ASEAN countries are in various phases on an NIC-type development path. Problems in the international market usually reinforce domestic authoritarianism due to the strong two-way causal relationship between economic growth and political stability. Economic growth and redistribution are a pre-condition for ethnic peace, political stability a precondition for the economic confidence expressed by international capital towards the region.

Australia and New Zealand, although geographically distant from Europe, have European, and particularly British, origins. Under the impact of successive immigrations, the European heritage is becoming less distinctive. Economically, they are becoming part of Asia and dependent on Japan. Australia's exports to Britain have fallen from 32% (in 1950) to a mere 3% today. Sixty per cent of exports now go to Asia. The leaders are, consequently, promoting a republican Australia less attached to Britain and more involved in Asia, but this involvement obviously has its limits. The term "open regionalism" is often used for regional trade arrangements that do not hurt third parties. The ASEAN countries are still not convinced about the good will of the two European Asians, and as an editorial in The New Straits Times puts it "first it must prove that it is proud to be part of Asia" (quoted from EPW, 24 April 1993). Australia is publicly criticizing the regionalist project of creating an East Asian Economic Caucus (EAEC), which is a proposition from the South-East Asian region, while backing the much looser Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC). Politically they are thus still not quite part of the region, and there has also been a discussion on Australia joining NAFTA (Bangkok Post, 12 Sept. 1992). The Australian attitude to Europe is becoming increasingly negative. Similarly, New Zealand is one of the major victims of European agricultural protectionism.

In 1990 the Malaysian prime minister Mahathir (in frustration over drawn-out GATT negotiations) urged Japan to act as a leader of an East Asian Economic Grouping (EAEG), which would create an East Asian and South-East Asian superbloc with a Sino-Japanese core. EAEG (it has since been modestly renamed the East Asia Economic Caucus - EAEC) would be a sort of response to the European and North American "fortresses". The EAEC proposal is slowly gaining support among other ASEAN countries, whereas the East Asian countries, particularly Japan and South Korea, have taken a more sceptical attitude. So have the USA and the World Bank. According to a World Bank report (Sustaining Rapid Development) East Asia can strengthen regional integration through trade liberalization and promotion of foreign direct investment within the framework of the multilateral trading system. "A trading block would more likely foster an inward orientation, impairing the world wide search for market opportunities that has served East Asia so well" (quoted from the Bangkok Post, 15 April 1993, p. 25).

A more comprehensive alternative is thus the 15-member-strong forum for Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), which was set up in 1989 with regional and interregional trade expansion as its main goal. Similar to the "Atlantic project" in Europe, it is a trans-regional network providing a bridge for the USA in the area, and therefore supported by US-oriented regimes and opposed by spokesmen for a genuinely Asian regionalism. From the US point of view APEC, like NAFTA in the Americas, is a continuation of its strategy of bilateralism. Again we meet the two distinct understandings of regionalism: (1) a way of managing multilateralism and (2) a challenge to multilateralism. So far, the first conception predominates in Asia-Pacific. The idea of any kind of more introverted regionalism is thus very controversial in a region extremely dependent on unhindered world trade, and the debate is carried out merely in terms of an "insurance policy" (FEER, 25 July 1991).

Date: 2015-01-11; view: 755