These are: (a) to provide a collective forum for regional leaders to address the full range of critical regional and global issues that affect them all; (b) to strengthen and deal effectively with the consequences of economic integration, particularly its trade and investment dimensions; (c) to address issues of political change and security; and, (d) to provide a basis for educating the public and opinion leaders about the region.
None of the existing institutions in the region fulfills these needs, as Kevin Rudd also recognized. That does not mean that all functions need to be served by the one organisation. Accepting ‘variable geometry’, would seem a practical way forward. The PECC report argues for having institutions operating at the sub-regional level, particularly in East Asia where there is a legacy of historical suspicion and the need for an intensive form of community building.
There is no need to reinvent such key existing institutions like APEC and the ARF (ASEAN Regional Forum) to deal with regional economic and political security issues, respectively, but they need to be fundamentally reformed.
A renewed drive for reform will come from a clear understanding of the need to have a regional forum that can address the full range of regional and global issues affecting all regional countries. These include issues that might arise in APEC or ARF. This points to the need for a new Heads of Government meeting or Asia Pacific Summit – a forum that cannot be too large, because that would make it ineffective, but needs to be broad enough to make it representative. It would not need its own secretariat. APEC and ARF would develop issues for consideration by this new Asia Pacific Summit.
There will be sensitivities in creating a new Summit involving a limited number of countries, the ‘larger’ players in Asia and the Pacific. At one extreme is the proposal for a G2 (China and the United States), which is unacceptable even to China. The most practical proposal, and most logical, to date is that the Summit should include the Asia Pacific members of the G20. A caucus of these countries does not entail creating an additional institution as G20 leaders are likely to continue to meet beyond the current financial crisis. This should be an important consideration in making the next steps towards realizing the Asia Pacific vision.
The message coming from the consultations in the region undertaken by Kevin Rudd’s envoy, Richard Woolcott, is that ‘no-one wants more meetings’ and that there is no appetite for additional institutions.’ (see Rudd’s Shangri-La speech). That paves the way for institutional innovation built on what we already have as the PECC group suggest.
The broader strategic picture underlying this proposal is the recognition that the global economic governance after the global financial crisis, which is led by the G20 as its steering committee, needs to be supported by effective regional efforts. Regional effort helps strengthen the G20 process itself and at the same time helps ensure that decisions make by the G20 will have the support they need globally, through the ‘regional representatives.’ It is through the existing regional structures that even the smaller countries can channel their aspirations. (See my earlier piece on this).
At the recent, scheduled, but aborted, East Asia Summit (EAS) in Pattaya (Thailand), there was the plan to brief all members about the outcome of the G20 London Summit. If that briefing had taken place, it would have marked the beginning of a new process of purposeful regional-global interactions that would contribute to the strengthening of the world’s economic governance structure.
East Asia can lead the way. There is a Korean proposal to create an East Asian caucus of the G20 that would include the 6 G20 members in the region, namely Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, and Korea. This proposal has received support in Korea and elsewhere in the region and its relevance is widely seen in the group’s potential to make a major contribution to the strengthening of the G20 agenda when Korea chairs G20 next year, and beyond.
This East Asian group can help establish the processes involving a larger Asia Pacific group as the core of the new Asia Pacific Summit. This G10 of the Asia Pacific includes Australia, Canada, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Russia, and the United States.
This G10 represents half of the members of G20 and will be able not only to make a stronger appeal at the global level but more importantly, it can make more effective contribution to the better functioning of global economic governance. This G10 needs to be integrated with the reformed and strengthened APEC and ARF processes. There is opportunity to take this proposal up in APEC, especially since the three consecutive APEC chairs, Singapore, Japan, and the United States, are capable of producing purposeful and coordinated processes under strong leaderships.
‘Architectural momentum’ is now possible in the region. But there will need to be systematic efforts to bring the wider public on board in the process, if the momentum is to be sufficient to entrench the new structure that PECC recommends.
The Rudd initiative and the support by Kurt Campbell at the confirmation hearing as Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs for a regional discussion on institutional architecture serve to strengthen the momentum.
It appears there are a few different proposals for establishing some sort out of a regional forum for Asia, East Asia, and Asia Pacific. It is a healthy development and reflects a strong desire from the regional nations, broader or narrower.
It also appears that there is a need to approach the design of such regional forums from a clean slate, as opposed to be constrained by some existing forums, although it is possible that some of the existing regional forums could be transformed into new forums people are thinking about.
The constraints of existing forums on thinking or designing new regional architecture can be understood, since people tend to think from own experiences. After all, most peoples’ thinking is bounded rationality, framed by the environment in which they work or are familiar with.
The main problem with those constraints is that it is more difficult to consider all feasible options, so results in sub-optimal with long term consequences. We have APEC, ASEAN plus 3, East Asian Summit. We have different proposals, like Rudd’s APC, Korean’s Caucus, etc. I personally like an Asian Union, an Asian organisation, because there is no such similar organisation in Asia as in other continents. Yes, there is an Asia Development Bank as an Asian regional bank, then why there is no other regional forum to coordinate more broad issues across the Asian region? It is very peculiar indeed.
I look forward to seeing a creative and the most optimal design and thinking for an Asia regional organisation. Other trans-regional forums have their usefulness, but they cannot fulfil the needs of all Asians, or the Asian nations.
It is clear that the pace of “architectural momentum” in the region needs to be increased if we are to maintain even a semblance of regional and (by extension) global security. Such momentum, and its handmaiden – a sense of truly inclusive future prosperity – will depend upon “systemic efforts to bring the wider public onboard in the process”.
East Asian public sensibilities of regional alliances have their own subtleties, but here in Australia it is more a matter of public insensibility. It is one thing for policy makers to work within a framework of regional cooperation, it is quite another thing to sell the public on the existence of and the need for such a framework.
The Rudd government must put more effort into building public perception of Australia’s role as an Asian partner and regional player, and certainly do more to overcome the entrenched “us and them” attitude prevalent in the media and public opinion. The flow of public attention is a key to political will and any “architectural momentum” policy makers hope to create. It is one thing to have the novelty of a prime minister who speaks Mandarin. It is quite another leap to have a public sense of the dynamics and opportunities inherent in being an integral part of an Asian region.
While shuddering at the though of yet another government public awareness campaign, it is clear that much greater effort needs to be put into redefining the public sense of our geographic, economic and cultural place in the world.
The debate about regional architecture for the Asia-Pacific region is terribly confusing because the name does not fit the group of countries generally included.
It seems that there are three distinct regions implicated in the debate: the Asian region, the Pacific region, and the Western Hemisphere region. What do these three regions have in common? Only the Pacific Ocean. How many people live in the Pacific Ocean? Not many.
To have a strong regional organization, isn’t it necessary to have a strong sense of regional identity? The outstanding example, of course, in today’s nation-state system, is Europe. No region comes close to having Europe’s common sense of values and purpose.
Look at how weak regional identity is in the Western Hemisphere. Before trying to build a strong Asia-Pacific community, doesn’t it make sense to build a strong Western Hemisphere community? Otherwise it appears that the Asia-Pacific community is being promoted as a substitute for a weak Western Hemisphere community.
A case can be made that Asia has a stronger sense of regional identity than the Western Hemisphere has. Asia’s ASEAN-centered regional architecture seems to be miles (kilometers?) ahead of its Western Hemisphere counterpart. Where is the experience that suggests Asia’s regional architecture would be stronger by adding a collection of marginal Pacific nations (counting Australia and New Zealand as Asian nations) or a collection of Western Hemisphere nations? Would the European Community be stronger if it were part of a Europe/Africa-Atlantic region?
What’s wrong with letting Asia be Asia, and not complicating the process of Asian regional integration by inserting countries like Panama and Chile into the mix? If the European Community can be strong without having the United States as a member, doesn’t this suggest that an Asian community would be stronger without the United States as a member?
The United States has excellent relations with the European Community without being a member of it. Similarly, it seems possible for the United States to have excellent relations with the Asian community without being a member of it.
I’m more sceptical than you – which may be a reaction from a small economy which will not have a seat in any “executive board” but I think it owes more to general reflections. Your passage below is persuasive:
Nevertheless, as I have said to you before, economies vary in the extent to which they expect their leaders to operate separately from official processes and I place less weight on the Leaders’ Meeting than you do. (We do not have to choose between these conceptions; we have to find ways in which we can operate with different expectations.) I agree even more fully on ‘variable geometry’ but I am not sure that there is much room for an Asian G6 of Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan and Korea, or for an Asia Pacific G10 which has Canada, Mexico, Russia and US in addition to the G6. I understand your idea that regional organizations could give a mandate to the Asian G6 or the Asia Pacific G10, but wonder why they should do so or what the specified group would do. The finance ministers of the G8 have just met and endorsed the idea that there should be trans-national regulation of cross-border financial issues. But it is doubtful whether they will be able to define a common approach for themselves, and even more doubtful that they will possess any authority over anybody else. There is still a large gap between Europe and America over what regulation can achieve and it is unlikely that they can mount an effective argument and lobby in an organization like IOSCO when they can themselves agree only on platitudes. Would this not apply a fortiori to the G6 and G10? The groupings can meet if they wish to – they need nothing more than a little co-operation from whoever is convening a meeting of the EAS or APEC – if they agree that a meeting is desirable and can find a common agenda. By why would the other 10 members of the EAS or the other 11 members of APEC take any notice? They are unlikely to see any value in formulating an agenda for the smaller group when they can seek to attach the “executive committee” directly into a consensus of the group as a whole. (You talk about a briefing for EAS on the G20 which is obviously sensible – but what role could the G6 play?) Even if you had explicitly included the ASEAN director-general as a member I cannot see any attraction to Thailand. Malaysia or Singapore. Nor do I think Chile will defer to Mexico, and giving Russia a key role in the Asia Pacific community is even less attractive – which of your four basic functions is promoted by that?