Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s proposal to build an Asia-Pacific Community (APC) belongs to the second argument. It has quite a few merits. First, the APC is inclusive in its arrangement. Rather than excluding some, it is supposed to include all countries in the region. Inclusiveness is important, not only in terms of representation, but also in terms of legitimacy and authority for the proposed body. Second, the inclusive nature of the arrangement reduces the risk of division. Unlike some exclusive arrangements like military alliances, it does not create or reinforce an ‘us versus them’ mentality among countries in the region, and thus is good for reducing suspicion and promoting cooperation. Finally, it is future-oriented. No one is very satisfied with the existing cooperative mechanisms in the region. Most people desire that countries in the region will develop a region-wide cooperative mechanism similar to that of the European Union. If the APC can be realized, the region would see fewer summits and more efficiency in cooperation. The proposed APC may be the cooperative medium the region should aim for.
However, despite all these merits, the idea of building a region-wide cooperative architecture, as many have pointed out, will be hard to put into practice. Firstly, as with other efforts to build a region-wide cooperation scheme in Asia, it may be difficult to decide which countries should be included in the ‘Asia Pacific’ category. If you include Australia, you should include all the Pacific Island states. If you include Brazil, you should include almost all the Latin American states. If you include India, you may well need to include such countries as Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia, all of which are also Asian countries. As the previous experience with the Asian Summit shows, there may be a way out by developing a mental map in place of the geographical map in constructing regional organizations. It is not clear what Rudd’s mental map of the Asia-Pacific region looks like and whether he can persuade the rest of the region to accept it.
Secondly, it is not clear how Rudd sees the relationship between the APC and the existing bilateral and multilateral arrangements in the region. He has stressed the importance of US military alliances in the region, as other Australian leaders have in the past. Does he envisage an APC replacing these alliances, if not now, then at some later stage? If not, how can one build a viable APC when some of its members are allies and others are not? And what are the implications of an APC for the future standing of other multilateral regional institutions such as APEC, ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), Asian Summit, and the Shangri La Dialogue? Does Rudd envision their phasing out to make space for the APC in the future? It is not clear how he can persuade countries, especially those with vested interests in these institutions, that the APC would not undermine their national interests.
Thirdly, there is the question of leadership. Who should sit in the driver’s seat? So far, several multilateral institutions in the region see the ASEAN countries taking the lead. Does Rudd want to replace them with the big powers like the US, Japan, China, India, and maybe Australia? If so, can he expect support from the ASEAN countries? If not, can he expect countries other than the ARF members to endorse ASEAN leadership?
Last but not the least, there is the problem of how to develop a decision-making mechanism that is both efficient and also receptive of the views of the smaller states. Rudd thinks that by bringing all the big powers together, the APC would more effectively address regional challenges. However, the smaller states may fear that they would be ignored, and therefore demand a voice. The APC can accommodate smaller states’ concerns by adopting a unanimity voting principle on important decisions. However, the big powers, especially the US, may fear that this would handicap the decision-making process.
These and other problems may make it difficult for Rudd to sell his idea to the people in the Asia Pacific region. However, the proposal has already created the desirable effect, that is, to encourage people in the region to take another serious look at the effectiveness of the existing regional organizations and ways to improve them.
It seems that the first and far most important question to ask is whether it is an Asian regional community type organisation, or an Asia Pacific community. Different people, with different purposes, are calling for quite different things. The two are quite different and would serve equally quite different purposes, and likely have quite different membership and governance structure.
Asia is itself a very large mass in terms of both population and geographical land, as well as diversity. There seems a need to have an Asian Union type community that will look after and advance the affairs and fairs of all Asian nations. The membership should be open to all Asian nations on voluntary basis.
There are regional organisations for all other regions, EU for Europe, African Union in Afric, American Summit in all America, and a Pacific forum for Pacific nations. Interestingly and ironically, the only region that does not have an effective regional organisation is Asia, the largest continent.
It will be difficult to establish such a community, given the size of Asia and its diversity. But it is by no means impossible. Some existing Asian smaller regional organisations can be the core for such a development.
A further Asia Pacific cross regional organisation, such as what Rudd’s Asia Pacific Community proposal or concept, appears to have a nature of super-regional or cross-regional. There is a need for such an organisation, because the very different dynamics across the Pacific. This type of cross-regional organisation will be important in shaping the global affairs in the next 50 years. The membership of this type of organisation is highly likely to be selective as compared to inclusive.
Further, within this cross-regional organisation the sort of questions of existing alliances of different sorts, as raised by Jia, will have to be addressed. Otherwise non-alliance members would have natural concerns of equality and fairness, if such an organisation is to address regional security issues at all.
One needs to be clear about the differences in these two equally needed but quite different organisations.
How Asian will an Asian-Pacific Community look, and who will be perceived to be sitting in the driver’s, or at least the front seat? This will always be a major stumbling block for Kevin Rudd. His enthusiastic cultivation of the ongoing close relationship with the current US government, while an essential plank of Australia’s overall foreign policy, will be seen as many as coming at the expense of truly unburdened relations with our Asian neighbours.
There is no doubt as to the merits of an APC. The perception of it being an instrument of US policy for the region, rather than the formation of a true Asian-Pacific Community, will be difficult to overcome, and it would be optimistic indeed to see it embraced by Asian leaders any time soon. Given this, maintainence of the existing matrix of bilateral and multilateral arrangements probably does present the best we can hope for in the region.
Ideas I would like to add to this essay are as follows:
Regional cooperation is somewhat varied in its characteristics. Those characteristics are not only identified as bilateral or multilateral relations between or among states within a given region, but they are also identified as interregional cooperation as well. The ambiguity of the patterns of interstate cooperation thus brings about the ill-defined characteristics of regional, cross-regional, or even interregional cooperation. Especially in regard to contemporary international relations, such regional cooperation is not confined just within a distinct geographic area, but also across continents as seen, for example, in the cases of the APEC and ASEAN Regional Forum. More importantly, the arguments above can be illustrated, for example in the case of ASEAN, by four primary aspects as follows:
First to be considered are the multilateral relations among ASEAN member states in creating close ties with one another. The reason for this was that it was a response to the challenge of communism in the context of the Cold War and to create collective security arrangements such that the national sovereignty and independence of all member states would be safeguarded. However, in the context of modernization, it was aimed as a means of strengthening regional economies in response to the tide of economic globalization and to promote economic development for all member states.
The second to be considered are the bilateral relations between ASEAN regional organization and the more powerful economic actors like ASEAN plus three (China, Japan, and South Korea). Even though in the past, Japan and China were understood as the major challenge to ASEAN regional security and economic stability, in the context of economic globalization, these countries could enhance the economic status of ASEAN and its member states in the global arena. Parallel to this is the bilateral relations between member states of ASEAN. This is usually seen as the creation of FTA under the cooperative framework of ASEAN.
The third to be considered are the bilateral relations between individual member states with the outside powers. For the third aspect, what particularly comes to the fore is the state of affairs obtaining when an individual member state desires to create a FTA with economic powers such as Japan and China. And the forth to be considered are the bilateral relations between two regional organizations such as the ASEAN European Meeting (ASEM).
Therefore, it can be concluded that the presence of the regional organization in response to the different contexts of international relations depended largely on the actions and reactions of individual member states. The regional organization, in this regard, is perceived as the mediator for both individual member states within it, and between individual member states and the varying contexts of the international system.
Dr.Thanawat Pimoljinda