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Is there a ‘Japanese’ concept of an East Asia Community?

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In Brief

There is no single Japanese government vision of how regional community building should proceed.

First there is the ‘Hatoyama vision’ of an East Asia Community (EAC). This has long been one of the prime minister’s pet projects. In his 2005 book, he outlined his desire to promote a plan for a European style East Asia Community and to play the leading role in promoting it. He primarily envisions the building of an economic community with regional economic integration as a possible end point.

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Second, there is the DPJ manifesto for the recent Lower House election. It pledged to establish a regional cooperative structure covering such areas as trade, energy, finance, disaster relief and the environment. These are all areas where the government can build on past strengths (such as trade and finance), where Japan has made solid contributions in the past (such as disaster relief), and where the government wishes to lead in the future such as energy and the environment.

In neither of these ‘visions’ is security prominent or even in the background. Hatoyama may conceive of some kind of multilateral security framework growing out of the EAC concept in the long term, but his current concept has no security angle at all. In fact, the Japanese experience of regional security frameworks has not been wholly positive. Japan has been disappointed with the performance of the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), having failed in its efforts to promote meaningful cooperative security measures among member states. Japan is also disillusioned with the failure of multilateral security diplomacy to address its regional security concerns, particularly over North Korea. Generally speaking Japan has more faith in regional economic institutions than in regional security institutions.

Third, there is the Okada concept of an EAC. This differs from the Hatoyama ‘vision’ in two key respects. Drawing on the European model, Hatoyama has an ambitious idea for a common currency amongst EAC members. Okada, however, has explicitly rejected this idea. And while Hatoyama does not exclude the United States in principle, Okada does so in restricting the membership of the proposed EAC to the East Asia Summit (EAS) group and in stating explicitly that the concept does not include the United States at this stage.

To Hatoyama, more important than the prospective membership of the proposed EAC is the fact that it should arise out of the exercise of Japanese diplomatic leadership in the region and growing cooperation amongst regional nations, particularly Japan, China and South Korea.

Important for Hatoyama is also the fact that the EAC is seen as an area where Japan can demonstrate its foreign policy autonomy from the United States. Almost in the same breath as he advances his EAC vision, Hatoyama makes the additional remark that ‘Japan has been overly dependent on the United States in the past’. Hatoyama sees his EAC as rectifying this ‘over-dependence’ and as demonstrating his government’s difference from past LDP governments, which he has criticised as being ‘subservient to the United States’. In fact the DPJ election manifesto deliberately included the proposal for a Japan-US FTA in order to compensate for the EAC concept.

An important principle is at stake for Japan: whether its leadership in Asia rests on the Japan-US alliance or whether it can be considered as a regional leader in its own right.

It is clear that the Hatoyama government has its sights set on the latter, a goal that is being shaped primarily by its rivalry with China rather than any desire to undermine American primacy in the region.

China favours ASEAN+3 over ASEAN+6 as the prospective membership of any EAC because it will be easier for China to exert its influence over the group. ASEAN+3 excludes India as a prospective great power balancer as well as US allies Australia and New Zealand. Another of China’s ambitions is to pull Japan and other East Asia nations into the China camp away from the United States, which is also easier to do in an ASEAN+3 group. China was unhappy with the East Asia Summit as a multilateral grouping because it was not Asia-centred enough.

The United States is both displeased and alarmed at Japan’s attempts to exercise independent diplomatic leadership in the region and thinks Hatoyama should have checked with them first before advancing the EAC proposal. However, Prime Minister Hatoyama does not see the exercise of Japanese regional diplomatic leadership as requiring American approval. Nor does he see any inherent conflict between the US-Japan alliance and the EAC concept. He defines an ‘equal partnership’ as asserting Japan’s position even if it differs from the US view. He contrasts this with the LDP’s ‘subservience to the United States’, which involved changing Japan’s diplomatic posture in deference to US wishes.

One response to “Is there a ‘Japanese’ concept of an East Asia Community?”

  1. This article provides a good analysis of Hatoyama’s East Asian proposal. She is correct in pointing out that Hatoyama is thin in security consideration but represents the majority Japanese’s wish to set a more independent diplomacy from the US. However, his departure from Okada and being ambitious about a common currency are minor, partly resulting from reporters’ slips. The ambiguity is common in politicians’ proposal but their impacts can be great. They need to be complemented by experts and scholars. Your PM Rudd was also criticized of the lack of concrete strategy in his proposal of the Asia Pacific community. Let’s make up for this deficiency in our PMs? Please refer to my short article which will be sent via East Asia Forum secretariat. Regards.

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