Author: Yoshihide Soeya, Keio University

Since the end of the Cold War, the most important strategic relationship in East Asia has been and will continue to be the one between the United States and China. Given this profound reality, Japan is obviously a lesser strategic player, and it is a fundamental mistake, both analytically and policy-wise, to treat Japan as one of the four great powers (including Russia) in Northeast Asia.

Looking from this perspective, one would also realise the fundamental differences between Japan’s and China’s perspectives on evolving regionalism in East Asia, including the concept of an East Asian Community. Read more…

Author: Daryl Morini, University of Queensland

Within Australia, Prime Minister Rudd’s call for an Asia-Pacific Community (APC) has recently been muted by a number of setbacks. Indonesia and Singapore have reacted in a highly qualified way to the proposal, and, at times, have veered close to outright rejection. The initiative also seems imperilled by recent tensions between Beijing and Canberra over the Stern Hu trial. Finally, the APC has been placed in jeopardy by increasing US-China tensions concerning the Copenhagen climate negotiations, Chinese trade policies and the Obama administration’s continued arms sales to Taiwan. In this context, how urgent is the implementation of the APC?

There are three main challenges that risk delaying the fulfilment of the APC: regional sceptics, the counter-challenge of the East Asian Community, and the ambivalent role of China. Read more…

Author: Donald Emmerson, Stanford University

Former US Secretary of State Dean Acheson entitled his 1969 memoir Present at the Creation — the creation of a global order from the rubble of World War II. Joining or ignoring the East Asia Summit (EAS), some might say, is a comparably weighty choice — between being present or absent at the creation of an East Asian regional order in the wake of the Cold War.

The choice is conditioned by time and space. The East Asia Summit has been meeting without the United States since 2005. The Obama administration, unable to travel back in time to the Summit’s creation, can only be present or absent at its maturation. Read more…

Author: Yoichi Funabashi

Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama has recently told Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada that there are three key policy issues in the area of diplomacy that he intends to tackle while he is in office.

They are: Pressing ahead with his proposal to create an East Asian Community, signing a free trade agreement with South Korea and resolving the thorny Northern Territories dispute with Russia. Read more…

Author: T J Pempel, Berkeley

East Asia encompasses vastly different political and economic systems. Religious and cultural cleavages are often deep and divisive, unresolved territorial conflicts are numerous, and several of the world’s most powerful nation-states have competing interests in the region. Virtually all national weapons systems deployed across the region are directed at other Asian states. With so much combustible tinder spread across the region, reducing mutual mistrust is imperative.

Intraregional cooperation and collective action take advantage of opportunities that transcend national boundaries, such as pandemics, piracy and natural disasters. Read more…

Author: Tommy Koh, University of Singapore

In his address in Singapore on November 15 last year, Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama explained that his vision of an East Asian Community was inspired by the concept of yu-ai, a legacy from his grandfather. Yu-ai means ‘fraternity’. Mr Hatoyama would like to bring about a historic reconciliation between Japan and the countries it occupied during World War II. He was inspired by the post-war experience of Europe, where, following two world wars, historic enemies reconciled and a union of 27 countries was established.

I share Mr Hatoyama’s vision. The quest for an East Asian Community will be realised sooner if we can get rid of our historical baggage and begin to treat one another with fraternity, mutual trust and confidence. Read more…

Author: Rajiv Sikri, ISAS

We now find ourselves in a transitional period of strategic uncertainty. As the fulcrum of global politics and economics leans towards Asia, a shift in the balance of power is inevitable. The 21st century may well be the ‘Asian’ century, but is there is a concomitant shared sense of destiny and purpose amongst Asian countries? Can greater economic integration and interlocking interests enhance security and ensure stability?

Against this background is the ongoing debate on community building in Asia, including Prime Minister Hatoyama’s proposal for an ‘East Asian Community’. Read more…

Author: Ezra Vogel, Harvard University

The past half century has been a period of largely fruitful regional cooperation in the East Asia region. Some believe that a new grouping of states would further facilitate regional cooperation. I disagree, and believe that existing forums offer the best opportunity for leaders in the Asia-Pacific to work together in solving regional and global problems.

An important key to successful regional organisation is making good use of what some of the individual countries have to contribute. The strong points of some of the leading countries that can promote the region are thus detailed below. Read more…

Author: Peter Drysdale

This week Kyung-tae Lee urges that regional leaders stop the talking and get on with establishing an East Asian Community (EAC). While doing so might be a little more complicated than it sounds, it does appear that the momentum is gathering to take the next steps in the evolution of Asian and Pacific regional architecture.

On Wednesday in Tokyo at a high-powered Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs sponsored meeting, Japanese Prime Minister, Yukio Hatoyama, spoke of his determination to re-position Japanese policy towards open and strategic engagement in building an EAC. Read more…

Author: Kyung-Tae Lee, KITA

In 2000, the East Asian Vision Group (EAVG) recommended to both the leaders of the 10 ASEAN member states, and the leaders of China, Japan, and South Korea that an East Asian Community (EAC) be established. Since then, intra-regional trade and investment has expanded rapidly. But this deeper economic integration, which is a key component for building an East Asian Community, has been driven not by the leaders of the countries concerned, but rather by market players.

Where does this leave the vision of an EAC, and what have regional leaders done about it? Put bluntly, the actions of East Asian leaders have been disappointing.

Read more…

Author: Joel Rathus, Meiji and Adelaide Universities

Last Wednesday at the Grand Prince Hotel, the Japan Institute for International Affairs convened a symposium on the East Asian Community. With the opening speech delivered by Hatoyama himself, and a promise to broadcast the entire proceedings both domestically within Japan and overseas, the event was quite high profile.

The presenters themselves represented the cream of Asia’s Track II diplomacy. This was underlined by the fact that, in addition to handshakes with Prime Minister Hatoyama, Foreign Minister Okada met with the international guests over dinner at the Foreign Ministry’s official guest house that evening. Read more…

Author: Claude Barfield, AEI

Recently, my American Enterprise Institute colleague Philip Levy and I published an International Economic Outlook, entitled ‘Tales of the South Pacific: President Obama and the Transpacific Partnership.’ In this analysis, we made the case for the Obama administration to move with dispatch in asserting U.S. leadership in the construction of a new Asian economic architecture that would be broad and inclusive. And we argued that the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership (TPP) agreement was an ideal vehicle through which to achieve this goal.

Since then, bolder moves by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) have increased the urgency for the Obama administration to advance a strategic vision of the U.S. role in a nascent Asian economic architecture. Read more…

Author: John Hemmings, RUSI

Hatoyama’s plan for an East Asian Community, first mentioned in a September 2009 op-ed in the New York Times, is an interesting symbol of the split personality in Japanese foreign policy. Almost from the first, the idea raised hackles in both Beijing and in Washington, who view Japanese leadership and independence in the region warily for different reasons. In the article, Hatoyama tied together two arguments: that Japan needed to redress the imbalance in its relationship with the United States, and that Japan was an Asian power and should contribute to any discussion of regional architecture. The first statement raised hackles in Washington while the second raised hackles in Beijing. Naturally, Hatoyama’s point that Japan’s ‘proper place of being’ is as an Asian power which should shape the destiny of one of world’s fastest growing regions makes perfect sense from a Japanese point of view.

How can Japan’s sudden support for regional integration be explained? Read more…

Author: Funabashi Yoichi, Asahi

With U.S. President Barack Obama scheduled to arrive Friday for a two-day visit, Tokyo and Washington are still fumbling to get on the same wavelength.

Although Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama has repeatedly stressed that his government’s diplomacy would be centered on the alliance with the United States, many in the Obama camp have their doubts. Read more…

Author: Takashi Shirashi, GRIPS and IDE-JETRO

Since the Democratic Party of Japan came to power with Yukio Hatoyama as prime minister, its foreign policy — above all its positions on the Japan-U.S. alliance and the East Asian community building — has come under a spate of criticism at home and abroad.

Critics argue that it is contradictory to call for the building of an East Asian community while pledging to maintain the Japan-U.S. alliance as the cornerstone of Japan’s foreign policy. Read more…