News

  • Nation
  • World Updates
  • Courts
  • Parliament
  • Columnists
  • Opinion
  • Honours List

Sunday November 8, 2009

Beyond the nicer gestures, still no time for East Asia

BEHIND THE HEADLINES
By BUNN NAGARA


The renewed US interest in this region is fine, but how far can it really go?

THE flurry of East Asian summits continues unabated, duly reflecting the growing significance of this region in itself and the world.

North-East Asian leaders from China, Japan and South Korea met in Beijing for the 10th Trilateral Summit last month. That came after the G20 Summit in Pittsburgh, albeit outside this region, but the North-East Asians nonetheless renewed their contact on the sidelines.

Between those summits, Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama visited Seoul, and Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao visited Pyongyang. Late last month, the Asean, Asean Plus Three (APT) and East Asian Summits were held back to back in Thailand.

Early this month, the Fifth Beijing-Tokyo forum was held in the Chinese capital. The first Japan-Mekong Summit concluded in Tokyo yesterday. Over the next few days, Chinese President Hu Jintao will visit Malaysia and Singapore, making them the first visits by a Chinese head of state in 15 years.

That comes on the eve of the 17th Apec Summit in Singapore next weekend. Given this renewed Asian interest in Asia’s presence in the world, the United States is also taking notice.

The Obama White House is said to have developed a keener interest in the Asean region. There are plans for a summit between the United States and all 10 Asean countries in Washington next year.

The US maintains economic and other interests in East Asia, being a Pacific Ocean power with security arrangements with Japan and South Korea. Although its military bases in the Asean region have closed, Taiwan remains a traditional arms market and Hawaii one of the 50 states in the union.

The US profile in East Asia dipped during the George W. Bush presidency, distracted as it was by militant Islamists, concerns of Big Oil and an overt Cold War mindset. All that is supposed to contrast with the Obama administration today.

Over eight years in office, Bush met Asean leaders only three times, and all those occasions had been outside the Asean region and context. A formative US-Asean summit planned in Singapore in 2007 was cancelled because Bush found more pressing matters at home.

Then when membership of the Asean-initiated East Asian Summit (EAS) grew from the original 13 to 16 to possibly more, there was talk of the US joining.

But even to vie as a prospective member requires accession to Asean’s Treaty of Amity and Cooperation (TAC), and Washington had baulked at that.

However, in July this year the US signed the TAC, and speculation grew about its prospective EAS membership. But with a moratorium on that, it will be some time more - particularly when Russia had earlier signalled its interest to join and had acceded to the TAC before.

Looking only at the paperwork as an indicator of membership fails to capture the bigger picture containing the larger, often unwritten cultural issues. These pertain to the conception of summitry even before the agendas of the summits are considered.

In Asia, great store is laid by holding face-to-face meetings between national leaders. So if George W. Bush and Condoleezza Rice did not see much point in meeting leaders in South-East Asia, the response from this region is more negative towards their attitude than they might know.

West contrasts with East in, for example, seeing gatherings only for their instrumental value, not so much their symbolic or intrinsic significance.

And so golf games and karaoke sessions are only for swinging at the tees and singing, not for extended business deals, policy familiarisation or even socialising.

This is where the Obama administration may not differ that much from its predecessor. The real story about US reluctance, or limits, to participating in yet another regular series of summits with the EAS is that the US president does not have the time to do so.

As a superpower, the US presence has to be felt and seen at global summits; and Washington is already committed to these in the Americas, with Europe, in various United Nations gatherings, and others such as the G8 and G20.

This constraint applies as well in the Obama administration: despite its change of tack with Asean, it is also wary of committing to a regular dialogue with Asean leaders.

The new US opening towards East Asia is clear enough, as evidenced in its changing approach to Myanmar. But how much of a change it will be, and how far it will go, are something else again.

Geography imposes physical and other limits on even the best diplomatic efforts, parti­cularly if political will is insufficiently strong. Regional groupings thus have to be crafted skilfully or not at all.

It is not a good time, for example, for Australia to push its notion of an “Asia-Pacific Community”. This pet project of premier Kevin Rudd has already been dismissed by his predecessors Bob Hawke and Paul Keating.

Two questions for such a project stand out: will it only duplicate Apec and cause undue waste, or will it simply replace Apec summitry already being hosted only because it has been hosted? What is the point of Apec itself anyway, other than the (fading) novelty of seeing formal leaders posing informally dressed by the host country?

  • E-mail this story
  • Print this story