The human security imperatives: Herman Kraft argues that a sense of common identity is a key prerequisite of a viable community.

• Author: Kraft, Herman
• Position: BUILDING AN EAST ASIAN COMMUNITY

The success of the Second East Asian Summit held in Cebu City in the Philippines in January 2007 signals a step forward in the efforts towards the further institutionalisation of an East Asian community. Ralf Emmers of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore has described this on-going process as the establishment of a 'variety of overlapping multilateral structures.' At present, the list of structures continues to enrich the alphabet soup of associations and organisations that have proliferated in the Asia-Pacific region since the end of the Cold War. Indeed, what is not certain at this point is what kind of rationalisation these overlapping structures will have to undergo in the process of establishing an East Asian Community.

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There remains a lack of clarity in the kind of regional architecture that will give structure to what is now a nascent East Asian Community. The community itself is presently built around the annual East Asian Summit that is part of the series of meetings that take place during the ASEAN Summit. The summit has become the venue for the determination of what should constitute the main concerns of the region and for discussing what measures the governments of the countries in the region could possibly co-operate on as a way of addressing these concerns. The 2007 Cebu Summit saw extensive discussions on the issues of poverty eradication, energy security, education, financial markets, avian influenza, natural disaster response preparedness and mitigation, the lack of progress in the Doha Round of WTO talks and negotiations, economic development and regional integration in ASEAN, interfaith initiatives, and the de-nuclearisation of the Korean peninsula. It is a mixture of regional and international concerns that does not speak of a clear focus for the countries involved in the summit.

At the same time, the variety of concerns discussed begins to indicate the unconscious adoption of an increasingly broad security frame. The very concept of security itself is under debate. In the aftermath of the end of the Cold War, there have been discussions in both scholarly fora and in the policy community to re-define the context of security to cover more than just the traditionally narrow focus on military and defence issues. This discussion on the meaning and context of security has had its effect on how countries in East Asia understand or attempt to understand it. This is reflected, for example, in how the ASEAN states are trying to make sense of their conception of the nature of the ASEAN Security Community. It argues that even as the Vientiane Action Programme and the ASC Plan of Action reflect the adherence of ASEAN to the concept of comprehensive security, embedded in the 'construction' of the ASC is an implicit acceptance of human security as its policy frame.

Adherence to human security, however, in its turn implies certain normative and, in effect, institutional commitments. If ASEAN is to complete the establishment of an ASEAN Security Community, these norms and institutions must necessarily be put in place. Inasmuch as the ASEAN states (as well as their dialogue partners in North-east Asia) have been at the center of the initiative to establish an East Asian Community, the same set of normative and institutional imperatives have been playing upon developments in relation to the EAC.

Formal rationale

Formally, the rationale for the establishment of an East Asian Community was presented in a report submitted by the East Asian Vision Group to the ASEAN plus Three Summit held in Brunei Darussalam in 2001. Set up as a Track II Group at the October 1999 ASEAN plus Three Summit, the EAVG was supposed to look into the prospects of pushing the ASEAN plus Three process towards levels of institutionalised co-operation and economic integration that would transcend the geographical divide between North-east and South-east Asia. While the ASEAN plus Three process sought to strengthen and deepen cooperation in areas of economic, political and social concern between the ASEAN states and China, Japan, and South Korea, its primary driving force has largely been economic in nature. The EAVG, however, went beyond economic and financial cooperation and included measures that had to do with political, security, environmental, energy, cultural, educational, social, and institutional issues. Fundamentally, the report of the EAVG emphasised the importance of deepening regional co-operation and broadening it to span a wide range of concerns if the objective of establishing an East Asian Community is to be realised. (1)

Expanding the range of measures beyond economic and financial concerns reflects recognition of non-economic factors that had to be considered in relation to the establishment of an EAC. First is the need to engage an economically powerful and influential China. For some of the ASEAN states, it was the concern that an economically powerful China would seek regional dominance. Similarly, Japan was looking at the possibility that a predominantly economically-oriented ASEAN plus Three would be dominated by China. In both cases, a strong regional grouping is seen as a hedge against possible Chinese dominance. (2) This issue also led to controversies over who would be considered eligible for membership of the EAC. Acceding to the Treaty of Amity and Co-operation in South-east Asia, Australia and New Zealand (and eventually India as well) signaled their interest in being part of the first East Asia Summit in Kuala Lumpur in 2005--and their interest in future participation in an East Asian Community. Their involvement led to criticism from former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamed, who argued that the involvement of 'Australia and New Zealand would dampen East Asia's voice'. (3)

Multiple overlaps

Secondly, the establishment of an East Asian Community is also partially driven by the need to contend with the fact of multiple overlaps in membership between the EAC and other existing multilateral co-operative mechanisms...