East Asian Community: surmounting the history issue: Jian Yang discusses the significance of identity and historical differences in regional integration.

• Author: Yang, Jian

In December 1990, Malaysian Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad had a meeting with visiting Chinese Premier Li Peng. At the meeting, Mahathir suggested that East Asian countries should form an 'East Asia Economic Group' (EAEG). The EAEG later was renamed the East Asia Economic Caucus (EAEC) with the proposed membership of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), China, Japan and South Korea. The EAEC would enhance economic co-operation in the region and give countries in the region a collective voice in multilateral negotiations, including world trade.

The idea of an East Asian grouping without the United States worried Washington. The then US Secretary of State James Baker III warned of the danger of drawing a line down the middle of the Pacific. Years later, in his memoirs Baker revealed that 'in private I did my best to kill it" Being allies and important trading partners of the United States, Japan and South Korea rejected the idea and Singapore did not express its support.

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Mahathir's brainchild did not die. In 1995, the rest of ASEAN unanimously endorsed the concept of an East Asian grouping. In July 1997, a financial crisis swept East Asia. In December 1997, leaders of ASEAN plus Three held their first meeting in Malaysia's capital Kuala Lumpur. ASEAN plus Three is a forum that functions as a co-ordinator of co-operation between ASEAN and three North-east Asian states, China, Japan and South Korea. It thus is similar to the concept of the EAEC, which prompted Malaysia to declare that the EAEC was a reality.

ASEAN plus Three leaders soon set their eyes on establishing an East Asian Community (EAC). Two study groups were set up for that purpose in 1998 and 2001. Both groups recommended the formation of an East Asian Free Trade Area (EAFTA) as a medium to long-term goal. The vision of the EAFTA was to create an East Asian Community. ASEAN plus Three leaders accepted the recommendation in November 2002. At that time East Asia, with roughly one-third of the world's population, represented 23 per cent of the world's GDP and 40 per cent of the world's foreign reserves.

One of the two study groups, the East Asia Study Group, also recommended in its November 2002 final report that the annual summit meetings of ASEAN plus Three should evolve into the East Asia Summit (EAS). The 2004 ASEAN plus Three Summit endorsed the EAS. By then, the EAS had become ASEAN plus Three or ASEAN plus Six with India, Australia and New Zealand being the other three countries. The annual EAS was inaugurated in Kuala Lumpur on 14 December 2005.

Various approaches

There are various approaches to understanding East Asian integration. For most economists or functionalists, regional inter-governmental collaboration is driven by economic regionalisation. The government mechanisms like ASEAN plus Three and the EAS merely ratify what has been evolving on the ground over the years. As a proportion of its global trade, the value of trade among East Asian economies increased from 30 per cent in 1980 to 40 per cent in 1990 and to more than 50 per cent just before the 1997 Asian financial crisis.

Institutionalists go beyond economic transactions and focus on how regionalism evolves as a political process. The EAS took place at a time when East Asia had experienced a financial crisis and when East Asian economies had to face the rapid rise of the Chinese economy. To institutionalise communication and co-ordination became a common understanding in East Asia.

For realists, the EAS has been driven by the rise of China. This argument is strengthened by the fact that it was Japan that advocated the participation of India, a country that had for many years viewed China as the 'No 1 enemy' and has a population close to that of China, and Australia and New Zealand, which are closer to Japan in terms of values. On the other hand, China may well use the EAS to address regional concerns about the rise of China and to consolidate its influence in the region at the expense of US influence.

Shared identity

Constructivists focus on the emerging shared identity of the region. For realists, identities and interests are given. For constructivists, it is the very interactions with others that 'create and instantiate one structure of identities and interests rather than another'. (1) Constructivists argue that regions are not natural products but subjectively constructed by human beings. Historically speaking, East Asia was not well defined. It sometimes referred to both North-east Asia and...