CO08047 | The US Push for a Northeast Asia Forum: Three Ramifications for East Asian Regionalism

On the other hand, and perhaps of deeper concern to ASEAN, the realization of such a forum could well spell a decline in prominence of ASEAN’s own role in regional security management. It is a known fact that the strategic importance of Southeast Asia to the West, and particularly to the US, diminished considerably after the Cold War ended; a situation the region’s leaders have sought to redress in the face of a rising China and other challenges. Furthermore, faced with what looked like, prior to 9/11, the newly installed Bush Administration’s apparent disinterest in Southeast Asia, ASEAN officials and some Southeast Asian security specialists (including this writer) took pains to appeal to the US not to neglect the region. Not without irony, their efforts were rewarded when, thanks to the capture of Jemaah Islamiyah militants in Singapore in December 2001 and the Bali bombings of October 2002, Southeast Asia was designated, fairly or otherwise, as the “second front” in the US-led global war on terror.

Competition is Healthy

What ramifications could the creation of a permanent security mechanism in Northeast Asia hold for the extant regionalism in East Asia, one presumably based on the ASEAN model of regional cooperation? At least three interrelated concerns are noteworthy.

First, the US push for a Northeast Asia forum has to do with the evident contradictions at the heart of East Asia’s experience in regionalism. ASEAN is clearly apprehensive about what such a mechanism could mean for the future of not just the ARF, but itself. In this respect, this regional unease seems somewhat misplaced in the face of the reality of East Asia today, whose landscape is dotted with regional institutions such as the APEC, the ASEAN+3 and the East Asia Summit; importantly, the latter two, along with the ARF, are ASEAN-centred. As reported by the Agence France Press, noted academic and former White House official Michael Green has insisted that the proposed Northeast Asian forum is all quite in line with East Asia’s evident preference for “multilateral levels of multilateralism”. ASEAN officials may be right to worry about the competition the ARF and ASEAN could face from a Northeast Asia forum. Yet no such similar worry inhibited East Asians from flooding their region with numerous institutions, despite endless pleas from concerned observers for regional leaders to focus on the substance rather than form of their regionalism.

That ASEAN leaders worry less about the number of institutions than who initiates and manages them brings us to the second ramification: ASEAN’s desire to maintain its tenuous hold on the regionalism enterprise in East Asia. This much is clear in the light of the Association’s reservations about the rivalry posed to the ARF and ASEAN by a prospective Northeast Asia forum, especially one promoted by the big powers. But as Mr. Green reportedly said of this matter, “it’s not unhealthy if there is a certain amount of competition”. Despite repeated caveats from regional observers about the potentially conflicting mandates and agenda of East Asia’s many institutions, ASEAN officials have not been particularly concerned by this fact, so long as the regionalism enterprise remains in ASEAN’s hands. It is therefore understandable that the idea of a Northeast Asia forum – especially one promoted aggressively by the US, and not, importantly, by ASEAN – has found little support within Southeast Asia. Whether Democrat or Republican, the next US administration would do well to welcome ASEAN’s involvement in helping to shape the future security architecture of Northeast Asia.