World View:At their summit conference in the Philippine city of Cebu last month, political leaders of the Asean regional organisation accepted an ambitious charter drafted by a group of eminent representatives, writes Paul Gillespie.
Significantly this original cold war initiative - which now embraces Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Burma, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Brunei, the Philippines and Indonesia - was linked up to China, Japan and South Korea after the deep regional economic crisis of 1997-8 to create "Asean+3". Thus its future development is full of significance for what many say will be the Asian century.
The charter is committed to create by 2015 "a strong Asean community premised on a closely integrated, dynamic and vibrant regional economy, deeper political and security co-operation and stronger socio-cultural linkages".
The group's report refers to the need for a commitment to democracy, human rights and the rule of law, including humanitarian law, among its members. There is much emphasis on economic liberalisation, including the free movement of goods, ideas, talent and harmonised economic policies.
It also refers to "non-traditional and transboundary challenges" facing Asean states, including migration, avian flu, smog and maritime security, in addition to the economic problems they confront. The charter goes substantially beyond the consensual, informal norms of non-interference in domestic affairs which have for decades been the hallmark of the "Asean way". It addresses the huge development gaps between Asean members, the need for a stronger common budget and how to strengthen its effectiveness by creating more full-time positions in its secretariat and state representation.
Further, it raises the question of how to settle disputes between its members and whether it will be necessary to suspend membership for non-compliance with its policies. There is also a discussion of whether majority voting will be required for certain decisions and how this should reflect the different state populations and wealth.
The possibility of more flexible formations allowing smaller or larger groups of Asian states such as India, Australia and New Zealand to take action under Asean's umbrella is broached. There is explicit commitment to developing greater contacts between Asian peoples, not restricting it to elites as at present.
The charter has been referred to Asean leaders for further analysis and decisions on how it should be implemented. Cynics say this is likely to undermine it, since Asean is so rootedly intergovernmental in its methods that it will not be able to take hard-nosed decisions to go beyond them. Deep conflicts of interest between its members, huge differences in scale, a wide cultural diversity and the lack of common values seem to bear out such a realist analysis.
On this account Asean will not provide a forum for mediating growing tension between Japan and China or moderate China's growing regional role. Nor will it provide the regional autonomy necessary to counter the United States's long-standing strategic hegemony in Asia, using a hub-and-spoke unilateralism in dealing with individual states and its abiding security and economic interests there. Comparisons with the much more developed European Union are misplaced, since the EU is constructed on qualitatively deeper methods, scope and norms based on much greater cultural homogeneity.
Time will tell whether this pessimism is justified. It recognises that the various world regions have their own specific histories and problems which should not be pressed artificially into Eurocentric models of integration.
But this realist account underestimates certain common features shared by world regions after the end of the cold war and the impact of globalised capitalism. Asean's development has been matched by comparable initiatives recently in South America and Africa.
Why do these states feel the need for greater co-operation? The academic and policy literature is sharply divided.
Realists say the traditional facts of largely state-based interest and power will constrain and determine these experiments.
Constructivists argue, alternatively, that they are called into being by a new configuration of international power which pushes political leaderships to create new ways of managing globalisation if their interests are to be preserved. In the process of this interaction new regional political identities are forged. These may or may not follow a common path of development, but are certainly open to systematic comparison and external political inspiration because they have common causes.
From this perspective developments in Asia are much more interesting and promise genuine political innovation in coming years. Asean has, after all, contributed to regional peace and stability since it was set up in 1967, in that there have been few regional wars between its members. Its enlargement after 1989 to take in communist states and then to associate with China, Japan and South Korea were driven by a recognition that longstanding territorial disputes in the region will need a resolution mechanism if future conflicts are to be avoided.
Conspicuously, the US is not a part of this new multilateral framework, despite its strategic interests and role in the region. There has been relatively little discussion of Asean's potential significance in its media or international policy journals. This is surprising because Asean's new political and economic bite is inspired in good part by a desire to escape the constraints of US hegemony.
The deep economic shock of the 1997-8 Asia crisis has left a lasting impression of the need to protect vulnerable economies from mobile US capital and inappropriate neoliberal policies. There is a lively debate on whether the Asian development state gave cover to croneyism, corruption and inefficiency or retains validity as a stage of regional growth. And despite the great dependence of many southeast Asian economies on US markets and investments, the region as a whole is a growing creditor of the US, whose budgetary and trade deficits are financed from there.
European trade and investment in Asia have grown hugely over the last 10 years, displacing the US in several major sectors and markets. The EU's parallel cultivation of Asian political contacts and structured dialogue is a striking example of the soft power associated with its own integration. It offers possible lessons and real comparisons rather than an exact model to its Asian counterparts.