Most of the current scholarship focuses on the functional aspects of regionalism such as economic and security issues, and the literature tends to be too focused on American or European concerns (Katzenstein, Reference Katzenstein2005; Higgott, Reference Higgott2007; Ravenhill, Reference Ravenhill, Calder and Fukuyama2008). Despite the early examination of varied ideas of Asian regionalism (Milner and Johnson Reference Milner, Johnson and Ingelson1997, He, Reference He2004, Acharya Reference Acharya2009), there remains a substantive lack of critical scholarship that focuses on the study of Asian ideas, proposals, and visions of regionalism.
This volume will study ideas of regionalism in Asia with a particular focus on the relationship between ideas and power politics. It assesses the ideas of regionalism that have been promoted by great power actors, as well as those that have been promoted by middle powers, looking at how different actors sell their vision of the region to others, build support for their ideas, and manoeuvre against competing proposals. Although ideas about regionalism often appear to be thinly disguised expressions of national interests, an important question for Asia is whether or not ideas about the region can move beyond the limits of narrow national interests into a shared sense of community.
There is no single Asian idea of regionalism. Individual countries such as South Korea and Japan demonstrate vast internal differences in developing, modifying, and shifting ideas of regionalism. A complex variety of national or even sub-regional ideas of regionalism has emerged. This includes the early Japanese, Indian, and Chinese notions of pan-Asianism; Mahathir's notion of an East Asian Economic Group (He, Reference He2004); Indonesian, Malaysian, and Filipino conceptions of pan-Malayism, as well as other regional groupings such as the Association of Southeast Asia (ASA) and MAPHILINDO (Clark, Reference Clark2011), the Asia Pacific Community (APC) idea (Boutin, Reference Boutin2011; He, Reference He and Xiangyang2011a, Reference Heb), Kim Dae-jung's idea of an East Asian Community (Hundt and Kim, Reference Hundt and Kim2011), and Hatoyama's proposal of East Asian Community (Inoguchi, Reference Inoguchi2011). Also the idea of Southeast Asian Treaty Organization (SEATO), a sort of hegemonic regionalism, is a sharp contrast to the idea of weaker states (ASEAN).
A strength of this volume will be its mapping of the historical evolution of ideas about the region, allowing not only a comparison between the ideas about Asian regionalism that have emerged in different countries, but also an investigation of how these ideas interact with one another and how they are revised over time. It covers not only the ‘big ideas’ about regionalism that focuses on questions such as defining who is included as part of the Asian community, but also the ‘small ideas’ that focus on solving practical problems such as instituting mechanisms for regional finance or establishing a regional currency. The papers included in this special issue examine various ideas of Asian regionalism that encompass East, Southeast, and South Asia, Australia, and the United States. An important comparative feature is the comprehensive examination of ideas of European regionalism (Murray, Reference Murray2011).
This introduction consists of five sections. Section 1 provides historical background to the Asian regionalization process. Section 2 examines why we need to study Asian ideas of regionalism. Section 3 discusses an intellectual framework to analyse the variety of ideas on regionalism. Section 4 puts our studies in a comparative context. Section 5 discusses three propositions about the nature and limits of Asian regionalism that will impact on the regionalization process in Asia and constrain the development of indigenous Asian ideas of regionalism in Asia.
Evolution of Asian regionalism
Regionalism is an inspirational enterprise in human history. As well as being inspirational, we can even say that it is quietly revolutionary since it involves the reorganization of political, economic, cultural, and social lives along the lines of an imagined region rather than according to the standard political unit of the nation-state.
In order to understand the ideas of regionalism in Asia and speculate about the future of Asian regionalism, it will be most helpful to trace the evolution of Asian regionalism using four benchmarks: 1968, 1989, 1997, and 2010 (Shiraishi, Reference Shiraishi2011).
In 1968, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations was born with five original members: Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, and Singapore. The primary goal of the ASEAN, as far as the United States and its friends were concerned, was to consolidate Southeast Asia against communism, which was raging in the form of the Vietnam War. Its focus was on security. The ASEAN was an outgrowth of the stillborn SEATO idea, which was envisaged as a type of Asian NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) organization against communism.
In 1989, the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting was institutionalized with the goal of monitoring and analyzing regional markets and institutions as well as governing rules and norms for facilitating transparent and efficient business transactions in the region. Its focus was economic and its style was technocratic. It was in a sense the growth of the idea of the Asia Pacific economic cooperation mechanism envisaged by Saburo Okita and John Crawford in the 1960s and 1970s. In 1989, the APEC was born with the United States’ strong support.
In 1997, the ASEAN plus Three (Japan, Korea, and China) was instituted. Japan, Korea, and China were major economic engines. Both the ASEAN and the Three wanted to benefit from being closer each other. No less important was the consideration to help the Three to talk to each other regularly and without too much fuss. The Three were at odds when they came together as a trio because of their insistence on face, rank, and politics before they even reached the negotiation table. For example, during negotiations it was necessary to use a room with three entrances and a desk of a triangular shape. In the 2000s, the tide of globalization swept through East and Southeast Asia as well as the rest of the world. The Three registered more than 50% of their total trade as intra-regional (i.e., Japan, Korea, and China) by the early 2000s. Japan and China competed over how to adapt to the relentless tide of globalization via the politics of membership, that is China's insistence on the ASEAN plus Three formula versus Japan's new proposal to form the ASEAN plus Six (Japan, Korea, China, India, Australia, and New Zealand) now labelled the East Asian Summit.
In 2010, the East Asian Summit decided to add two more members, the United States and Russia. This has initiated a new phase for Asian regionalism. The regionalism surrounding the big northeast Asian three is becoming more comprehensive. In 2006, the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) proposal was inaugurated as an economic partnership agreement among small Asia Pacific countries such as Singapore. The TPP grew by 2010 into a large and ambitious framework to liberalize economic transactions in the Asia Pacific through adding new members, including the United States, Australia, and some other countries. The year 2010 was also marked by the vigorous and deep advances into the region by two giants, China and the United States. China engaged in assertive and largely unilateral actions in the region, such as maritime security thrusts in the East China, South China, and Bengal seas; resource exploitation in Myanmar, Vietnam, India, and Indonesia; and investment in business firms in Korea and Japan. The United States decided to depart from its ambiguity strategy to focus on an engagement strategy. The United States has inaugurated and/or consolidated security dialogues and military exchanges with India, Indonesia, and Vietnam with a big package of scientific, technological, military, and energy components. It is clear that by 2010 the stage was set for a new evolution of Asian regionalism.
Why Asian ideas of regionalism?
Ideas of regionalism play a constructive role in providing visions of what a regional community should look like and in setting up guiding principles for creating and organizing a regional community. They touch upon the fundamental question of what kind of regional organizations should be formed, as well as how those organizations should be formed and operated.
Europe has developed its own ideas about regionalism and has put into practice a particular version of regionalism that is increasingly independent of the position of the United States (Murray, Reference Murray2011) while remaining closely aligned to the US in security matters. Asian regionalism, in contrast, is still largely under the shadow of American influence. There may be strong arguments for the US playing this role in Asia, such as its importance in terms of regional trade and security or its role as an external balancer in territorial disputes and other intra-regional rivalries, but in this context Asian ideas have been largely ignored.
Despite the rich and varied indigenous tradition of Asianism (He, Reference He2004), Asia lacks autonomous and strong ideational power. This edited volume will make a positive start towards exploring indigenous Asian conceptions of regionalism and the role that these conceptions play in moving towards a more independent approach to building regionalism in Asia. We need to demonstrate that Asians have ‘some ability to self-organize and to resist and/or socialize hegemonic power, rather than simply playing to the hegemon's tune’ (Acharya, Reference Acharya2007: 378); and ‘Asia should be seen not merely as the testing ground for Western theory or theories derived primarily from the West, but also as an arena out of which one can develop original theoretical insights that can be exported and applied at the global level or to other regions of the world’ (Acharya, Reference Acharya2007: 374).
Asian ideas of regionalism have interacted with non-Asian ideas. Asian ideas have been the outcome of power struggles, with competing actors promoting their own particular idea of regionalism while attempting to undermine rival claims. The outcome of this competition is that some visions of the region, for example the APEC, materialize in the form of institutions, while other grand ideas rise briefly, only to sink again. Mahathir Mohamad's proposal of an East Asian Economic Caucus, for example, was vetoed down by US power, but was modified and revived in the form of ASEAN plus Three by Kim Dae-jung's efforts for an East Asian Vision Group. In this contest to define the region, why do some ideas fail to win support and others succeed? How do ideas of regionalism gain historical resonance and how are they transmitted from one nation-state to another? What current ideas are in conflict with one another, what ideas are complementary, and how will this contest over ideas shape the future of the Asian region?
How to analyse Asian ideas of regionalism?
Since regionalism deals with the task of transforming time-tested schemes in which national governments handle issues of national and international life (Inoguchi and Marsh, Reference Inoguchi and Marsh2008) into more international and transnational schemes, the study of regionalism has to examine at least three dimensions of institutions: normative, economic, and security (cf. Katzenstein and Shiraishi, Reference Katzenstein and Takashi1997). The normative dimension touches on norms, rules, and culture (He, Reference He, Timmermann and Tsuchiyama2008). The economic dimension deals with demography, technology, and the economy. The security dimension deals with climate, weapons, and strategy. It is important to note that these three dimensions encompass some factors that have longer time span variables, such as culture, climate, and demography.
Katzenstein and Shiraishi (Reference Katzenstein and Takashi1997: 7–11, 23–31) examine the role of international power, norms, and domestic state structures to explain the differences between European and Asian regionalism (Katzenstein and Shiraishi, Reference Katzenstein and Takashi1997). These three key factors will be utilized to examine and explain the ideas of regionalism in Asia. We must locate ideas in the interaction of these three key variables, otherwise ideas are empty and meaningless. We need to examine how ideas are translated into political programs, policies, and action.
Power relations
Much of the literature and research has been marred by an over-emphasis on the EU (Murray, Reference Murray, Kösler and Zimmek2008); this Eurocentric approach overlooks the role of the US in the process of regionalization and the influence of power on Asian indigenous ideas of regionalism. This volume brings a central focus on power to regionalism studies. While the US has played a significant role in influencing and even defining ideas of regionalism in Asia (Katzenstein, Reference Katzenstein2005; Higgott, Reference Higgott2007; Boutin, Reference Boutin2011; He, Reference He and Xiangyang2011a, Reference He2011b), national and local powers have also played an important role in selecting ideas and constructing the regional order, as Acharya (Reference Acharya2007) has emphasized.
Regionalization has a dual function: it both constrains and enhances power. Great powers often resist deepening regionalization for fear that it will constrain their power. In this context, the US is reluctant to develop genuine regionalism in the Asia-Pacific. Middle and smaller nation-states often resist the regionalization initiatives of great powers, however, for fear that they might be used to enhance the domination of that power. Often it is the middle powers that have driven regionalization in Asia, simply because it enhances their status and influence in the region in relation to greater powers. ASEAN is the result of middle power-driven regionalization; the force of path-dependence makes ASEAN powerful. When Rudd's idea of an Asia-Pacific Community sidelined ASEAN it was resisted by the organization's members and ended up going nowhere (He, Reference He and Xiangyang2011a, Reference He2011b).
How the relative decline of US domination and the rise of China and India have impacted, or will impact in the future, on the process of Asian regionalization is understudied. Is there a possibility that new regional powers will challenge the US imperium? In the past, the US initiated and promoted Pacificism, which dominated the discourse on regionalism. Will Pacificism give way to Asianism? Or will a hybrid notion of regionalism emerge out of this power struggle?
It seems that Asians pursue regionalism under conditions that will not undermine US domination. Must Asian regionalism ‘supplement’ the US position, not go against it? In Asia, the nascent East Asia Summit and the vision of an East Asian Community excludes US participation, even if at the same time these ideas do not lend themselves to Chinese dominance. While ASEAN has not sought to exclude the United States from the region, it has developed normative and social mechanisms in which the United States plays follower (and peer among a number of external ‘dialogue partners’) rather than leader.
There is an asymmetric power relationship between the US, which is undoubtedly the superpower, and other states in Asia, which are weaker. In terms of ideas of regionalism, power can affect perceptions of who is able or likely to take up a leadership position within the region. Perceptions of power and how it will be used are also important. Other than the US, it seems that China could play a role as the ‘natural leader’ within Asia, but this causes concern among others such as Japan who are worried about Chinese power and may also see themselves as potential leaders. Japan has tried to shape regionalism in a way that keeps China from dominating regional groupings. Another question is the possibility of Asian regionalism without China. This is difficult, however, because, unlike Europe's position vis-à-vis the Soviet Union, China is a well-integrated part of the regional economy. The difficulty of dealing with China's rising power is clearly a challenge for any potential vision of the region.
Another critical dimension of power is political economy – the foundation of the regionalization process. Global economic development and transactions across the Pacific underpin the US idea of Pacificism. The fact that East Asia's economic engagement with the US is deeper than it is within the region itself underlines the Asian tendency towards open or porous regionalism. In relation to trade, globalization is the most important trend for China and Asia, while for Europe it is regionalization that is more important. Intraregional trade is very high within the EU (65%+) but not within ASEAN (24%), so Europeans’ major trading partners are in fact each other. This is not the case for ASEAN or for ASEAN plus Three. A more open and globalized economy exists in Asia. While the Euro can be regarded as potentially undermining the US dollar, it came about due to European determination to create a single currency. This is not the case in light of US opposition to an equivalent to the Euro in Asia, for example the Japanese proposal.
From a political economy perspective, it is noteworthy that China's important trading partners are the EU and the US and not the rest of Asia. China is a key trading partner for both the US and the EU. Today, Chinese ideas of regionalism are primarily economic-centered, because economic performance is vital both to its long-term strategic target and to its internal social stability (Wang, Reference Wang2011). It is unlikely that China would promote an internally closed economic regionalism; China favors the idea of ‘porous’ or ‘open’ regionalism. Equally, the substantial growth in India's trade with East and Southeast Asia has driven India's approach to open regionalism (Jain, Reference Jain2011).
Norms
According to Katzenstein and Shiraishi (Reference Katzenstein and Takashi1997:24), US support for European regional institutions stemmed from the notion that the Western community shares the norms of Christianity, democracy, and capitalism. By contrast, cultural, ideological, and normative divisions across Asia ‘inhibited the emergence of a collective regional identity’ and effective Asian regional institutions (Katzenstein and Shiraishi, Reference Katzenstein and Takashi1997:7).
Shared and regulative norms are critical for the development of regionalism. They are often influenced by power politics, culture, and specific circumstances. For the US, the norm is domination, not multilateralism; therefore, the US prefers unilateralism. In Asia, in the early stage of Asianism, the common norms were anti-imperialism and independence (He, Reference He2004). ASEAN continued to institutionalize the norm of non-interference. Today, in order to address internal conflicts within Asia, Japan has emphasized the norm of fraternity as a way of building mutual trust (Inoguchi, Reference Inoguchi2011), while China has emphasized harmony in order to reduce and contain conflicts.
In the process of regionalization, while EU is a norm-creator, Asia is a norm-follower. Often European norms are presented as the ‘gold standard’ for Asian regionalism. Yet, according to Acharya, Katzenstein has ignored normative opposition from Asia's nationalist leaders (such as India's Jawaharlal Nehru) to the idea of collective defense. ‘It was this opposition, played out in regionalist conferences, including the meetings of the Colombo Powers in 1954 (the year of the formation of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization, SEATO) and the Asia-Africa Conference in Bandung in 1955, that delegitimized NATO-like arrangements by viewing them as unequal alliances with a potential to serve as new instruments of Western dominance’ (Acharya, Reference Acharya2007: 373).
Asian countries were traumatized by Western imperialism. Consequently, they have emphasized the sacred place of national borders and sovereignty. This differs from the EU process whereby member countries have pooled their sovereignty. In the EU, sub-regions can bypass nation-states to express their voice or to have their status recognized. In Asia, sub-regions are still locked into a nation-state framework, forced to either create a new state, such as Timor-Leste, or stay within an existing nation-state, such as Aceh in Indonesia.
The Asian defense of national sovereignty is due to Asian states’ weak position in international relations. They need the notion of sovereignty to protect their borders, and to protect power holders. As a result, the norm of non-interference is a defining characteristic of the ASEAN way. Member states have explicitly acknowledged the role of the non-interference norm in maintaining regional stability since the formation of ASEAN (Acharya, Reference Acharya2005). In the 1990s, ‘flexible engagement’ was proposed to dilute the norm of non-interference. Thailand lobbied heavily for its adoption, but it was rejected by ASEAN members after much debate. Thailand later returned to the non-interference principle (Acharya, Reference Acharya2005). The non-interference policy continues to enjoy privileged status among ASEAN members. Yet Acharya (Reference Acharya2005: 108–9) makes note of an irony in this: ‘it at once explains the strengths (limiting the possibility of armed conflict among its members) and limitations (its ineffectual response to the Asian economic crisis) of ASEAN’.
The ASEAN way is characterized as ‘talk quietly, consultation first’ or ‘seeking consensus first’. The failure of Kevin Rudd's APC proposal was partially due to the fact that the APC did not appeal to fundamental norms and values shared by its partner states; and consensus building and coalition building was conducted after the proposal's launch rather than beforehand (He, Reference He2011b).
Domestic factors
Many domestic factors come into play. The Korean case shows that governments under different leadership have different preferences towards either Asianism or Pacificism (Hundt and Kim, Reference Hundt and Kim2011). China's case demonstrates that its tenured leadership system constrained officials and prevented them from developing a grand vision of regionalism. Two-party systems in Australia and Japan have also impacted on ideational choice. The domestic political culture within states affects which interest groups are most influential in putting forward their preferred visions of the region. This is the case in Japan, where different actors within the state bureaucracy have promoted different ideas of Asian regionalism (Inoguchi, Reference Inoguchi2011). Cultural identity and historical experience also play a role (He, Reference He2011b; Clark, Reference Clark2011). Ideas about who should play a leadership role in the region are influenced by historical sensitivities, while debates over Australian identity have played a part in shaping its approach to ideas of Asian regionalism.
The complex linkages between power, interests, and norms ‘defy analytical capture by any one paradigm’ and are made more intelligible ‘by drawing selectively on different paradigms – that is, by analytical eclecticism, not parsimony’ (Katzenstein and Okawara, Reference Katzenstein and Okawara2001–2002: 154). In this edited volume, we can witness a plurality of methodologies: a political economy approach to the study of Chinese ideas of economic regionalism (Wang, Reference Wang2011), a post-colonial approach to Indonesian ideas of regionalism (Clark, Reference Clark2011), liberal-institutionalism (Boutin, Reference Boutin2011), the cultural approach (He, Reference He2011b), and the comparative approach (Murray, Reference Murray2011), as well as many other approaches.
Sources of divergence in approaching regionalism: Europe and Asia
To understand the variety of Asian ideas of regionalism, we need a comparative approach (Murray, Reference Murray2010, Reference Murray2011). By adopting European regionalism as a benchmark to characterize Asian regionalism we elucidate differences from Europe rather than emulate Europe. The obvious difference is that the drivers of Asian regionalism are not particularly interested in building transnational institutions with the authority and capacity to act. Asian regionalism is more interested in each state empowering itself primarily on a national basis, and secondarily with the help of partial and pragmatic regionalist arrangements.
There are at least two major approaches to regionalism. One is to cope with globalism by uniting through a transnational regional organization. European integration seems to adopt this approach. The other is to adapt to globalism, which permeates national life, primarily directly and not necessarily through a transnational regional organization. Thus, far many indigenous ideas of Asian regionalism seem to adopt this latter approach. Needless to say, ideas of Asian regionalism to be examined in this special issue have both aspects. Therefore, regionalism has two faces: defensive and offensive faces vis-à-vis globalization (Inoguchi, Reference Inoguchi and Sugimoto2009). Globalization has induced ‘porous’ or outward-looking ‘open’ regionalism in the Asia-Pacific region.
Europe wants to be a greater power on the world stage through union, while today Asia attempts to deal with the rise of China through regional cooperation. The EU does not face the challenge of a great power within the region, although the US remains an external influence, but Asia faces a serious challenge from the rise of China. Through NATO and the political Transatlantic relationship, the US has supported the Europe Union's process of regionalization (Murray, Reference Murray2011). In contrast, US power has penetrated into East Asia for centuries, contributing to both regional peace and the division of East Asia. The European process of integration is increasingly autonomous from the US now (although not in security and defense). This is not the case in Asia. Asia cannot undermine the US the way the EU can. The US remains the security guarantor in Asia, but is no longer required as a security umbrella in Europe. There is a divergence in three dimensions as follows:
On the normative dimension, relative European homogeneity and Asian diversity are two most stark differences in characterization. In Europe, a tradition of a Christian civilization has tended to characterize the continent, more or less. Five civilizations and their religious bases reside in Asia (Huntington, Reference Huntington1997). In other words, culture seems to be a basic discriminator in leading to different approaches to regionalism. In terms of identity, European citizens exhibit symptoms of being happy non-nationalists such as in Germany, and Sweden (Inoguchi and Blondel, Reference Inoguchi and Blondel2008). European identity has become visibly strong as has been evidenced by the European provision of rescue packages to avoid bankruptcy by some countries in Southern Europe. In stark contrast, in Asia regional identity is shown only by those citizens of small countries such as South Korea, Thailand, and Mongolia. Big powers such as China and India seem to think that they themselves are Asia. Their Asian regional identity is not very strong at all. Those countries with big Muslim populations such as Indonesia, Malaysia, Bangladesh, and Pakistan exhibit much stronger Muslim identity than Asian regional identity. Japan is torn between Asianists and non-Asianists. For the latter, Japan is posited as against Asia: ‘Japan and Asia’ rather than ‘Japan in and among Asia.’ Asian regional identity is not easy to inculcate for this latter group (Inoguchi, Reference Inoguchi2004).
On the economic dimension, European economic developmental momentum is a thing of the past; arguably, Europe is in a twilight phase. European economic developmental momentum is perhaps more diverse country by country, as has been made clear by near-bankruptcy in Greece and some Southern European countries and by chronic difficulties in Central European countries. In contrast, Asian economic developmental momentum is still on the rise, more or less. Although demographic trends show that most of East and Southeast Asia has exhibited net population decline, economic developmental momentum is still robust. South Asia is on a strong demographic rise and maintains a robust developmental momentum.
On the security dimension, Europe does not perceive there to be an external direct threat, notwithstanding internal problems such as the Islamic terrorist threat, although the 2003 European Security Strategy did enunciate several threats to global society and to the EU. Evincing their no-threat mentality, Germany has decided to abolish conscription and France and Britain are planning to share the use of the same nuclear submarines by alternating month by month. In contrast, Asia is ripe for conflict, if not outright confrontation. The armed populations on the Korean Peninsula and on both sides of the Taiwan Strait are the two largest armed groups in the world. Needless to say, Table 1 above certainly simplifies much immensely, yet it serves to illustrate how different Asia is from Europe in terms of their sources of different ideas of regionalism.
Table 1. Sources of divergence
Three propositions of Asian regionalism
On the basis of Table 1, we develop three propositions that would help understand the thrusts the following articles jointly put forward in describing varieties of ideas of Asian regionalism.
1. Geographical Asia is too diverse for cultural Asia
Cultural homogeneity is not a guarantee for regionalist community formation. After all, we all know that Christians waged the largest deadly wars against Christians in Europe in the former half of the last century. We also know that religious diversity albeit among Christians in the United States seems to be an important source of amazing grace and tolerance in the United States (Putnam and Campbell, Reference Putnam and Campbell2010). Nevertheless, cultural homogeneity in general helps build confidence among candidate members of regionalism. Yet it must be noted that diversity itself may help build tolerance as in the United States and as contrasted with Europe.
2. Geographical Asia is too small for globalizing Asia
It is ironical to say that Asia is too small for Asia. But it is a reality. China's major economic partners lie outside East, Southeast, and South Asia combined. So are Korea's. President Lee Myung-bak has stated in the National Assembly that although Korea is a geographically small country, it is seeking to become the country whose bilateral free trade agreements, such as those with the United States and the European Union, cover the largest territory in the world (Asahi shimbun, Reference Asahi2011). The three Northeast Asian countries, China, Japan, and Korea, have some of the most dense and wide-ranging networks of economic transactions in the world, and each of the three adopt a highly global orientation, as does India. In a nutshell, Asia is too small for Asia. Asia's developmental momentum is strong; Asia's appetite for global markets is strong. This is in part due to the fact that they are insufficiently exploiting their own domestic consumption markets.
3. Geographical Asia is too conflictual internally for strategic Asia
Regionalism must have a strategy in terms of solidarity and cohesion. Yet if friends and foes are to be among member-candidates of regionalism, regionalizing momentum halts at least temporarily. In Europe, the key message for action was to bring in the Americans, to suppress the Germans, and to exclude the Russians. In Asia, nearly all states have been mooted as potential members. Therefore, action tends to be taken without explicitly distinguishing foes from friends. It is ironic to note that one of the strategies the United States government adopted toward China during the Bush Jr Administration was the strategy of ambiguity: neither foe nor friend. This sounds like the famous dictum of Leon Trotsky during the First World War during which the Bolshevik Revolution was carried out.
Conclusion
Throughout Asia there is a general pattern of oscillation between approaches to the region that are based on Asianism and those that are based on ‘Pacificism.’ Shifts between the two visions have been influenced by a number of factors. The US has played an important role in supporting a regional vision that extends the region beyond the Asian mainland and maritime Southeast Asia and also includes the Pacific. Global political economic factors are also relevant in influencing whether Asianist or Pacificist views are ascendant. The nature of domestic politics in individual countries also plays a role. In South Korea different governments have articulated different visions of the region (Hundt and Kim, Reference Hundt and Kim2011), and in Japan political parties tend to consistently support either Asianist or Pacificist ideas (Inoguchi, Reference Inoguchi2011). Individual leaders such as Hatoyama in Japan and Kevin Rudd in Australia have each put forward their own proposals (He, Reference He and Xiangyang2011a, Reference He2011b). Pan-Asian sentiment has been hampered, however, by not only the role of the US but also by the wariness in the region prompted by China's rise. Nowadays no one takes pan-Asianism seriously.
The domination of US power in Asia, the internal rivalry within Asia, and the conditions addressed in the three propositions discussed above all have largely constrained, and even hindered the development of indigenous ideas of regionalism in Asia. Indigenous Asian ideas of regionalism face difficulties in maintaining ‘purity’; they have interacted with non-Asian (Western) ideas of regionalism, leading to hybridity. For example, Wesley (Reference Wesley2009) proposed a watered-down version of Pacificism, that is Pacific Asia that would combine Pacificism and Asianism. An inward-looking nationalist conception of regionalism in the past seems to be dead and at present Asia is full of the ideas of ‘porous’ or outward-looking ‘open’ regionalism induced by globalization.
In the process of developing Asian regionalism, there have been debates over which great power (the US, India, Japan, or China) ought to lead regionalism, or whether there should be a concert of middle powers to drive Asian regionalization. Asia has demonstrated strong caution toward great power-led regionalism and this may explain why Washington's regionalism is often at odds with regional trends (Boutin, Reference Boutin2011) and Beijing is frustrated with political and security regionalism in Asia.
Following Goldstein and Keohane (Reference Goldstein and Keohane1993: 12–13), we can identify three mechanisms in which ideas affect regionalism or region-building, including the performance of regional bodies. First, ideas serve as road maps when actors believe in their normative principles. When Mahathir Mohamad took an anti-West stand, his vision of an East Asian Economic Caucus took Asian regionalism in a direction which the US and Australia did not approve. Second, ideas serve as a glue to facilitate the cohesion of a particular group. Here the belief in or the lack of such a belief in Asian regional identity directly impacts the process of regional cooperation and integration. Third, ideas embedded in institutions constrain policy options. When the non-interference principle was institutionalized in ASEAN, it prevented the organization from evolving into a regional body that could actively respond to national conflict crises in Asia. Certainly, there are many other ways in which ideas have promoted and hindered the progress of Asian regionalism. Clark (Reference Clark2011) has examined how and in what different ways changing conceptions of Indonesia's regional imaginary are affecting its regional engagement. In short, ideas of regionalism have worked both ways, either enhancing or constraining regional integration. Ideas matter, and creative Asian ideas are urgently needed to cope with the increasingly complex political animal of Asian regionalism.
About the author
Baogang He is chair in International Studies, Deakin University, Australia.
Takashi Inoguchi is Professor Emeritus, University of Tokyo, and the President of University of Niigata Prefecture.
