Divide et impera

UPDATE: Question to readers—where does Korea belong in the three camps listed in the second blockquote?

The US is not taking part in the upcoming East Asia summit, but we do, as this article says, have a dog in this fight.

There is a fight under way at the summit, albeit a polite and diplomatic tussle. The Japanese, with discreet but potent American backing, have already ensured that the original plan of the former Malaysian premier for a purely Asian summit was blocked. Australia and New Zealand will now be taking part in the forum, to the fury of the still-influential Mahathir Mohammed.

“We are not going to have an East Asian summit. We are going to have an East Asia-Australasia summit,” Mahathir told a specially convened news conference last week to complain that the presence of Australia and New Zealand subverted his dream of a genuinely Asian forum.

“Now Australia is basically European and it has made clear to the rest of the world it is the deputy sheriff to America and therefore, Australia’s view would represent not the East but the views reflecting the stand of America,” Mahathir added.

Oh, how bigots will be dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century.

So what is emerging, in America’s absence, looks to be three distinct camps of a potentially uncomfortable assembly. The Australians and Indians and Japanese, and some of the more Western-minded ASEAN members, want to focus on economic cooperation and trade, but within the overall framework of the World Trade Organization, plus useful collaboration in areas like common action against avian flu. This group also wants to retain the current role of the United States as the region’s key security guarantor.

Then there is China, which evidently assumes that its economic prowess will eventually ensure that the East Asian summit, the region’s economy and its security system are all dominated by Beijing, and not necessarily in an aggressive way. Still, Beijing wants this process to develop on China’s own terms, for example this week ruling out the usual trilateral meeting with Japan and South Korea because of its complaints that Japan is not sufficiently remorseful for its actions in World War II.

And finally there are the original ASEAN members, uncomfortably aware that they are now part of something far bigger than all of them. They understandably dread the prospect of great power rivalry between China and India, or between China and the United States, and hope that trade links and diplomatic structures like the summit process will ensure that such rivalries do not get out of hand.

I was pleasantly surprised to hear Foreign Minister Aso describe the eventual goals: “Japan believes we should bring into being the East Asia Free Trade Area and the East Asia Investment Area in order to move us even one step closer to regional economic integration.”

Woah, ambitious—and not something we regularly hear from Japan. Of course, I’ll believe it when I see it.