Australia, Japan pitch rival plans for new regional community
Updated
As the ASEAN summit wrapped up on Sunday, Asian leaders heard competing plans from Australia and Japan for an EU-style economic and political bloc.
Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd has his grand vision for an Asia Pacific Community by 2020, but now there's a rival plan offered by Japan's new prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama, for a so-called East Asian Community.
Presenter Sen Lam
Speaker: Malcolm Cook, Director of East Asia program at the Lowy Institute
- Listen:
- Windows Media
COOK: Yes, there is one very large difference. The Australian proposal, the Asia-Pacific community focuses a lot of its attention on getting the US-China relationship right and embedding it within a larger regional setting. That was a key focus of Kevin Rudd's foreign affairs article, that was not actually published. If you read the Japanese prime minister's writings on his idea for East Asia Community, it is focusing on helping to get the Japan-China relationship right within a more narrow East Asian focus and it is still very unclear whether the United States has any formal role in Hatoyama's idea for East Asia Community and of course the United States is the largest power in the world, with about a quarter of the global economy.
LAM: So is there a dire need to alter existing arrangements, just to continue this dialogue with the United States?
COOK: Well, the United States last year, signed the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation, excuse me, (they signed it ) earlier this year, so it now has the opening to be invited to the East Asia summit, and that could actually be one way of merging Hatoyama's idea, if it includes the United States in the future and Prime Minister Rudd's idea into an existing regional institution that is centred in ASEAN. So checking all the boxes that Karen mentioned in her report.
LAM: It has been pointed out by some pundits that there is little support in the region for creating new institutions, in addition to ASEAN and APEC. Is that your reading as well?
COOK: Oh very much so and you can even see the language from our own government, from, I think it was June 4th 2008, when Kevin Rudd announced the idea for the Asia-Pacific Community. Since then, the government has been emphasising that it could be through a kind of changing or the strengthening of existing organisations like the East Asia Summit. So I don't think anybody wants a new grouping and especially one that had its birth in Australia.
LAM: But if dialogue were to be widened, do you think it should be built on existing frameworks, or should it be a totally new entity?
COOK: Yes, I think it has to be built on existing frameworks, even though they do have their weaknesses. Again, as your report noted, ASEAN is not the strongest body, as is the core of most of these things, but there are so many existing regional organisations, and the idea of creating another one, I think sends shivers down the spines of many bureaucrats and politicians in the region.
LAM: Well, ASEAN may not be a very strong or dynamic grouping, but do you agree that it still has a rather useful role to play in the region, because it groups quite politically and culturally diverse nations?
COOK: Yes, and also one of the things that unites the ASEAN countries diplomatically, is that they demand that all regional organisations be centred in ASEAN, so they have a point of common agreement that was reinforced this week in Thailand. So even if ASEAN is not the most dynamic, it wants to be kept at the centre and will fight for its turf.
LAM: But ultimately, is this idea of yet another new grouping in the region - is it gaining much support at all or not?
COOK: Again, both the East Asian Community idea and the Australian idea have not made it clear whether they want a new organisation or institution or whether they want to build on the existing ones, and I think the only path forward really is to build on the existing ones, because as I said no appetite for anything new and it's quite difficult to create new organisations. So I don't think there is much hope in that direction.
