Page 2 of 3 The search for an Asian
face By Chietigj Bajpaee
such as the six-party talks on the
Korean Peninsula, the Shanghai Cooperation
Organization (SCO) and the Boao Forum.
Furthermore, China has emerged as Asia's workshop
or point of final assembly for products whose
components are manufactured elsewhere in Asia and
is the leading trade partner for numerous
countries in the region (China is the top trade
partner for Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Hong
Kong and second-largest trading
partner for Australia, India
and ASEAN).
Meanwhile, the rise of India
in the information-technology sector, its rapid
growth and its reorientation toward East Asia
under its Look East policy have also brought it
back into the Asian fold. India and China, as the
twin engines of Asia's growth, have revived the
debate over an Asian community grounded in
Sinic-Indic civilization.
Functional vs
ideological approach What distinguishes
the current round of the Asian community debate
from the previous ones is the fact that the
ideological discussion is being complemented by
growing economic interdependence and multilateral
cooperation from the movement of capital and human
resources and a growing number of free-trade
agreements (FTAs), regional financial
institutions, and cooperative security dialogues.
In the case of Europe, integration was
forged through functional cooperation starting
with the European Coal and Steel Community, which
deterred further rivalry in the Franco-German
relationship. A similar process of integration is
being seen in Asia. The SCO, for instance, began
as a forum to resolve long-standing border
disputes among China, Russia and the newly
independent states of Central Asia, and has since
evolved into a forum to combat the "three evils"
of terrorism, separatism and religious extremism,
as well as forging energy cooperation between
major oil and gas suppliers (Russia, Kazakhstan,
Uzbekistan and Iran) and major sources of energy
demand (China and India). The Asia-Pacific
Partnership on Clean Development and Climate is
another functionally oriented multilateral forum
to address energy conservation and efficiency, and
climate change.
Meanwhile, the
US-Japan-Australia-India Regional Core Group was
formed to provide humanitarian assistance after
the Asian tsunami in 2004, with the four member
states now working toward a new democratic Asian
order. There is even discussion of turning the
six-party talks on the denuclearization of the
Korean Peninsula into a permanent regional forum
in Northeast Asia.
Economic integration is
further fueling cooperation and
community-building. While the United States
remains the primary market of products
manufactured in Asia, a growing Asian middle class
is fueling demand within Asia, which will continue
to fuel intra-Asian trade and investment. The
World Trade Organization (WTO) estimates that
intra-Asian trade, which currently accounts for
51% of Asia's total trade, will amount to US$1.2
trillion by 2020.
Growing intra-regional
trade is being further facilitated by numerous
bilateral and multilateral FTAs. By the beginning
of 2007, 18 FTAs had been put in place in East
Asia, while another 32 are under negotiation. The
structure of Asia's economic integration and
whether it will result in an EU-style common
market with a common currency and central bank
remain unclear given that numerous initiatives
compete or are simultaneously pursued. They
include, for instance, regional multilateral
free-trade negotiations such as ASEAN + 3 (China,
South Korea, Japan) and ASEAN + 3 + 2 + 1
(including Australia, New Zealand and India)
competing with bilateral FTAs and broader
arrangements such as the Doha Round of the WTO and
Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, or APEC (Free
Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific - FTAAP).
Economic integration is also being
facilitated by the Asian Bond Markets Initiative
and a currency-swap agreement (Chiang Mai
Initiative), which now includes 16 bilateral swap
agreements worth $80 billion involving eight
countries with plans for a multilateral
currency-swap arrangement as a potential precursor
to an Asian Monetary Fund. The region's
foreign-exchange reserves exceed $3 trillion,
comprising two-thirds of the world's total, with
China and Japan together accounting for $2.1
trillion.
Growing people-to-people
contacts facilitated by improving transport and
communication links are further fueling
integration across the region. For instance,
almost half of the tourist arrivals in ASEAN
countries are from other ASEAN countries. The
proliferation of regional low-cost air carriers,
the development of Asian news channels and pop
culture, and infrastructure projects such as the
UNESCAP (United Nations Economic and Social
Commission for Asia and the Pacific) initiatives
for an Asian Highway Network and the Trans-Asian
Railway Network connecting Asia with Europe along
the historic Silk Road are catalysts for creating
an Asian identity.
Shared concerns:
Kashmir to the Kurils Despite Asia's
economic successes, the countries of the region
continue to be plagued by a number of common
concerns. The scourge of terrorism and Islamic
fundamentalism (Pakistan, Bangladesh, Southeast
and Central Asia), infectious-disease and health
scares (SARS and avian influenza), and dealing
with pariah regimes and failed states (Myanmar,
East Timor, states in the South Pacific and
potentially Central Asia) are just a few.
Separatist movements (India's northeast,
Sri Lanka, Myanmar), combating drugs, weapons and
human trafficking, protecting ports and sea-lanes
(60,000 ships comprising a third of world trade
and half of world trade in oil and natural gas
transit through the Strait of Malacca), and
meeting the region's growing energy needs are
more. Add to those environmental concerns. Asia
accounts for a quarter of the world's energy
consumption, meets 41% of its energy needs from
burning coal, holds 3.5% of the world's proven oil
reserves, and has the world's second-, third-,
fifth- and sixth-largest oil importers, namely
Japan, China, South Korea and India.
These
shared concerns demand a joint, multilateral
approach. For instance, Japan has committed $100
million to two Asian Development Bank initiatives
to promote investment and combat climate change in
Asia. They are the Investment Climate Facilitation
Fund and the Asian Clean Energy Fund, as part of
Japan's initiative for Enhanced Sustainable
Development for Asia.
While Asia has been
more successful at combating poverty than Africa
and Latin America, with the World Bank stating
that Asia is on track to halving extreme poverty
levels by 2050, there still exist significant
pockets of underdevelopment throughout Asia, with
a significant disparity between East Asia, which
is expected to have only 2.4% of its people living
in extreme poverty by 2010, and South Asia, where
it is estimated that 18% will continue live in
extreme poverty by 2015.
This disparity is
becoming increasingly significant as growing
economic integration, people-to-people contacts
and transnational security concerns fuel
interdependence among states in the region. For
example, states in Northeast Asia such as China,
Japan and South Korea are increasingly engaged
with the states of Central Asia given their need
for energy resources such as oil, gas and uranium,
which are in abundant supply in the latter.
Japan's assistance to the US-led "war on
terror" in Iraq and Afghanistan and role as the
second-largest provider of overseas development
assistance (ODA) have made it a significant player
in resolving conflicts and reducing poverty in
South Asia. Similarly, India's Look East policy
has made it an increasingly important player in
Southeast Asia.
The region is also exposed
to numerous long-standing territorial disputes,
from Kashmir in South Asia to the Southern Kurils
or Northern Territories in Northeast Asia, and
numerous maritime territorial disputes in the
South and East China seas. These disputes have
been stoked by hyper-nationalism, long-standing
historical animosities from World War II and the
Cold War, and natural resources in the disputed
territories. Furthermore, the presence of five of
the world's nuclear-weapons states (China, India,
North Korea, Pakistan and Russia) and three
nuclear flash
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