Officially, Japan wants a leadership role
in the yet-to-be-born East Asian Community (EAC).
Yet the reverse could be true, with US-allied
Tokyo possibly playing a pivotal part in seeing
that the grouping never even sees the light of
day.
With two months to go before the
10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations
(ASEAN), Japan, China, South Korea, India,
Australia and New Zealand meet in Kuala Lumpur for
an East Asian summit, they have yet to agree on an
agenda for the meeting, which is aimed at laying
the foundations for the EAC.
"Japan does
not appear to be an enthusiastic supporter of the
EAC," said Lu Yiyi, senior research fellow at The
Royal Institute
for International Affairs
in London, expressing the views of most analysts
and commentators.
Now that Japanese Prime
Minister Junichiro Koizumi has a two-thirds
majority in the Lower House of parliament, he can
be expected to whole-heartedly pursue Japan's
regional foreign and security policies centered on
his support for the US and its interests,
realistically leaving limited room for
multilateral initiatives with Japan in the
driver's seat, such as within the EAC.
Further, Tokyo can't be expected to throw
its full weight behind a grouping that excludes
the US. Washington has repeatedly requested
"observer status" at the EAC summit, but there has
more or less been agreement among Asian
governments since May that Washington would not be
invited. The US's deputy sheriff in Asia,
Australia, has been unable to rally much support
for the US's participation.
The idea of an
EAC goes back to the beginning of the 1990s and
Malaysia's former prime minister Mahatir
Mohammed's idea of an East Asian Economic Caucus.
"An Asia caucus without Caucasians," is what
Mahatir wanted for himself and his fellow Asians
then to counterbalance US economic and military
dominance in Asia and beyond.
His vision,
however, never made it beyond the planning stage,
mainly because Japan and other Asian nations
friendly to Washington were opposed to his Asian
masterplan accompanied by chauvinistic and at
times hostile rhetoric.
Asia's lack of
enthusiasm to include the US in the EAC does not
come as a surprise to David Shambaugh from George
Washington University. "Many Southeast Asian
governments are frustrated by Washington's myopic
focus on the 'war on terrorism' in the region, to
the exclusion of regional concerns," he wrote in
the international media.
Japan on the
other hand does not seem to have a problem with
the US focus on its "war on terrorism" and has
just announced an extension to its humanitarian
and aid mission in southern Iraq, as well as its
assignment in the Indian Ocean to provide
logistical support for the US and British military
fighting what is left of the Taliban in
Afghanistan.
In short, Japan appears more
concerned with its security policies, and
EAC-style multilateralism does not feature too
prominently on its agenda.
Indeed,
agreeing to upgrade its bilateral military
alliance with the US through the revision of the
so-called US-Japan Guidelines for Defense
Cooperation, its decision to commit itself to
co-develop a regional missile defense system with
the US and Koizumi's enthusiasm to confirm Japan's
preparedness to fight alongside the US in a Taiwan
Strait military contingency give the impression
that Japan is preparing itself for war, and not
for the beginning of a new Asian multilateral era.
Whereas until the early 1990s Japan's
foreign and security policies were centered around
"foreign economic policy" through development aid,
economic assistance and above all the generous
provision of overseas development assistance,
joint US-Japanese saber-rattling and Tokyo's
graduation from reluctant junior alliance partner
and useful handyman to full-fledged military ally
seems to dominate Tokyo's agenda these days.
Japan, Asia's "lead goose" of regional
multilateralism and economic as well as political
integration in the 1990s, has turned into a lame
duck, and Koizumi's obsession to expand ties with
Washington will make sure that Tokyo will not be
Asia's multilateral locomotive as long as he is
around.
Then again, China's newly gained
preference for multilateralism and its support for
the EAC, Japanese and American policymakers agree,
must be carefully watched. Beijing, the alarmist
rhetoric in Tokyo and Washington goes, is planning
to use the EAC as an instrument to limit US
influence in Asia by establishing its political,
economic and military dominance in the region.
Beijing might indeed want to do just that,
and leaving aside the "ASEAN-is-the driver of the
EAC" rhetoric, China has repeatedly indicated that
taking a leadership role in the EAC is what
Beijing really wants.
Already last
December, during the 10th ASEAN summit in
Vientiane, Laos, Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao
declared that the EAC was a "long-term strategic
choice in the interests of China's development".
However, the EAC might not necessarily
turn out to be the appropriate playground for
Beijing to prepare itself to call the shots in
Asia, given India's participation in the EAC.
Leaving aside that India is not even part of East
Asia, Delhi, like Tokyo (and possibly Seoul too),
is, as analysts widely believe, very unlikely to
accept Chinese leadership of the EAC, no matter
how it is configured.
Given the limited
number of countries in Asia (none?), which still
seriously believe in Japanese leadership in Asia,
it comes as no surprise that Japan
enthusiastically welcomed the admission of its
fellow deputy sheriff in Asia, Australia, to the
EAC.
After insisting for months that
preemptive military action against terrorists and
other evil-doers must remain part of Australia's
Asian security policies, Prime Minister John
Howard recently signed ASEAN's Treaty of Amity and
Cooperation, the quasi-entry ticket into the EAC
that provides for, among other things, peaceful
settlement of conflicts and non-interference in
internal affairs.
Both Koizumi and Howard
are likely to report back to Washington after the
summit, and show solidarity with Washington by
continuing to play down the importance of the EAC
as an initiative as it lacks the US.
Thus,
one should not be fooled if in Kuala Lumpur
Koizumi and other heads of states, operating on
the "tell-them-what-they-want-to-hear" principle
publicly talk up the EAC in an effort to make up
for its vague agenda and even more fuzzy long-term
goals and objectives: they will kill it with
kindness.
Dr Axel Berkofsky is
senior policy analyst at the Brussels-based
European Policy Center (EPC). The views expressed
here are his own.
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