Asia Times: After the crisis, SE Asia looks to its big brothers



	November 30, 1999	atimes.com

Southeast Asia

After the crisis, SE Asia looks to its big brothers

MANILA - Southeast Asia is increasingly casting its lot with its bigger East Asian neighbors, judging by their issuance of an unprecedented statement on ''East Asian cooperation'' at a summit that ended here on Sunday.

The informal summit between heads of government of the 10-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) and Japan, China and South Korea is the third in the past three years. But it is only now that they have come out with a joint statement on cooperation that could herald the formation of a larger Asian bloc in the next century.

In the political-security area, the governments agreed ''to continue dialogue, coordination, and cooperation to increase mutual understanding and trust toward forging lasting peace and stability in East Asia'', said the joint statement.

In an address on Sunday, Philippine President Joseph Estrada raised the stakes by mapping out a vision of an East Asian economic club, saying cooperation between Asean and the other Asian countries may well lead to an ''East Asian common market, one East Asian currency, one East Asian community''. Such a grouping would bring together some two billion people, with much greater economic and political clout.

The joint statement also said East Asian countries would seek to deepen cooperation among financial markets and improve regional integration.

''Our future is intertwined with that of greater East Asia,'' said Estrada, his remarks reflecting a realization by many Southeast Asian governments since the Asian crisis that the region must rely on itself more in times of trouble. ''We need to intensify our dialogue with them on all issues, on all fronts,'' he explained. ''Northeast Asia's stability is extremely vital to peace in the Asean region.''

Over the weekend, Philippine Finance Secretary Edgardo Espiritu was quoted as saying East Asia's future depends on ties among its neighbors and that ''we are subjected to external pressure that we may not be able to control''.

The region's desire to depend more on its own resources is also reflected in Japan's announcement at the Manila summit of a new aid package of $500 million for Asian countries hit by the financial crisis.

The crisis of 1997, changes in technology, and shifts in economic and political power demand that Asean ''respond with deeper integration both within, with its immediate neighbors, and the world beyond,'' said Asean secretary-general Rodolfo Severino.

Asean exports to Northeast Asia rose 30 percent in 1997 and accounted for 24 percent of Asean's total exports in 1997. Northeast Asia's share of Asean exports surpassed those of the US (20 percent) and the European Union (15 percent).

Since the financial crisis struck, various suggestions have been aired in Asia for greater cohesiveness in economic matters, not least when the region's worst-hit economies - South Korea, Indonesia and Thailand - found themselves at the mercy of international financial institutions. But calls by Asia to develop its own defenses against future financial crises and financial speculation have not always been welcomed by Western governments.

Previous suggestions for an Asian monetary fund were opposed by the International Monetary Fund and the United States, saying they could encourage more irresponsible behavior. Suggestions made in the early '90s for a political bloc comprising Southeast Asian and East Asian countries, promoted by Malaysia, also ran into criticism from Western countries.

This time, Asean's reaching out to Japan, China and South Korea is packaged more as an economic and trade initiative, but obviously necessitates some amount of political cooperation as well.

Economic integration in East Asia will not be easy. Espiritu himself says a common currency is decades away, but that the political impetus created by the joint statement of Asean and its East Asian neighbors is a start.

But, as Severino told a regional conference in Malaysia in August: ''A common currency for Asean, not to mention one for East Asia, was until two years ago all but unthinkable. Now, people are not only thinking about it, they are seriously talking about it in respectable company.''

As it is, Asean is sensitive to developments involving the Chinese currency, as well as Japan's efforts to jumpstart its economy. Its economic linkages to the larger East Asian region was driven home by the crisis. Even on the political front, Philippine Foreign Affairs Secretary Domingo Siazon said closer ties between Asean and Northeast Asia are needed, given the advances in nuclear technology, weaponry, and histories of conflict and rivalries between China, Japan, and Korea.

He said an East Asia forum is needed to discuss security issues such as ''frightening'' new types of warfare. One example: the Theater Missile Defense system, a ''protective umbrella'' being developed by the US and Japan, and possibly Taiwan. North Korea's test-firing last year of a ballistic missile over Japan is another example of tension in the region.

Siazon said Asean and Northeast Asian linkage would help promote peace and security in the region. However, Japan, China and South Korea have their own tensions that are likely to mean incremental progress in building any East Asian grouping. Japan and China have mistrusted each other for decades since Japan's occupation of China, and Beijing is wary of Japan's closer cooperation with the US. Japans wartime aggression still causes resentment in South Korea.

Still, efforts to formalize deepening ties among the 13 East Asian nations continue. An East Asian ''vision group'' is looking into how Southeast Asia and Northeast Asia should cooperate for common benefit. This group's first meeting was held in Seoul last month. By 2001, the group will submit its recommendations to Asean leaders on how to move the East Asian forum forward.

Among the possible long-term goals would be the institutionalization of the so-called ''Asean+3'' that groups Asean with China, Japan and South Korea, along with the setting up of an Asian monetary system and an East Asian free trade area. This would go further than Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad's East Asian Economic Caucus proposal, which calls for a caucus within the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum.

Yet the Manila summit also showed how difficult agreement on political and security issues is. The major achievement at the summit, pushed by the Philippine government as Asean host, was to have been a code of conduct to govern actions in disputed waters of the South China Sea.

Asean had hoped to secure China's approval for a code that would prescribe that there be no new occupation of islands, reefs, shoals or other features in the South China Sea, including the Spratlys islands. But the code's approval was torpedoed by disagreement over what areas the rules would cover. Beijing also protested againsy the inclusion in the code of the Paracel Islands, claimed by both China and Vietnam.

(Inter Press Service)

back to the top

©1999 Asia Times Online Co., Ltd.