Asia’s New Regionalism
“Elsewhere is a negative mirror,” remarks the fictitious Marco Polo to the elderly Genghis Khan in Italo Calvino’s “Invisible Cities.” Analysts from Europe and North America run the risk of viewing Asia through their own historical prisms and concluding that they must “catch up” with Western standards in some linear-historical sense. But in Asia, we are witnessing something unique.
In a region where many national boundaries are artificial and political cohesion is gossamer-thin, most Asian governments are still trying to cobble together stable and viable nations. They are maneuvering in a regional environment in which their basic security - defined broadly to include domestic and regional stability, national autonomy, and enough economic growth to guarantee their legitimacy - is not guaranteed. Continuation of the US military presence responds to some but not all of their needs. Balance-of-power thinking based on assessments of military capability is still relevant to the Taiwan Strait and the Korean peninsula, but even there it is not sufficient. Elsewhere it is less relevant because most of the threats facing Asian governments are nontraditional and diffuse, and some are mainly economic.
Asian governments seek a form of regionalism that both manages and takes advantage of market forces while enhancing their national sovereignty and their ability to cope with the challenges of governance. As they see it, selective cooperation shelters them from the worst extremes of globalization and gives them breathing space to cope with shared problems. Governments of smaller and weaker states particularly value regionalism because it helps them avoid being dominated by larger powers.
Although Asia’s new regionalism may strike rational minds as a delusion, the calculations that justify participation in the integration movement correspond to the circumstances in which Asians find themselves. The small group of leaders, bureaucrats, and intellectuals who favor accelerating closer Asian integration lack both an agreed end-goal and an enforceable mandate, but that is the way most governments want it. Sovereignty is still precious and no government is ready to cede it to others. At the same time, absolute national sovereignty is beginning to wear thin as an excuse for resisting change when other countries’ interests are affected. The integration movement enshrines national sovereignty, but it also blurs and demystifies it. In extreme cases, such as the 2007 crackdown in Myanmar, Asian governments have spoken out publicly, both individually and through ASEAN.
The integration movement redefines Asia in a positive and open-ended way and remains open to the rest of the world. Its flexible nature offers a “roof” under which the management of great-power relations can be legitimized and steered. Its very fluidity functions like a shock absorber. It tamps down territorial disputes and economic clashes and provides diplomatic space to resolve or postpone them.
Rejecting a coalition of smaller powers against a rising one, leaders of the integration movement seek to absorb a rising power in a fabric of peaceful norms and commitments and thus avoid a costly arms race. Their efforts help prevent a polarizing schism between democracies on the rim of Asia and China on the mainland. The prospect of closer integration stimulates trade-liberalizing agreements, infrastructure projects, and financial coordination, however feeble these measures may be. In the long run, more robust economic growth, combined with the vision of an Asia-wide community, may offer separatists and fundamentalists an attractive alternative to radical movements. All of these aspects of the integration movement are “public goods” that contribute to prosperity and stability in Asia, the United States, and the rest of the world.
Asia’s new regionalism is far less successful as a mechanism for creating and distributing wealth, jobs, and technology. Its limited achievements are riddled with holes and excuses. It skirts some important issues, moves with the speed of an inchworm, relies far more on talk than on action, and thus falls far short of its potential. Too many regionwide threats remain to be tackled more decisively and collectively, including crime, terrorism, disease, and environmental pollution. For all these reasons, Asia still adds up to little more than the sum of its parts.
The keys to sustainable integration, economic development, and successful adaptation to globalization are good governance, economic reform, and enough mutual trust to permit some form of security cooperation. Many Asian governments have a long way to go before they get the basics right. Nevertheless, unless some new crisis intervenes, a lumbering momentum toward closer integration seems irreversible.
Is there a better way to design Asia’s future? The path to greater wealth and power, the historical goals of the Asian integration movement, winds partly through the global economy and partly through the cities, coastal communities, and ocean-bound rivers of Maritime Asia. Building on Maritime Asia’s rich legacy might lead to new forms of local autonomy and cross-border governance, such as a limited, modern-day Asian equivalent of the Hanseatic League or a maritime version of an “Asian Renaissance.” Pursuing such long-range visions would mean thinking holistically about the interaction of land and sea and realigning the agenda of the integration movement more closely with Asia’s maritime potential.
In the end, the future of Asian regionalism depends on answers to three sets of questions. First, to what extent will China’s surging economy and increasingly outward-looking society soften and open up its authoritarian political system? How will this evolution affect US-China relations, the US military presence, and the US-Japan alliance? My guess is that the Chinese Communist Party will stay in power but that it will continue to move toward “authoritarian capitalism.” (2) This prospect challenges the Western model of market-oriented democracy and runs counter to certain basic Western values, but it poses no inherent threat to vital Western interests.
Second, will Asia’s diverse political values converge and nurture a true community in Asia Major, redrawing the world’s political maps? Will Asian governments become capable of - and willing to - promote closer integration in both Maritime Asia and Asia Major, or will they quietly abandon such approaches? Alternatively, will Asia drift apart along democratic and nondemocratic lines, giving rise to a rim-based league of Asian democracies that challenges and implicitly resists growing Chinese power on the mainland?
My guess is that Asia will neither unite into an Asian bloc nor remain as fragmented as it is today. Although they will mostly resist my vision of a fully restored Maritime Asia, they will slowly lower trade and investment barriers and improve maritime and security cooperation. Under the heading of community building, Asian governments will select regional initiatives that preserve or enhance their sovereignty and security. They will rely on flexible bilateral, national and subnational arrangements based on shared norms and legitimized by an open-ended regional framework. An Asian common market and an Asian security community, however, lie way off in the future and may never be realized. Modes of governance will converge slightly as repressive regimes edge toward authoritarian capitalism and democracies remain democratic or nearly so, but it will be a long time before shared political values can form the basis of a true community. In the meantime, the peaceful, flexible, and open nature of Asia’s new regionalism will accommodate China’s peaceful development while allowing plenty of room for the United States to compete for influence.
Finally, will US policymakers ever be able to shift their attention from the Middle East and pay more sustained attention to what is going on in the other half of the world? If they do, will they employ their assets wisely and contribute to the common good? The changing balance of influence in Asia calls for high-level US engagement, a better balance between US military and nonmilitary tools, more understanding of Asian needs, more recognition of the benefits of closer integration, more acceptance of China’s new status, more willingness to grant legitimacy to ASEAN and to trust ASEAN leaders’ ability to handle tensions and crises, continuing partnership with Japan and other allies and friends, more public diplomacy and educational exchanges, and less zero-sum thinking. The United States has neglected or downgraded regional, trans-Pacific, and global institutions and needs to do more to support them. Just showing up and listening is important; active encouragement and respect for others’ needs and interests are more valuable at this stage than long lists of US-designed projects that lack political visibility.
Asia’s new regionalism amounts to more than a marriage of convenience but considerably less than a marriage of the heart. Political values remain so far apart that Asia is far from becoming a true community, an “Asia Whole and Free.” For many Asian leaders, nation building and political stability need to be consolidated first. For some, the Asian integration movement is a long-term strategy; for others, it is merely a tactic serving diplomatic goals; and for still others, it is something to be tolerated and occasionally blocked.
Nevertheless, Asian governments cannot afford not to pursue integration because the consequences of not doing so are too risky. The alternative - doing nothing - would be destabilizing and would leave smaller Asian countries at the mercy of unrestrained rivalry among the regional powers. The implicit rift between the rim democracies and China would grow wider, forcing other governments to take sides. Such a division would likely stimulate an arms race, stoke Chinese and Japanese nationalism, and reduce the prospects for stability.
Americans should therefore encourage Asian regionalism, not merely tolerate it or fear it. They do not have to join the East Asian Summit group in order to protect their interests and participate in meaningful dialogues about Asia’s future. But they do have to send more encouraging signals. If they approach Asia in a constructive spirit and with a listening ear, Asians will welcome their presence - not at every table, but definitely under their roof.
(1) Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities, translated by William Weaver (New York: Harvest Books, 1972), p. 29.
(2) For a discussion of this challenge, see Azar Gat, “The Return of Authoritarian Great Powers,” Foreign Affairs 86, no. 4 (July-August 2007):59-69.