Reflections on the JIIA Syposium on East Asian Community.

Yesterday (17^th) at Prince Hotel the Japan Institute for International Affairs convened a symposium on East Asian community. With the opening speech delivered by Hatoyama himself, and a promise to broadcast the entire proceedings both domestically within Japan and overseas, the event was quite high profile. I will discuss the significance of the symposium, and then reflect on some of the speeches and discussions.

Significance of the symposium:

The presenters themselves represented the cream of Asia’s Track II diplomacy. A point underlined by the fact, in addition to handshakes with the PM, Foreign Minister Okada will meet with the international academics after at dinner. Thus, the conclusions of the symposium will find a place (at least informally) in the policy-making process of Japan, and perhaps more broadly.

And interesting side point, there was a similar symposium at Aoyama Gaku-in on Friday (12^th) last week on East Asian community. This symposium was also populated with high level academics, such as Korea’s former Ambassador to the US Han Sungjun and China’s former Ambassador to France Wu Jianmin and Japan’s former Ambassador to the United Nations Taniguchi Makoto. There are simply too many high-level academics in Tokyo this week for sheer coincidence. This Friday meeting was a really by and for Japanese-only affair with most presentations in Japanese, although English translation was provided. Indeed, I was the only white person in the room who was not a presenter, suggesting that the outputs will only travel as far as Japan.

The nationality of the presenters at the JIIA symposium was also interesting and deliberate. First up, the representatives of Northeast Asia, Shiraishi Takashi (Japan), Gong Ro Myung (Korea), and Wang Li Zhou (China). With Hassan Wirajuda otherwise engaged, Tommy Koh (Singapore) was the only representative from Southeast Asia. Then came the ‘others’, TJ Pempel and Ezra Vogel (US), Rajiv Sikri (India) and Peter Drysdale (Australia). The consensus in the group of academics was clearly in favor of the East Asian Summit as opposed to the ASEAN+3, even Wang (China) was careful to note the value and significance of the 16 party grouping.

Hatoyama’s speech:

Hatoyama’s speech was good, but not ground breaking. That Hatoyama would chose to come (he was unable to come to the Friday meet at Aoyama) to this meeting is significant. It is a symbol that he continues to be interested in the EAc idea and is serious about promoting it. While no major policy shifts were announced, he did make clear his determination to “break open” Japan and pursue a kind of regionalism that will impact on Japan and the Japanese rather than an abstract elite level sort of regionalism. This implies a determination to trump local interests, particularly the agricultural lobby, in the pursuit of Japan’s greater economic and political interests in the region.

Panelist’s Discussions:

Shiraishi Takashi, is never bad to listen to. Shiraishi revealed that the Hatoyama administrations had recently approved of a plan to propose a regional scientific and technical community be established at the East Asia Summit. Another part of Japan’s efforts to lift the significance of the 16 party group and assert its leadership no doubt, but a valuable contribution no less. Shiraishi also identified the biggest problem of the East Asia Summit as the lack of any ‘big’ success. In contrast to the ASEAN Plus Three which will activate of the 24^th the Chiang Mai Initiatives, the EAS has managed only a series of moderate, non-headline grabbing initiatives such as the ERIA. I could not agree more.

Gong Ro-myung, put together a simple presentation focusing on one issue – regional security cooperation. Or more accurately, the lack there of. Gong stated that all the initiatives in East Asia on technical issues, economic and non-traditional security (pandemics, disaster relief, piracy etc) was not spilling over into cooperation in security. He contrasted this to the European experience, and urged the regional governments to let spill over occur. This idea is interesting because it suggests that security cooperation would be a nature occurring phenomena arising from other initiatives but that regional governments are actively preventing it. I imagine he was thinking about the North Korea issue, but this point is true to an extent also in Southeast Asia.

Tommy Koh, was challenged by Funabashi Yoichi (Asahi Shimbun) about the whether the ASEAN deserves to sit in the drivers seat of regional integration. Koh noted that the ASEAN position as driver is due to default, acknowledging that ASEAN not the best driver (ie hardly ideal) for integration but the only one that all were comfortable with.

ASEAN was also challenged by Vogel, who asked Koh is ASEAN was perhaps not up to the task of managing a real crisis (I think security is what he had in mind). In defending the honor for the ASEAN, Koh responded (revealing for first time apparently) by relaying a story about cyclone Nargis and Burma. In the aftermath of the cyclone, the military Junta in Burma initially turned down offers of international food aid, causing additional unnecessary hunger, disease and suffering for its people. ASEAN members confront the Burmese foreign minister (on Buddha’s birthday as the story goes) and demanded that he call his masters and tell them that Burma’s decision not to accept aid is harming the reputation of ASEAN, and that Burma must accept international aid. Like, in the event of Tsunami, ASEAN head of states were able to call each other immediately to coordinate response and help set up an international pledging conference.

While interesting, I do not think Tommy Koh’s response actually answered the question – or answered it indirectly. Managing cyclones and tsunami, which are both natural disasters, can be considered crisis management. But I feel the question was about security, and Koh’s deft side stepping of the issue merely re-enforced the view that ASEAN was in fact not up the task.

All in all, a highly interesting symposium. Thanks go to Yuzawa Takashi for setting up and the participants.