Russia and the emerging institutional order in the Asia-Pacific.

AuthorLukin, Artyom
PositionOpini

NORTHEAST ASIA AT THE CENTER?

The Asia-Pacific has always been an imagined region in many ways. It is essentially an ideational construct engineered by the epistemic community of business people, scholars and politicians who have been promoting the Asia-Pacific identity from the 1960s onwards. This is not to deny its realness, though. The Asia-Pacific region does exist, defined not only by verbal discourses, but also by very material economic, social and political links connecting the countries of the Pacific basin, although the density of those links is distributed very unevenly across the region.

The vast and amorphous Asia-Pacific is superimposed onto other entities that can be regarded as either its > or regions in their own right. Those areas are more compact, easily definable, and arguably more > than the Asia-Pacific, since they have stronger geographical and historical roots. For all the advances of globalization, which shrinks distances and facilitates communication, territoriality remains a crucial factor in international politics [Buzan & Waever, 2003]. It is also true in the case of >, of which East Asia claims to be the central constituent part. Yet East Asia, although it is much less hazy and much more territorial than the Asia-Pacific concept, is no monolith and has its own subdivisions.

The most salient division is that between Northeast Asia and Southeast Asia. Which of the two takes the pride of place? Official Asia-Pacific/ East Asian discourses refer to Southeast Asia, collectively represented by ASEAN, as > and > of region-wide multilateral cooperation and integration [Clinton, 2010a; ASEAN Regional Forum, 2011; ASEAN Plus Three Summit, 2009]. In a similar vein, many academics highlight the prominence of ASEAN, resulting, in their view, from the Association's capacity to be a collective leader and institute norms governing region-wide politics [Bogaturov, 1997; Acharya, 2003].

Unlike Southeast Asia, whose geographical area almost perfectly corresponds to the 10-country ASEAN membership, the concept of Northeast Asia is less clearly defined. It is unanimously recognized that Northeast Asia includes China (the mainland and Taiwan), Japan, and Korea (both the South and the North). Beyond that it becomes less uncontroversial. What about Russia and the United States? Can they be regarded as Northeast Asian actors? (1) I believe that they can, although their status in Northeast Asia should be designated as peripheral as opposed to the central position of China, Japan and Korea, the three nations forming the core of the region in terms of geography, as well as by virtue of their long-standing historical and cultural affinity (2).

Russia is, of course, territorially present in Northeast Asia and has been a major player in the region's international system ever since the late 19th century. The case of the United States is less obvious. It does not have direct geographic presence in Northeast Asia, but is extremely close to the region, thanks to the territories such as Alaska, Aleutian Islands, and Guam. This, among other things, considerably raises the U.S. exposure to the threats and challenges originating from Northeast Asia (3). Therefore America's behavior in Northeast Asia is driven not only by the logic of a global superpower, but also by its concerns as a local >.

Having thus delineated the membership of Northeast Asia, what is its standing in the wider regional picture, especially vis-à-vis Southeast Asia? As noted earlier, official international discourse gives clear priority to ASEANAS > of regional processes. However, this may result not so much from ASEAN'S inherent strengths as from the big powers' unwillingness to change the status-quo under which Southeast Asian countries lead only for as long as major Northeast Asian powers let them do so. This is why Southeast Asia's current centrality in the Asia-Pacific is, in a sense, a leadership >. Its heretofore substantial role is even described as increasingly a thing of the past, > [Calder, 2010, p. 5]. For all the ASEAN'S diplomatic skills and achievements, it lacks material power to be the real center of gravity as opposed to Northeast Asia. The latter (even excluding Russia and the United States) generates over 80 per cent of East Asia's GDP. It is significant that the Northeast Asian trio supplies the lion's share of the foreign exchange reserve pool under the ASEAN Plus Three's Chiang Mai Initiative Multilateralization scheme - of 120 billion US dollars China, Japan and South Korea are collectively contributing 96 billion dollars, while the ASEAN'S share is only 24 billion dollars.

Northeast Asia's military potential dwarfs Southeast Asia capabilities. Suffice it to say that four out seven Northeast Asia players (the United States, Russia, China, North Korea) have nuclear weapons, while the other three (Japan, South Korea, Taiwan) are all able to go nuclear very promptly it they make a political decision. Their formidable military capabilities, along with smoldering conflicts such as the Taiwan and Korea issues, make Northeast Asia one of the most explosive regions in the global international system. If a war breaks out there, it will shake the entire world. It is telling that when the Thai-Cambodian border dispute erupted in 2010 that was just one of many international headlines (4) By contrast, when South Korea and North Korea went at loggerheads in the same year, it sent shock waves across the globe. There is little doubt that strategic stability in East Asia and the broader Asia-Pacific region is mainly a function of the relationships among the Northeast Asian powers (5).

It is economic, political and strategic weight of Northeast Asia, along with its conflict-generating potential, that makes it the real center of gravity in the Asia-Pacific, and indeed places it among the most crucial world's regions, on a par with Europe and the Middle East. Developments in Northeast Asia will increasingly shape international order in the Asia-Pacific and beyond.

THE EMERGING INSTITUTIONAL ARCHITECTURE IN NORTHEAST ASIA AND BEYOND: A GAME ON TWO CHESSBOARDS

Despite an array of powerful factors fuelling rivalry and conflict in Northeast Asia, the region has been witnessing developments that could lead it to much more cohesion. One obvious trend is the emergence of multilateral institutional architecture (6). Up until recently, Northeast Asia completely lacked multilateral arrangements of its own. The U.S.-dominated San Francisco system of > had long acted as some sort of institutional surrogate, but it is now being gradually dismantled [Aggarwal, Min Gyo Koo, 2008].

Although Northeast Asia is still lagging behind many other regions in building multilateral institutions, noticeable progress has been made over the recent years. There is a trend towards a two-tiered structure of multilateralism in the region. The first level is represented by the Six-Party talks on the North Korean nuclear issue, which were initiated in 2003, involving China, North and South Korea, Russia, Japan, and the United States. The nuclear problem has not yet been resolved, but the Six-Party process may potentially lead to a Northeast Asian regional organization to manage political and strategic security [Aggarwal, Min Gyo Koo, 2008, p.8]. In February 2007, the participants of the Six-Party talks agreed to set up five working groups, one of which was tasked to study ways to achieve >. Despite periodic walkouts by North Korea, the Six-Party talks have already become a de facto permanent consultative mechanism in Northeast Asia, albeit with a mandate still confined to issues related to the Korean Peninsula.

The second layer of Northeast Asian multilateralism is embodied in the trilateral cooperation of the >, regional states--Japan, China and the Republic of Korea. Their informal trilateral summits have been regularly held since 1999, but until recently they took place on the sidelines of ASEAN Plus Three meetings. December 2008 saw a watershed event, when the first Northeast Asian summit was held on its own, attended by Japan's prime minister, China's chairman and the Republic of Korea's president. The leaders signed an action plan for promoting trilateral cooperation and agreed to hold such meetings annually. So far, four summits of the trio have taken place.

At their third meeting in May 2010, the three leaders adopted a blueprint for future economic cooperation, environmental protection, and expansion of personnel and cultural exchanges. They also agreed to establish a permanent secretariat in South Korea starting from 2011 [Japan-China-ROK Trilateral Summit, 2010]. The sides are negotiating a trilateral investment agreement and studying a trilateral FTA. It is expected that the study will be concluded within 2011 and formal negotiations will begin in 2012 [Japan-China-Korea Summit Declaration, 2011; >, 2011].

More than 50 trilateral consultative mechanisms, including 17 ministerial meetings, are now in full operation and over 100 trilateral cooperation projects in the economic and social fields, people-to-people exchanges, green growth, and disaster management are promoted [>, 2010]. Apart from official meetings, non-governmental forums are also held among the three countries, with participation from the academia, business, NGOs and mass-media.

To be sure, institutionalization of this tritateral interaction is still in its nascent stages. It is too early to speak of a new economic bloc born in Northeast...

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