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Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama (5-L) link hands with ASEAN leaders during group shot before the ASEAN-Japan meeting at the 15th Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit, in the seaside town of Hua Hin, some 190 km (118 miles) south of Bangkok, October 24, 2009. From (L-R) are Laos Prime Minister Bouasone Bouphavanh, Myanmar's Thein Sein, Philippine Foreign Secretary Alberto Romulo, Singapore's Lee Hsien Loong, Hatoyama, Thailand's Abhisit Vejjajiva, Vietnam's Nguyen Tan Dung, Malaysia's Najib Razak, Brunei's Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, Cambodia's Hun Sen, and ASEAN Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan.(Xinhua/Reuters Photo)
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by Zhang Jiawei, Zhou Erjie
HUA HIN, Thailand, Oct. 24 (Xinhua) -- The topic of forming the East Asian Community, proposed by Japan, was once again brought up during the 15th ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations)Summit, but the concrete ways and means to realize such idea of grouping together so diverse a range of Asian nations are still not clear.
Japan's Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, the eager proponent of the idea, proposed the formation of East Asian Community, when meeting Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao at the G-20 summit in Pittsburgh, U.S., this year.
The idea was to establish a regional cooperation organization similar to the European Union and the African Union, and was viewed by many analyst as Hatoyama's shift of Japan's diplomatic focus to the relations with its Asian neighbors.
China, South Korea and the ASEAN have voiced their support for the idea. During a regular press conference last month, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said that it is the consensus of ASEAN as well as China, Japan and South Korea that the establishment of the Community is a long-term objective of East Asian cooperation.
When delivering his speech at the opening ceremony of the 15th ASEAN Summit Friday, Thailand's Prime Miniser Abhisit Vejjajiva also said that a larger East Asian connectivity should be fostered in a bid to connect ASEAN to the rest of the Asia Pacific region.
However, various obstacles still exist for the formation of the East Asian Community.
As the "starting point" for founding the proposed Community, the implementation of a single Asian currency was itself too difficult a task. Even Hatoyama admitted in an interview with the Bangkok Post before attending the 12th ASEAN-Japan Summit that his eyebrow-raising proposal of setting up the currency was a "long term" objective with significant meaning.
The East Asian nations have different economic and social systems and their development were not in the same level, as a result of which a gradual process is needed for the formation of a community, said Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao before attending the 12th ASEAN-China Summit in Thailand.
Aside from the economic gaps, political issues, such as the U.S. factor, are still a major obstacle on the way to a unified Asia.
When it comes to implementing the goal of creating an East Asian Community, promoting multilateral cooperation in the East Asian region, concrete results are still hard to be achieved immediately, said Wang Shaopu, director of the Center of Japanese Studies at the Shanghai Jiaotong University.
He also pointed out that China, Japan and South Korea were yet to reach mutual trust in terms of political issues, and the three parties were still on guard against each other, which affected the multilateral cooperation in the region.
Another geo-political issue that may affect the realization of the proposed Community is the scope of its membership.
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Japan's Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama (L) shakes hands with his Thai counterpart Abhisit Vejjajiva during their bilateral meeting on the sideline of the 15th ASEAN Summit at a hotel in Cha-Am of Hua Hin district southern Thailand October 24, 2009.(Xinhua/Reuters Photo)
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By far, the dimension and nature of the envisaged bloc was still a sensitive issue to the Japan leaders, and skeptics still doubt whether the idea can be realized given the complicatedness and diversification of the region's political situation.
Japanese Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada previously noted that the proposed Community did not include the United States while Japan, China, South Korea, ASEAN, Australia and India were envisaged to be the new bloc's member.
The remark deepened the worry that Japan might put its relations with Asian countries ahead of its long-term ally U.S.
In view of this, Hatoyama redefined the scope of the membership, saying that the key to the proposed Community is its openness.
That means the proposed Community is not just regional cooperation organization such as the EU, but one open platform which non-Asian countries, including U.S. and Russia, can be part of.
Hatoyama told his ASEAN counterparts during the 12th ASEAN-Japan Summit in Thailand Saturday that the U.S.-Japan alliance remains the cornerstone of Japanese foreign policy, and Japan will consult with its ally on matters concerning the Community, according to Kazuo Kodama, spokesperson of Japan's Foreign Ministry.
As for the sensitive topic of membership, the spokesperson said that it was still premature to talk about the membership of the proposed Community.
In addition to the above-mentioned obstacles, the overlapping function of the proposed Community and the existing regional mechanism also throws a question mark over whether the new Community is needed in the future.
With a full membership of 21 countries, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) has already functioned as an important economic forum that widely supports sustainable economic growth and prosperity in the Asia-Pacific region. Meanwhile, the ASEAN plus Six mechanisms is aimed at promoting the regional cooperation and it operates under the principle of openness as well.
If the proposed East Asian Community is, as Hatoyama said, designed to be an open organization with the same goal of promoting regional cooperation like the existing mechanism, the establishment of such Community is hardly meaningful, said Wei Xian, a scholar of international political affairs based in Beijing.
He also pointed out that the concept of a new regional organization driven by the trilateral cooperation of China, Japan and South Korea may also weaken the role of the ASEAN plus Three and plus Six mechanisms, which will risk alienating the ASEAN, and the so-called East Asian Community will turn out to be just a "Northeast Asian Community".
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