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Routledge Handbook of Asian Regionalism

Mark Beeson, Richard Stubbs

Introduction

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Introduction
Mark Beeson and Richard Stubbs

This book provides a state-of-the-art introduction to, and analysis of, the development of
regionalism in Asia. It offers a comprehensive exploration of what is clearly the most dynamic
and arguably the most important region in the world. Significantly, Asian regionalism is still taking
shape and many of its key aspects are highly contested. The analyses in this collection take stock of
the major political, economic and social trends in Asia, and consider key dimensions on where
Asian regionalism stands today. It will also review many of the main issues that are on dispute, and
assess where the multiple, and sometimes overlapping, manifestations of Asian regionalism above
the level of the state – Asia-Pacific, East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia and Central Asia to name
the main ones – might be heading.
The very term ‘Asian regionalism’ is itself disputed. ‘Asia’ is generally thought to have Western
origins and, although residents of Asia have come to accept the term, the borders of the various
regions of the continent are challenged by some of the participants. Should the US be in the East
Asian region because of its massive security and economic presence in the area? Should Papua
New Guinea, Australia and New Zealand be considered part of Asia? How far to the West does
Asia extend? What role within Asia should be given to Russia? To some extent much depends on
whether regions are seen in traditional terms as ‘natural’ areas clearly defined by major geographic
features, or whether they are seen as socially constructed by their members for political, security or
economic reasons, and hence their boundaries are open to discussion and negotiation.
Regionalism is similarly debated. However, it can generally be thought of as a state-led project
that promotes a definable geographic area by means of the development of specific institutions and
strategies. Regionalism, therefore, is very much a conscious, coherent and top-down policy of
states, as well as sub-state and non-state actors, coordinating arrangements and activities in a
particular part of the world. By contrast, regionalization refers to the process by which material
patterns of transnational transactions – family linkages and migration patterns, trade and capital
flows, cross-border media usage, and so forth – among individuals and groups knit a loosely
defined geographical area together. In other words, then, in contrast to regionalism, regionaliza-
tion is essentially a spontaneous, unself-conscious, complex, bottom-up and often haphazard
process (Payne and Gamble 1996: 2; Hettne 2005; Hveem 2006: 296; Beeson 2007a: 5).
In many ways we live in a world of regions (Hettne 2005: 277; Katzenstein 2005). Indeed,
there is an argument that what many consider globalization is in fact regionalization (Choi and

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 Mark Beeson and Richard Stubbs

Caporaso 2002; Rugman 2008). But importantly, each region is different from the others. For
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example, as Frederik Söderbaum argues, there is a need to pay special attention ‘to historical
context’ and ‘the particular position of states and regions within the global political economy from
which distinctive processes and patterns of regionalism arise’ (Söderbaum 2005: 223). Similarly,
the unique geography, cultural practices and social mores of each region can be influential in how
a region develops (e.g. Fort and Webber 2006; Warleigh-Lack et al. 2011). Moreover, what has
been referred to as the extent of ‘regionness’ – or, in other words, the degree of coherence and the
depth of institutionalization within a geographic area – is different in each region of the world
(Hettne and Söderbaum 2000). Certainly, it needs to be recognized that each region has different
characteristics.

The Asian way of regionalism?

What is it, then, that can be said to distinguish the Asian region, Asian regionalism and its
associated institutions from the forms of regionalism to be found in North America, Europe,
Africa or South America? First, in terms of geography and population, Asia contains a more diverse
set of countries than anywhere else in the world. For example, within East Asia there are two of
the largest countries in the world – China with 1.3 billion people and occupying 9.6 million
square kilometres, and Indonesia with 231 million and covering 2 million square kilometres – and
at the same time some of the smallest countries in the world, such as Brunei, which has a
population of 400,000 inhabiting 380,000 square kilometres, and Singapore with just 5 million
people and an area of less than 1,000 square kilometres. Similarly, in South Asia, India has 1.2
billion people and covers 3.2 million square kilometres while Bhutan has a population of only
683,000 and occupies less than 40,000 square kilometres.
Second, and compounding this wide range in the size of the countries of Asia, are the
differences in social composition, levels of economic development, and types of political systems
of the societies in the region. Beyond the multiplicity of ethnic groups speaking many different
languages, is the great variety of religions that are represented. The main regional religions include
Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam, Sikhism and Taoism. Cutting across
these other divides in Asia are the differing degrees of economic prosperity. For example gross
domestic product (GDP) per capita of Singapore and Japan are close to US$40,000 while those of
Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Burma and Nepal are closer to US$500 and both Cambodia and Laos are
under US$1,000 (IMF 2010). On top of these marked social and economic variations across
Asia are differences in the political economy of Asian countries. The variations in political
systems range from democratic and quasi-democratic (soft-authoritarian) forms of government
to authoritarian dictatorships and from different forms of capitalist economies to an assortment of
communist systems.
Third, Asia’s recent history also underscores the diversity of the region. Most importantly, Asia
was colonized by a variety of major powers, including Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands, France,
Britain, the United States and Japan. Each colonizer left behind specific social, political and
economic legacies. Even those countries that were not formally colonized, such as Japan and
Thailand, were heavily influenced by a unique mix of Western ideas and practices. The multi-
plicity of colonial experiences only served to emphasize the differences among the countries and
societies of Asia. More recently, the Cold War also divided the Asian region. The communist or
pro-communist countries were pitted against those countries that supported the West. Some
countries from both sides also saw themselves as members of the Non-Aligned Movement as they
sought to get out from under the straightjacket of the Cold War. Even those countries that were
on the same side in the Cold War tended to be distant from each other as the Soviet Union and

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 Introduction

especially the US adopted a hub-and-spoke approach to contact with their Asian allies, which
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discouraged relations other than through the dominant power (see Stubbs 2005).
Fourth, and out of this immense diversity in terms of geography, social composition, history,
politics and economics that characterizes Asian countries and societies, comes the commitment to
sovereignty, territorial integrity and non-interference in the affairs of other countries and an
informal, non-confrontational approach to negotiations. Prompted in particular by the anti-
colonialism and anti-Cold War sentiments that characterized much of the region after the
Second World War, this approach was gradually grafted on to existing views about the conduct
of regional and international affairs (Acharya 2009). This process was achieved primarily through
regional conferences, such as those that occurred during the late 1940s and early 1950s and that
culminated in the Bandung Conference of 1955, as well as through formal treaties such as the 1967
Bangkok Declaration that inaugurated the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and
the 1976 Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia (TAC) originally passed by the
ASEAN members and subsequently, after 2003, acceded to by a host of Asian states including
China, India and Japan.
Just as importantly, the Bandung Conference deliberations were conducted in an informal
and non-confrontational manner. For example, contentious issues were avoided; informality
was encouraged; and the importance of wide consultation, compromise and consensus-building was
stressed (Acharya 2005; Mackie 2005). This approach later came to characterize ASEAN meetings
as well as meetings associated with ASEAN, such as the ASEAN Regional Forum and ASEAN
Plus Three. In other words, in addition to the formal code of conduct set out in the TAC, the
ASEAN members developed an informal code that governs regional meetings and negotiations
more generally. The set of ideas that inform this approach and that have come to be a key part of
ASEAN regionalism are often referred to as the ‘ASEAN Way’. Indeed, it has spilled over to
deliberations in non-ASEAN Asian arenas, such as the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation
(APEC) forum and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). It is characterized by
relatively unstructured discussions, informality and discreetness, pragmatism, expediency and a
search for a practical minimum solution that all parties can live with (Acharya 1997: 329; Capie
and Evans 2003). One particularly intriguing manifestation of this approach has been the
emergence of the Track II process. This approach brings together academics, policy analysts and
officials in their private capacity for relatively informal discussions about ways of advancing
regional economic and security cooperation on a range of issues. The results of these discussions
are then fed into Track I intergovernmental negotiations (Evans 2005).
Fifth, and further counterbalancing the fragmenting tendencies of the divisions that character-
ize Asia, is the strong communitarian strain that pervades key parts of the region (Chua 2009).
While rational liberalism and the concomitant idea of individualism have spread to Asia through
Western colonialism and most recently globalization, the communitarian instincts of state leaders
tend to reinforce a particular level and form of cooperation that seeks to overcome the fissures that
divide societies and countries in Asia in a very specific way. Other regional values also help to
promote a distinctive, cooperative form of regionalism project, such as the extent to which social
trust rather than the rule of law is given weight by governments. Regional leaders are encouraged
to consider relatively loose, less legally binding regionalism projects on the basis of pragmatism. In
other words, particular values that are to be found throughout the region tend to produce a form
of regionalism that is different to the regionalism in other parts of the world (Pettman 2010).
Sixth, a key characteristic of the region is the attention to performance or output legitimacy as
opposed to process or input legitimacy (Stubbs 2001). By the early 1950s the vicious fighting
during the Second World War, the Chinese Civil War, the Korean War, the many insurgency
wars that had broken out around the region as well as the fighting associated with the partition of

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India and the post-War decolonization process, had a devastating impact on the social, economic
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and political life of the region. The scale of physical destruction was immense and many social and
political institutions were simply swept away by the fighting. As a result, governments that could
bring a measure of social and political stability and security as well as economic prosperity were
accorded a good deal of legitimacy by the people they governed. Although input or process
legitimacy in terms of the way in which governments attain power has become increasingly
important, output legitimacy is still crucial. So to the extent that regional projects can aid in
establishing and maintaining regional social harmony, political stability and economic prosperity
they are welcomed by the general public.
Finally, it is important to note that the regional institution-building process in East Asia has
developed in a very specific way. Most notably it has been the ASEAN states that have taken the
lead in regional institution-building in this part of Asia. Hence, unlike in Europe where it was the
major powers, France and Germany, that took the lead, or in South America, where it was Brazil
and Argentina, in East Asia it has been a collection of relatively weak states that have been at the
forefront of the regionalism project. There have been a number of reasons for this development.
First, established in 1967, ASEAN was the first major regional player to emerge and has been at the
centre of regional developments including APEC, ARF, ASEAN Plus Three and the East Asian
Summit as East Asian regionalism has evolved over time. Second, ASEAN governments have
shown themselves to have excellent entrepreneurial leadership skills most notably in terms of
the development of widely accepted forums for regional cooperation and norms governing the
conduct of regional affairs. Third, for ASEAN, weakness has been a strength. ASEAN is seen as
neutral territory on which China and Japan – and when appropriate India and the US as well – can
meet and negotiate. While none of the major powers of the region can ultimately fully trust any of
the other major powers, they can all trust ASEAN because its members cannot, either singularly or
collectively, dominate any other state in Asia. Moreover, and somewhat ironically, ASEAN’s
pivotal regional role has also been accepted by China and Japan in good part because they need the
ASEAN members as followers if they ever want to be considered global leaders. This relationship
has in turn given ASEAN considerable leeway in terms of the activities of its member governments
in region-building endeavours.
As a consequence of ASEAN’s relative weakness, combined with its leadership role in the
development of Asian regionalism, the emphasis has been on respect for sovereignty and territorial
integrity, not on any notions of the sovereignty-pooling that might put the autonomy of ASEAN
members in jeopardy. Hence, in developing regional institutions, cooperation is given priority
over integration and the role of any regional secretariat is strictly limited in case it might impinge
on the sovereignty of member states. There are, of course, exceptions to this rule. Pragmatism,
particularly in terms of promoting economic growth, has encouraged increased economic inte-
gration in a number of instances. For example, aspects of the ASEAN Free Trade Area, the
ASEAN Economic Community and the China-ASEAN Free Trade Agreement, which came into
effect for the most developed of the ASEAN economies on 1 January 2010, tend to support
economic integration in East Asia. But, overall, East Asian countries remain guarded when it
comes to setting aside their sovereignty.

Making sense of Asian regionalism

These features of Asia and Asian regionalism are identified as giving the Asian regions a distinctive
character. Some of these features are material in that they highlight specific attributes of the region
that we can point to as physical, social or economic factors that characterize Asia and Asian
regionalism. Others features are what Acharya (2009: 6, 21–23) has labelled ‘regional cognitive

4
 Introduction

priors’, or ideas, belief systems and norms that are to be found influencing the way the regions of
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Asia have evolved. Together these characteristics make regionalization of Asia and Asian region-
alism different from the development of regionalization and regionalism to be found in other parts
of the world.
One issue that arises from this discussion, then, is the extent to which Asia’s various regions can
be compared to the world’s other regions. Most particularly, there has been some debate about
using the European Union and European regionalism as benchmarks against which to assess the
progress of Asian – especially Southeast Asian and East Asian – regionalism. During the 1990s and
into the first few years after the turn of the century there was a good deal of reticence about
drawing comparisons between European regionalism and Asian regionalism. The massive differ-
ences in size, cultures and levels of economic development among the component members of
Asia’s various regions were noted; also the very different norms that underpinned European and
East Asian regionalisms, and the different types of leadership exercised by the small and relatively
powerless states of ASEAN in East Asia and that exercised by the powerful states of France and
Germany in Europe. Yet more recently there has been an increased interest in comparing the two
forms of regionalism and in exploring way in which each can learn from the other (eg Fort
and Webber 2006; Loder et al. 2011; Murray 2010). But equally significant is the potential
cross-fertilization of ideas that could come from comparisons of Asian regionalism with the
regionalism to be found in other parts of the developing world such at Latin America, the
Caribbean and Africa. In documenting the main issues and trends in Asian regionalism, this
volume will contribute to the growing capacity of scholars to compare regions across the world.
It should be noted at this point that not all analysts, and certainly not all contributors to this volume,
will agree with this listing of the distinguishing features of Asian regionalism. Debates continue about
the extent to which each of these factors influences the ability of Asia’s governments and non-state
actors to build effective regional institutions and promote regional cooperation and even integration.
Much, of course, depends on the theoretical approach to regionalism adopted by analysts and the
particular aspect of regionalism being analysed. For example, those interested in security are rather
more likely to see the problems that confront regional institution-building than those who focus on
economic linkages such as trade and investment.
Early analysts of regionalism in Asia tended to adopt a ‘soft’ realism/neorealist approach and to
express scepticism about the capacity of regional institutions to cope with the exercise of power in
an anarchical world. Michael Leifer (1999), for example, argued that any attempt to deal with the
rise of a potential hegemon, and the consequent disruption of the balance of power, by non-
military means was highly problematic. This assessment has been repeated in realist and neorealist
studies of Asian security right up to the present time. Certainly, those examining security issues in
East Asia and South Asia from a structural realist or neorealist perspective have expressed strong
reservations, about the ability of regional organizations, even as they have grown and developed,
to deal with major conflicts. Indeed for many American commentators regional organizations are
irrelevant in their assessments of US-China relations and security issues in East and Southeast Asia
(eg Art 2008; Godwin 2008).
Intriguingly, as regionalism developed in various parts of Asia, few analysts took up the
main theoretical approaches that have traditionally been put forward to explore the reasons for
the emergence of European regionalism. First, there are what has been termed the ‘supranation-
alist’ approaches to regional integration, such as federalism, neofunctionalism, multilevel govern-
ance and epistemic communities (eg E.B Hass 1968; P.M. Hass 1992; Burgess 2000; Hooghe and
Marks 2001; Rosamond 2008; Peou 2010). While some scholars have explored epistemic
communities such as the Pacific Trade and Development Conference (PAFTAD) and the
Pacific Economic Cooperation Council (PECC) that were factors in the development of APEC

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(Ravenhill 2001: 63–65) and the region’s more recent Track II meetings (Morrison 2006), the
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situation in Asia has generally not been seen as similar enough to that in Europe for these
theoretical approaches to be widely adopted by those examining Asian regionalism. Second,
there are the intergovernmentalist approaches favoured mostly by international relations (IR)
scholars, who see regional integration as a process of interstate bargaining (Hoffmann 1995;
Moravcsik 1998). The main problem in trying to transfer theories of intergovernmentalism to
East Asia is the emphasis on the way in which the distribution of power within a region shapes
negotiated outcomes. So far, at least, power has not been particularly influential in shaping the
development of Asian regionalism. Certainly, there are few if any references to Moravcsik’s (1998)
work in analyses of Asian regionalism.
Although analyses of European regionalism were not influential in evaluations of the devel-
opment of Asian regionalism, during the 1990s two developments did change the way in which
Asian regionalism and regional organizations were assessed by a number of scholars. First, the end
of the Cold War, signalled in Asia by the withdrawal of Vietnam forces from Cambodia, created a
new environment for the conduct of international and regional affairs. States were forced to
contemplate their future outside the rigid bipolar world of the Cold War and to think about how
best to deal with their neighbours. In Asia this led, for example, to the founding of the ASEAN
Regional Forum in 1994, which provided a venue for a host of diverse participants to discuss Asian
security issues. Importantly, because the US was for so long a dominant strategic and economic
partner for so many governments in Asia, the changing role of the US has remained central to an
understanding of the region (eg Beeson 2006; Pempel 2008). And as economic issues rose to
prominence in other parts of the world, so too in Asia trade and investment issues became
significant and, as a consequence, objects of study.
Second, there emerged an array of new theoretical frameworks in the study of international
relations, which offered analysts different ways of explaining and understanding Asian regional
relations to that offered by realism and neorealism. Neo-liberalism had already established itself as a
major challenger to neorealism, in the US in particular, and was subsequently incorporated into
analyses of East Asian affairs (eg Ganesan 1995). But in many ways it was constructivism that
became the major challenger to the realist tradition of analysis. Constructivists argued that
ideational factors including norms, culture and identity were increasingly at the centre of Asian
regionalism and regional institution-building (Higgott and Stubbs 1995; Acharya 2001; Johnson
2003). The debate between realism and neorealism on the one hand and constructivism on the
other raised some intriguing issues such as the different views of power, the agency of local Asian
actors in regional affairs, and the socializing functions of regional institutions (Peou 2002; Eaton
and Stubbs 2006; Ba 2009). Institutionalist approaches have also taken centre stage in recent years
(Pempel 2005; Acharya and Johnson 2007). As the range of theories used by analysts of Asian
international relations and regionalism opened up, rationalist frameworks (Kawasaki 2006) and
insights from the English School (Narine 2006) have also been employed. In addition, analysts of
the region have offered critical perspectives on both security issues (eg Caballero-Anthony 2005;
Nesadurai 2006; Burke and McDonald 2007) and governance issues more generally (eg Tan 2006)
as well as the extent to which the ‘new regionalism’ approach can be applied to Asia (e.g. Berger
and Beeson 2005).
Moreover, as the economic linkages that unite the region have become more and more
evident, analysts of Asia and Asian regionalism have increasingly used theories of international
political economy to assess regionalism and regional institution-building in Asia. As globalization
has influenced more and more of Asia, a number of economic issues have been explored in some
depth. Notably, increasing amounts of foreign direct investment have come from within Asia with
the resulting cross-cutting investment patterns and the emergence of production networks

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 Introduction

helping to tie the economies of Asian countries closer to each other (Hatch and Yamamura 1996;
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Beeson 2007a). Similarly, the proliferation of Asian-based trade agreements as well as trade
agreements with countries outside Asia have also been the subject of analyses (eg Dent 2008a;
Ravenhill 2008).
Overall, the profusion of approaches to explaining and understanding Asian regionalism and
Asian regional institution-building underscores the dynamism of the scholarship on Asia and Asian
regionalism. This book is designed to present some of the key elements of the competing
interpretations of this important topic so that the reader has a chance to evaluate not just where
Asian regionalism is going but also how the scholarship on Asian regionalism is analysing these
trends and events.
The book is divided into five sections. The first section introduces some important conceptions
of Asia and the Asian region. The way in which Asia is conceptualized clearly has a major impact
on the different forms of regionalism that have been advanced and the way regionalism in Asia has
evolved. The second section is devoted to economic issues and explores the key forces that have
both shaped the countries of Asia and the forms of regionalism that have been pursued as a
consequence. The third section on political issues reviews the most significant questions of
governance and political order that currently preoccupy the people and governments of Asia.
Strategic issues are assessed in the fourth section with a full range of approaches employed in
addressing the key security questions of the era. Finally, the history and current role of the most
prominent organizations that lie at the centre of Asian region-building are reviewed in detail. The
conclusion highlights the strikingly contrasting optimistic and sceptical views about the future of
what has rapidly become the world’s most important region.