Forging a regional security community a study of the driving forces behind ASEAN and east asian regionalism 4

184

CHAPTER FOUR

THE ‘ASEAN WAY’ AS A MODEL FOR NORTHEAST ASIAN
REGIONALISM: AN ASSESSMENT


Synopsis
Contrary to claims that the ASEAN Way of cooperative security is the most
important factor in promoting Northeast Asian regionalism, this study found that
it is only one of several determinants. The ASEAN Way has both strengths and
weaknesses. The major criticism against the ASEAN Way (especially the ARF)
is that it is a mere ‘talk shop’ and unable to progress to the more important stages
of preventive diplomacy and conflict-resolution. But the ASEAN Way is
seriously weakened by the constraints of sovereignty and non-interference. It is
favoured by most of the ASEAN members and China, but opposed by the
Western powers and Japan. The strength of the ASEAN Way is its important role
in keeping channels of communication open among its great power members. It
is able to play a useful role, by default, because of Sino-Japanese rivalry. The
ASEAN Way is making a useful contribution by promoting ‘soft’ regionalism,
where there is growing economic cooperation but no progress in regional
political integration. Besides the ASEAN Way, there are five critical
determinants that can explain the dynamics of Northeast Asian regionalism over
the past two decades. First, the end of Cold War antagonisms at the global level
means that interstate competition is now mainly in the economic arena. Second,
the rise of China and its priority of national modernization are likely to
encourage Beijing to emphasize stability and responsible international behaviour.
Third, Japan’s quest to be a “normal” great power and its strong support for

multilateralism mean that Tokyo has to sensitively manage its relationship with a
rising China. Fourth, the regional leadership role of a middle power like South
Korea is a positive factor that contributes to the growth of regional integration.
Fifth, US support for open regionalism has been strongly influenced by the
determination of the East Asian states to further strengthen their regional
cooperation, especially since the end of the Asian financial crisis in 1998. In the
post- cold war era, US primacy also acts as an important regional stabilizing
force by setting clear limits on Sino-Japanese rivalry.










185

Introduction

For a region that is so synonymous with difference and diversity, it is
remarkable that any progress towards formal regional institutionalization
should have occurred If East Asia can develop effective institutional
forums this will be a development of long-term significance.
1


The main aim of this chapter is to assess the major determinants of Northeast

Asian security regionalism. First, it will re-examine a claim that the ‘ASEAN Way’ is
the most important factor in promoting security regionalism in Northeast Asia. Second, it
will assess the factors that have influenced the rise of a regional ‘security regime’ in post-
cold war Northeast Asia. It will conclude with observations on the main driving forces in
Northeast Asia.
This chapter is divided into following sections. In the first section, the nature of
inter-state relations in post-Cold War Northeast Asia is highlighted. In the second section,
I refer to a claim made by some scholars that ASEAN elites view the ASEAN Way of
cooperative security as the main factor to shape the Northeast Asian security order.
Examples of the ASEAN Way include the ARF, APT, and the EAS. The security
challenges posed by the Korean peninsula will be discussed in section three. In section
four, I will attempt an evaluation of the ARF’s contributions to the evolving security
architecture in Northeast Asia. In section five, I will discuss the major driving forces
currently shaping the pattern and dynamics of Northeast Asian regionalism.

1
Mark Beeson, Regionalism and Globalization in East Asia, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.
Alan Dupont has claimed that the ARF had sown the seeds of a security community in the Asia-
Pacific. See Dupont, The Future of the ARF: An Australian View, Canberra: Strategic and
Defence Studies Centre, ANU, 1998, pp. 2-5. Amitav Acharya, Constructing a Security
Community in Southeast Asia (2
nd
edition), London and New York: Routledge, 2009.


186

(A) The security environment in Northeast Asia
A remarkable feature of post-Cold War Northeast Asia is the growth of economic
interdependence among Japan, China, and South Korea, despite periodic tensions over

the ‘history’ problem arising from the legacy of Imperial Japan’s aggression during the
Second World War against its neighbours. Since 2005, China has overtaken the US to
become the largest trading partner of Japan and South Korea. In the post-Cold War era,
there have been a few occasions of regional political crises in Northeast Asia, but always
short of a ‘hot war’. These range from the 1993 US-North Korean tensions over
Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons programme, the 1995-96 testing of missiles by the Chinese
military in the Taiwan Straits to intimidate Taiwanese voters not to support President Lee
Teng-hui’s pro-independence policies, and a repeat of US-North Korean nuclear tensions
when the first George W. Bush administration in 2002 accused the Kim Jong-Il regime in
North Korea of seeking to develop a nuclear weapons capability.
All these geopolitical crises raised, for a time, concerns of escalation that could
threaten East Asian stability and prosperity. Fortunately, such concerns did not turn into
reality. Instead, in the post-Cold War era, Northeast Asia can be considered to have
undergone what optimists would regard as a remarkable transformation into a regional
‘security regime’. East Asian economic interdependence, in terms of intraregional trade,
and investment, has grown rapidly over the past twenty years.
2

2
William W. Grimes, Currency and Contest in East Asia: the Great Power Politics of
Financial Regionalism, Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2009. pp. 42-49.
In a 2009 study, William
Grimes found that there have been “substantial increases in intraregional trade” in East
Asia between 1980 and 2005: as a percentage of total trade of the East Asian economies,



187

intraregional trade has increased rapidly from a share of about one-third to over one half.

This means that the Northeast Asian economies have a higher percentage of trade among
themselves than do the NAFTA economies.
3
Since 2005, South Korea’s two top trading
partners are China and Japan. Japan’s top two trading partners are China and South
Korea. Japan’s and South Korea’s growing economic interdependence have spillover
effects on their foreign policies towards China.
4
China’s buoyant economy enabled Japan
to recover from its decade-long economic stagnation of the 1990s. Over the past decade,
China has become a key engine of economic growth for East Asian states. In her 2007
study, Evelyn Goh pointed out that between 1995 and 2004, China increased its
proportion of trade with ASEAN by about four percent, while the US experienced a
relative decline of 3-4 percent, and Japan lost about four percent from its share of imports
by ASEAN. The China-ASEAN FTA is expected to lead to more than US$10 billion
increases in mutual exports between China and ASEAN.
5
Since the early 1990s, Northeast Asia has actually enjoyed an enviable period of
relative peace and stability, despite the periodic roller-coaster fluctuations. How can this
phenomenon be explained? In my view, there are two broad explanations. First, it is


3
Ibid., pp. 43-44. A Japan Times editorial noted: “A strong alliance with the US is only a
starting point for Japanese foreign policy. Asia, and China in particular, are equally vital
partners.” (‘Mr Fukuda makes progress in Asia’, 23 November 2007). Cha Hak-bong,
“Korea-Japan race to woo Chinese tourists a sign of changing times”, The Chosun Ilbo 4
August 2010.

4

CIA Factbook 2007, cited in Farizal Razalli, “East Asian Regional Integration: The
Journey since the failure of the EAEG”, Journal of Management and Social Sciences, 5(1)
Spring 2009: 30-50.

5
Evelyn Goh, “Great Powers and Hierarchical Order in Southeast Asia: Analyzing
regional security strategies”, International Security 32(3) 2007/8: 113-57, cited in Tan
See Seng ed. Regionalism in Asia, Volume II, London and New York: Routledge, 2009.



188

about whether the ‘ASEAN Way’ and the kind of security community model it represents,
is exportable to Northeast Asia, and to what extent. Second, are there factors specific to
Northeast Asia that offers plausible explanations? This chapter proposes five factors to
attempt an explanation for the ‘relative peace and stability’ in Northeast Asia despite a
legacy of historical animosities, contemporary ‘clash of Chinese and Japanese
nationalisms’, and inter-state rivalries over territorial claims and regional influence.
These five factors are the end of the Cold War antagonisms; the rise of China and its
focus on domestic modernization; Japan’s quest to be a ‘normal’ country and its vision of
regional integration; the leadership role of middle powers like South Korea; and the new
and cautious US policy of support for open East Asian regional multilateralism.
The major security challenges facing Northeast Asia are the Korean Peninsula
(North Korean nuclear issue and Korean reunification), the Taiwan Issue (China’s
territorial claim that Taiwan island is an integral part of Chinese territory), and China-
Japan territorial disputes in the East China Sea and their regional leadership rivalry. The
election of Ma Ying-jeou as Taiwan’s president in March 2008 has led to intensified
economic interdependence between Taiwan and mainland China and an improvement in
their bilateral political relations.

6

6
Goh, Sui Noi, “Sino-Taiwan uneasy embrace: signing of landmark trade pact has not reduced military
distrust.” Straits Times 30 July 2010, p. A2.
But the nuclear ambitions of an insecure North Korea
is the most serious geopolitical threat to East Asian security, as seen in renewed tensions
there following the sinking of the South Korean corvette Cheonan in March 2010
allegedly by a North Korean submarine. We now turn to an analysis of the North Korean
challenge to Northeast Asian security.


189

(B) The Korean Peninsula as a major Northeast Asian security challenge
An immediate and urgent security challenge facing Northeast Asia concerns the Korean
Peninsula, in particular North Korea’s nuclear ambitions and the related issue of Korean
reunification. North and South Korea were separated at the 38
th
parallel at the end of
World War Two and remained so after the Korean War (1950-53). North Korea is an
international issue because of its domestic economic failures and its impact on the global
nuclear proliferation issue. Domestically, the repressive Kim Jong-Il regime is presiding
over a ‘failing state’: over the past decade, North Korea is facing famine. It is only
Chinese food and economic aid that is propping up the Pyongyang regime. North Korea
is one of the poorest states in the world. In contrast, South Korea has since the Korean
War been transformed into a wealthy OECD state.
7

Denuclearization of the Korean peninsula
The second North Korean nuclear crisis started in 2002 after the newly-elected
George W. Bush administration in the US accused Pyongyang of re-starting its nuclear
weapons program, in violation of the 1994 US-DPRK Framework Agreement. The crux
of the North Korean nuclear crisis can be traced to ‘regime-insecurity’ in Pyongyang, and
the hard-line policy of the Bush administration. In October 2002, North Korea admitted
to having developed a nuclear weapon. In December 2002, Pyongyang removed its
freeze on its plutonium-based nuclear program, again refused to admit IAEA inspectors

7
David Kang, “The security of the Korean peninsula”, in Sumit Ganguly, Andrew Scobell, and Joseph
Chinyong Liow eds., The Routledge Handbook of Asian Security Studies, London and New York: 2010:
35-47. Marianne Hanson and Rajesh Rajagopalan, “Nuclear weapons: Asian case studies and global
ramifications”, in William Tow ed., Security Politics in the Asia Pacific: A Regional-Global Nexus?
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009: 228-246.



190

and announced its intention to withdraw from the NPT the following month. But
President Bush’s inclusion in 2002 of North Korea as an ‘axis of evil’ state made the
North Korean leader Kim Jong-il even more recalcitrant. North Korea had good reasons
to feel threatened by President Bush’s use of force to remove Iraqi President Saddam
Hussein’s regime in the Iraq War of March 2003.
8
The Six-Party Talks (SPT) (involving
North and South Korea, the United States, China, Japan, and Russia) started in 2003 and
has been marked by twists and turns since then. It is aimed at the denuclearization of
North Korea. Washington wants the complete, irreversible, verifiable disarmament

(CIVD) of North Korea’s nuclear capability. For an impoverished North Korea, a
nuclear weapons capability is its last option. The fourth round of these negotiations held
in Beijing, led to a ‘breakthrough’: Pyongyang agreed to abandon its civilian and nuclear
weapons programs and return to the NPT in exchange for economic aid and improved
US-DPRK relations. Other members of the SPT promised security assurances, stronger
economic relations and eventual political normalization. The US affirmed that it had no
intention of attacking the DPRK with conventional or nuclear weapons, that it would
respect North Korea’s sovereignty and work to normalize its relations with Pyongyang.
After the US imposed sanctions on a Macau bank, accusing it of money laundering for
the DPRK, plus the troublesome question of Japanese abductees, Kim Jong-Il revoked the
September 2005 agreement. On 9 October 2006, North Korea tested a nuclear device.
9

8
Hanson and Rajagopalan ibid., pp. 238-239.

In May 2009, North Korea tested another nuclear device and also two missile tests. US
intelligence indicated that by 2006, North Korea had produced about 43 kilograms of
9
Hanson and Rajagopalan, ibid. pp. 240-241.


191

separated plutonium, which could result in the production of between five and fifteen
nuclear weapons. Pyongyang is believed to have exported missile materials and
technology to Egypt, Syria, Libya, Iran, Pakistan and Yemen. North Korea is also
pressing ahead with modernizing its missile delivery systems, including a potential ability
to reach the US mainland.
10

A negotiated solution to the North Korean nuclear issue is in the overall interests
of all the parties concerned. If a second Korean War were to break out, the consequences
would not only devastate the economies of Northeast Asia, especially South Korea and
China, but have an adverse spillover effect on Southeast Asia and indeed the rest of the
world. The commander of US forces in Korea estimated that a war could result in US$1
trillion in industrial damage and over 1 million casualties on the peninsula.
In February 2007, the SPT achieved a historic agreement:
Pyongyang agreed to declare its activities and disable its nuclear facilities in exchange for
security assurances and a series of political and economic incentives, especially the
provision of one million metric tons of heavy fuel oil to the DPRK by the US, China,
Russia and South Korea. Unfortunately, the February 2007 agreement unraveled because
of continuing mistrust between Pyongyang and Washington and disagreements on how to
implement the agreement. The unpredictable behavior of the Kim Jong-Il regime can be
seen in the 26 March 2010 sinking of the South Korean warship Cheonan, allegedly by a
North Korean submarine torpedo.
11

10
Ibid., p. 240.
Seoul faces
a complex dilemma: how to avoid a rapid collapse of the North Korean regime on the one
hand, while deterring North Korea on the other. China faces a similar problem to South
11
David Kang 2010, op. cit. p.38.


192

Korea’s: how to avoid instability on its borders.
12

Japan’s role in the SPT negotiations is
essentially that of a ‘bystander’, in that Tokyo is more fixated with the abductees’ issue
and a reluctance to engage North Korea.
13
The US role on the Korean peninsula remains
critical. Traditionally, the US adopts a ‘hub-and-spokes’ bilateral alliances approach
with South Korea and Japan. Presidents Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun adopted the
Sunshine Policy aimed at political reconciliation with North Korea. But this was opposed
by the George W. Bush administration. In May 2008, ROK President Lee Myung-bak
stated: “It is not desirable that Korea sides with a particular country. To maintain peace
in the region, a balanced diplomacy is needed…Korea-US relations and Korea-China
relations are not contrary to each other but mutually complementary.”
14

It is a plausible
scenario that as South Korea increases its economic interdependence with a rising China,
Seoul may increasingly opt to pursue a more equidistant policy with regards to relations
with China and the US, which is likely to have implications for a peaceful solution of the
Korean nuclear proliferation and reunification issues.









12
Kang, ibid., p. 39. Yufan Hao, “The Korean peninsula: a Chinese view on the North Korean Issue”, in

Hao, C.X. George Wei, and Lowell Dittmer eds., Challenges to Chinese Foreign Policy: Diplomacy,
Globalization, and the next world power. Lexington, Kentucky: The University Press of Kentucky, 2009:
155-172.
13
Ibid., p. 39. See also Brad Williams and Erik Mobrand, “Explaining divergent responses to the North
Korean Abductions issue in Japan and South Korea”, The Journal of Asian Studies 19 (2) May 2010:
507-536.
14
Ibid., p.44.


193

C) Claims about extending the ASEAN Way as a model
to shape the Northeast Asian regional order


The ‘ASEAN Way’ of cooperative security reflects an ambitious attempt by the ASEAN
states, a grouping of small and medium-sized states, to project their leadership credentials
in extending their consensual and informal security culture to bigger and more powerful
states in the wider East Asian and Asia-Pacific regions. Historically speaking, this is an
audacious undertaking, given that it is usually great powers that provide the impetus for
regional and global leadership. The examples of such ASEAN-led regional integration
initiatives are the ARF, APT, EAS, and the notion of establishing an East Asian
Community (EAC). The ASEAN elites know that regional stability and security in
Southeast Asia are inextricably linked to developments and trends in the wider Northeast
Asian region. The two sub-regions together form what Buzan and Waever call a
‘regional security complex’, where their security interests are interdependent.
15

The ARF is a multilateral discussion group focussing on dialogue and confidence-
building measures as a first step to cooperative security in the Asia-Pacific. It is the first
inclusive region-wide security arrangement. The ASEAN elites see the ARF as
extending the peaceful norms of the ASEAN Way to the steady building of a security
community in the wider East Asian region. In 1998, Singapore’s Foreign Minister S.
Jayakumar stated that the ARF had become “a means of encouraging the evolution of a

15
Barry Buzan and Ole Waever, Regions and Powers: The Structure of International Security. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2003.


194

more predictable and constructive pattern of relations between major powers with
interests in the region.”
16
The effectiveness of ASEAN and the ‘ASEAN Way’ in promoting Southeast
Asian and Northeast Asian regionalism are highly contested between ‘ASEAN-boosters’
and ‘ASEAN-sceptics’. The wide range of divergent views about the efficacy of the
ASEAN Way as an extension to the wider East Asian region is cogently captured by Alex
Bellamy: “The ARF and APT mechanisms…were created with the express aim of
enhancing regional security. The ARF has been variously described as the basis for a
broader Asian security community, a model for Northeast Asian politics and a failing
experiment ‘built on sand’.

17

But is that a fair evaluation of the ARF?

I will focus attention on the claims made by the ‘ASEAN-boosters’ about the
importance of extending the ‘ASEAN Way’ to promoting and shaping the Northeast
Asian regional order. Writing in 1997, Amitav Acharya noted that the ASEAN elites saw
the extension of the ASEAN Way to the broader East Asian and Asia-Pacific regions as
an integral part of East Asian regional-identity building:

“The emergence of multilateral institutions in the Asia-Pacific
region raises a question of considerable theoretical and policy
relevance to students of international relations: is the process of

16
Ralf Emmers, “Security Cooperation in the Asia-Pacific: Evolution of Concepts and Practices”, in
Amitav Acharya and Tan See Seng eds., Asia-Pacific security cooperation: national interests and
regional order. New York: M.E. Sharpe Inc., 2004:
17
Lau Teik Soon, ‘ARF as a Model for Northeast Asian Security?’ in T. Inoguchi and G.B. Stillman eds.
Northeast Asian Regional Security: The Role of International Institutions. Tokyo: United Nations
University Press, 1997; Robyn Lim, ‘The ARF: Building on Sand’, Contemporary Southeast Asia, 20
(2) 1998: 115-35; J. Garofano, ‘Power, Institutions and the ARF: A Security Community for Asia?’
Asian Survey 42 (3) 2000: 505-521; cited in Alex Bellamy, “Security”, in Mark Beeson ed.
Contemporary Southeast Asia. US and UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009 (second edition).



195

institution-building in this region different from that in other
parts of the world? This question assumes particular importance
in view of the rejection by some Asian policymakers of a
European-style multilateral institution, such as NATO, the EU

and more importantly the OSCE…as a possible model for their
region. Moreover, Southeast Asian leaders and intellectuals
speak of an ‘ASEAN way’ of regional cooperation, which is
being promoted by them as the organizing framework of
multilateralism at the wider Asia-Pacific regional level…”
18



An assessment of the ARF’s contributions to Northeast Asian regionalism
My argument is that the ASEAN Way of cooperative security is only one of
several factors in the promotion of Northeast Asian regionalism. The ASEAN
Way has played a useful contributory ‘minimalist-assurance’ role, but there are
clear inherent limitations on its ability to push forward Northeast Asian
regionalism. These limitations have to do with what China, Japan, and South
Korea regard as their core national interests which may or may not be
particularly susceptible to the norms of the ASEAN Way. The main point here
is that the nature of the ARF mechanism and norms do not threaten the core
vital interests of its members, especially the major powers like the US, China,
and Japan. As such, ARF members can go along most of the time with the
ASEAN Way provided it does not jeopardize their core political-security
interests. As Haacke and Morada have pointed out:
“Collectively, the ASEAN countries have successfully clung on to the
self-arrogated role of the ARF’s ‘primary driving
force’…However…ASEAN’s own efforts at reinventing itself, partly in

18
Amitav Acharya, “Ideas, Identity, and Institution-Building: From the ‘ASEAN way’ to the ‘Asia-
Pacific way’, Pacific Review 10 (3) 1997: 319-46; cited in Tan See Seng ed., Regionalism in Asia:
Critical Issues in Modern Politics, Volume III. London and New York: Routledge, 2009: 142-170.

196

order to continue to justify this position have not inspired great confidence.
Essentially, ASEAN has acted defensively within the ARF…By directly
addressing issues such as counter-terrorism, non-proliferation, or maritime
security, ASEAN states indicate their preparedness to respond positively
and constructively to concerns pushed by the US and regional allies.
However, the question remains whether ASEAN’s limitations in conflict
management will allow it to play a role other than confidence building.”
19



A number of factors compelled ASEAN to establish the ARF. One factor was, as pointed
out by Sheldon Simon, that the end of the Cold War in 1989 left the East Asian and Asia-
Pacific regions “searching for a new organizing principle for security…Moreover,
‘traditional’ security issues persisted in the form of unresolved territorial disputes,
divided states, nuclear-weapons proliferation, and conflicting maritime jurisdictions
resulting from the 1982 Law of the Sea.”
20
The thinking among ASEAN elites was that
the peaceful norms of ASEAN’s Treaty of Amity and Cooperation (TAC) of 1976 would
provide a mechanism for the peaceful resolution of inter-state disputes to the wider Asia-
Pacific region. The immediate target of the ARF was to peacefully socialize China – the
only ‘extra-regional’ state with territorial claims in Southeast Asia. Second, the
Northeast Asian region did not have an ARF-type regional forum: China and the two

Koreas still viewed Tokyo with suspicions arising from Imperial Japan’s aggression in
World War Two. Hence, ASEAN was able to fill this vacuum by offering to create a
new East Asia-wide entity modeled on the ‘ASEAN Way’, a process of consultation and
dialogue to build regional confidence.
21

19
Jurgen Haacke and Morada eds. op. cit., p. 220.
Basically, the ARF was established to help
manage the East Asian regional order, but not to solve regional conflicts. Its underlying
assumption is that by ensuring that the Great Powers remain on speaking terms, it will
20
Sheldon W. Simon, “The ASEAN Regional Forum”, in Ganguly eds. op. cit., 2010: 300-310.
21
Ibid., p. 300.


197

reduce the likelihood that their security competition will spiral out of control into armed
conflicts.

Criticisms and Strengths of the ARF
The major criticisms are that the ARF is merely a ‘talk shop’, and that it has shown an
inability to move ahead from confidence-building to its two other more important stages,
‘preventive diplomacy’ (PD) and the final stage of ‘conflict resolution’ (CR). Criticisms
against the ARF came in very early. As pointed out by Rizal Sukma, barely two years
after its formation, the ARF was already seen as “in danger of being fractured and
bypassed by events in Burma and other parts of Asia that it cannot handle”.
22

The ARF consists of a total of 27 states, including the ASEAN states and the
major powers, US, Russia, China, and Japan. How do the non-ASEAN powers really
view the ARF? According to Sheldon Simon, the major weakness of the ARF stems
from the different strategic interests of Asian and Western members of the ARF.

23

22
Michael Richardson, “Events in Burma threaten to fracture ASEAN Regional Forum”, International
Herald Tribune, 28 May 1996. Cited in Rizal Sukma, “The Accidental Driver: ASEAN in the ASEAN
Regional Forum”, in Jurgen Haacke and Noel Morada eds. Cooperative Security in the Asia-Pacific:
The ASEAN Regional Forum, London and New York: Routledge, 2010, p. 111.

Simon’s views are worth quoting: “While the ARF has turned from confidence-building
measures to preventive diplomacy, the transition is difficult. China’s as well as some
other members’ reluctance reflect a concern that basic national security issues, such as
the future of Taiwan, not be subject to ARF deliberations. By contrast, Canada, Australia,
Japan, and the US would like to see the ARF strengthened. The US particularly hopes
23
Sheldon Simon, “The ASEAN Regional Forum”, in Ganguly eds. The Routledge Handbook of Asian
Security Studies. London and New York: Routledge, 2010: 301-302.


198

that the ARF will serve as an anti-terror cooperative mechanism. However, the ARF’s
consensus rule, adopted from ASEAN, has proven a serious obstacle to managing
tensions that arise from the divergent strategic interests of ARF members.”
Regarding the ambivalent US view, Haacke and Morada noted that ‘in the early
1990s, the US accepted the ARF but as a complement to its ‘hub-and-spokes’ model of

security alliances. That said, whatever hopes Washington had to work through and
change the ARF to address regional security issues were disappointed. The US does see
the ARF as performing a useful role in signaling Washington’s commitment to support
ASEAN and serves ‘as a window on Chinese intentions and behavior’.
24
But in the
overall American scheme of things, the ARF ranks below vital American interests in
Europe, the Middle East and the Persian Gulf. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
made a decision to skip ARF meetings in 2005 and 2007. As for Japan, Takeshi Yuzawa
has pointed that “Tokyo initially harboured high expectations for the ARF. But Tokyo’s
expectations that ARF participants would be able to enhance military transparency and
address regional disputes over time were sorely disappointed.
25
Yuzawa concluded that
Japanese policymakers now hold out very little hope of the ARF moving beyond
confidence building, focusing only on engaging China and North Korea.
26

24
Haacke and Morada eds. 2010: 7.
In the case of
China, a study by Christopher Hughes argued that the ARF ‘possesses some utility for
Beijing in terms of providing a venue in which it can attempt to contain American
influence’, but Hughes also ‘suggests that China should be expected to continue to stifle
25
Cited in Haacke and Morada eds. 2010: 10.
26
Ibid., p. 10.

199

ARF cooperation.’
27
Jurgen Haacke has argued that a major limitation on the ARF’s
effectiveness is ‘the strong concern of ASEAN states about possible infringements of
sovereignty’.
28
The usefulness and capabilities of the ARF are inherently limited by its very
nature: it is initiated and led by a grouping of small and medium-sized states, which
claims to seek to socialize the great powers, especially China and the US, into the norms
of an informal ASEAN-style cooperative security; its current leadership role (“driver’s
seat”) is by default because of the China-Japan historical impasse and regional leadership
rivalry; continuing mistrust among China, Japan, and South Korea; and US pre-
occupation with other more pressing issues in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Middle East.
Should these variables change, it is very conceivable that the usefulness and continued
relevance of the ASEAN Way, especially by the non-ASEAN powers, may be called into
question. The essence of the criticisms against the ARF is well captured by Ralf Emmers:
“The shortcomings of the ARF with respect to the traditional security flashpoints in the
Asia-Pacific – the Korean Peninsula, Taiwan, and the South China Sea – are clear. The
institution is in no position to tackle these issues.”

29
However, in my view, the critics tend to misunderstand the true purpose and long-
term strategic significance of the ARF in influencing the evolving security architecture of
East Asia. It has survived for sixteen years, and has re-invented itself by including non-
traditional security issues (transnational diseases and environmental crises, counter-
terrorism) in its agenda. ARF officials are also aware that it is facing stiff competition

27
Cited in Haacke and Morada eds. 2010: 10.
28
Haacke and Morada eds. 2010: 11.
29
Ralf Emmers, 2004, op. cit., p.17.


200

from other regional forums, especially the Asian Security Summit (or the Shangri-La
Dialogue) hosted annually by the London-based IISS since 2001. It is important to
remind ourselves of what the ARF can achieve. We need to pare down our expectations
about the ARF. Its primary goal is to serve as a diplomatic-consultative forum, a critical,
first-step mechanism to promote the discussion of regional military-security issues so as
to prevent them from escalating into hot military conflicts. The ARF was never
established as a conflict resolution mechanism. That goal is part of the ARF’s long-term
vision, and it can grow only with the full support and commitment of all its members.
But the essential problem facing the ARF is that its great-power members, especially the
US and China, have divergent perceptions about the ARF’s mandate and capabilities.
From a constructivist viewpoint, the ARF is first and foremost a ‘forum’, which can lead
to the sharing and transference of socializing norms of non-use of force and peaceful
coexistence among states. This function of the ARF forum should not be underestimated.
The ARF’s basic premise starts from recognition of regional strategic complexity, an area
beset by historical, cultural, political, and strategic divides. At a minimal level, the ARF
performs the key role of maintaining open channels of communications, an important
first step in preventing inter-state misunderstandings and misperceptions from escalating
into more serious armed confrontations. One value of a diplomatic-consultative forum is,
as Geoffrey Stern has pointed out, that it serves as a safety valve where different parties
to a potential conflict can articulate their viewpoints, positions and grievances.

30

30
Geoffrey Stern, The Structure of International Society: an introduction to the study of
international relations (2
nd
edition), London and New York, 2000, pp. 177-192.
This
basic value of the ARF should not be belittled, especially in an environment of post-Cold



201

War strategic uncertainty. Thus the ARF functions to reduce tensions and prevent
conflict-escalation. The criticism that the ARF is merely a ‘talk shop’ is only partially
valid and actually misses the point. Given that the ARF membership spans the entire
spectrum of different economic and political systems across the Asia-Pacific, it takes
time and sustained effort to build up confidence and trust. To illustrate, some analysts
have pointed to the ARF’s “socializing” role in influencing the PRC’s responses to the
South China Sea problem.
31
Barry Desker has pointed out that an important strength of
the ARF is that it has “introduced a new norm into the ASEAN process of cooperative
security which emphasized inclusiveness through the promotion of dialogue among both
like-minded and non-like-minded states.”
32
The PRC was a founding member when the
ARF was inaugurated in 1994. By 1997, the PRC had become more comfortable with the
ARF and hosted and co-chaired a confidence-building group in 1997. In November 2004,

Beijing hosted and co-chaired the first ARF Security Policy Conference, which
contributed to building confidence and fostering mutual understanding.
33

31
Alice Ba, “Who’s socializing Whom? Complex Engagement in Sino-ASEAN Relations”, The
Pacific Review, 192) June 2006: 157-79. One could counter-argue that the peaceful norms of the
‘ASEAN Way’ have been an integral part of the PRC’s foreign policy ideals since the mid-1950s.
See Sophie Richardson 2010, op cit. In an international system still dominated by the US, China
is using the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence to steadily achieve its longer term goal Great
Power status. See David M. Lampton, “The United States and China in the Age of Obama:
looking each other straight in the eyes”, Journal of Contemporary China, 18 (62) November 2009:
703-727.
In October
2003, China became the first non-ASEAN state to accede to the TAC. It was followed by
India (October 2003), Japan (July 2004), Pakistan (2004), South Korea (November 2004),

32
Barry Desker, “The Future of the ASEAN Regional Forum”, IDSS Commentaries, October 2001.

33
Togo 2008 op cit.: 171. Acharya has argued that “the ARF’s contribution to regional order may
well lie in the socializing impact of multilateralism on the balancing behaviour of major Asia-
Pacific powers”. Acharya 2009, op cit., p. 214.



202

Russia (November 2004, New Zealand (July 2005), Australia (December 2005), the EU

(July 2009), and the US (July 2009).
A recent development highlights a potential threat to the relevance of the ARF in
the years ahead. This has to do with the institutionalization of the Trilateral Summit
meetings among the leaders of China, Japan, and South Korea. After their inaugural APT
summit meeting in December 1997, the three Northeast Asian leaders are now meeting
annually on their own, with their first such meeting in Fukuoka, Japan in December 2008
amid the global financial crisis. The second Trilateral Summit was held in Beijing in
December 2009 and attended by Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, Prime Minister Hatoyama,
and President Lee Myung-bak.
34

The third Trilateral Summit was held in Seoul, where
the three leaders also discussed the sinking in March 2010 of the South Korean warship,
Cheonan, allegedly by a North Korean submarine. The point here is that on core, vital
issues specific to Northeast Asia, the ARF has little or no role at all. But this is not a bad
thing at all because ASEAN and its ASEAN Way institutions made it possible for the
blossoming of the Trilateral Summit in the first place. The ASEAN Way of cooperative
security has done its useful function of socializing and bringing the top leaders of the
three Northeast Asian powers together. Whether the Trilateral Summit will further
evolve into a more permanent security mechanism for Northeast Asian regionalism
remains to be seen.



34
(Accessed on 16 July 2010.)


203

Reasons why ASEAN is playing the ‘driver’s’ role in the ARF
There are a number of reasons to explain ASEAN’s ability to play a central role in
promoting regional community-building in East Asia. First, the degree of ASEAN’s own
political unity has been an important factor. Through innumerable informal and formal
meetings and consultations, ASEAN’s leaders have been able to steadily promote greater
confidence-building among themselves on core, vital regional issues like the Cambodian
Issue 1979-1991, especially the need to present a united front. In this regard, Suharto’s
Indonesia, by virtue of its weight as the largest ASEAN state in terms of population and
territorial size, played a critical regional leadership role.
35
Despite the great cultural-
economic-political diversity and challenges (like the Myanmar Issue), the ASEAN
political elites are strongly committed to building a united and strong regional
organization. One challenge is posed by the gross human rights abuses committed by the
military regime in Myanmar
36


, and the subject of very strong condemnations by the US
and other EU states. The Western powers have continued to apply very strong pressures
on ASEAN to ostracize or expel the Myanmar junta. Critics argue that the continued
membership of the Myanmar junta jeopardizes ASEAN’s credibility. But such criticisms
miss the point, and it is very unlikely that ASEAN will act to either impose sanctions
against Myanmar, or to expel Myanmar. The key point to remember, from the
perspective of most of ASEAN’s political elites, is that Myanmar is an integral part of the
35
Alice Ba 2009, op cit.: 70-71; Tommy Koh, “Why you shouldn’t yawn at ASEAN”,
Straits Times, 29 April 2009.

36

See Brian L. Job, “Grappling with an elusive concept”, and William Case, “Democracy
and security in East Asia”, both in William Tow ed. 2009, op cit., p. 46 and p. 129
respectively.


204

Southeast Asian region, and hence must remain a member of the ASEAN ‘regional
family’. The informal ASEAN Way implies that a wayward family member must be
brought back into the mainstream through patient and face-saving persuasion and
diplomatic consultation. There are little or no signs that this basic ASEAN approach will
change in the foreseeable future.

Summary of the ARF’s Effectiveness
Overall, the ARF performs a useful, contributory role in promoting greater confidence-
building and regional stability in Northeast Asia, but only up to a point. The ARF should
be conceptualized as a ‘minimal reassurance’ dialogue mechanism which, at least, keeps
channels of communications open among great power rivals. This inclusive ‘information
flows’ role is critical as it can help prevent inter-state misunderstandings from a
dangerous cycle of escalation into armed conflicts. Institutionally, the ARF is weak: it is
a purely voluntary entity, with no powers to apply sanctions against members who
misbehave.
But the ARF has a fundamental weakness. It has the overall political-security
interests of the ASEAN states as its central goal. At a minimal level, most of the non-
ASEAN members can go along with this. However, problems will arise when matters
concerning the ‘core, vital interests’ of the non-ASEAN states are at stake. This is
especially so on matters like Beijing’s territorial claim over Taiwan, the denuclearization
of the Korean peninsula, and the South China Sea disputes. On such politically sensitive
matters, the real need is for practical solutions, not mere ‘management’ of issues. On
issues that touch the ‘core, vital interests’ of the Northeast Asian states, the limitations of

205

the ASEAN Way are exposed. Having said that, it is important to remember that the
ASEAN Way had performed the important task of ‘ice-breaker’ in bringing the leaders of
the three Northeast Asian states together for the first time at the inaugural APT meeting
in December 1997 in Kuala Lumpur. More importantly, direct Heads of Government
summit meetings of the leaders of China, Japan, and South Korea have developed a
steady momentum of their own, culminating in the first Trilateral Summit of Chinese,
Japanese, and South Korean leaders in Fukuoka, Japan, in 2008. It would appear to be
clear that the Trilateral Summit has the potential to blossom into a Northeast Asian
multilateral mechanism to deal directly with specifically regional core issues, thereby
strengthening prospects for enhanced Northeast Asian regionalism.
Finally, the limitations of the ASEAN Way as a model for Northeast Asian
regionalism points to a real need to address a related question: what are the crucial
drivers of Northeast Asian regionalism? The short answer is that the key drivers here are
the key states/actors (China, Japan, Korea, and the US) and their calculations of their
respective ‘national interests’. This related question will be analyzed in the next section.

What are the main driving forces of Northeast Asian Regionalism?
(A) The end of Cold War antagonisms and its Implications for Northeast Asian
Regional integration

At the global level, the end of superpower Cold War antagonism by the early 1990s was
an important factor which allowed the thawing of East-West ideological divisions and a
more relaxed international environment conducive for the promotion of mutually
beneficial inter-state relations around the world. The end of the Cold War was

206

accompanied by the steady rise of China’s economic and military power. The collapse of
the Soviet Union in 1991 ended the life-and-death struggle between the communist and
capitalist great powers. Its significance is that it removed a major ideological divide in
the international system. The Soviet collapse also highlighted the superiority and greater
effectiveness of the free-market capitalist system in generating wealth and prosperity in
the non-Western world. It also led Francis Fukuyama
37
to posit ‘the end of history’. The
inefficiencies of Soviet-style central economic planning and the excesses of Maoism
encouraged Deng Xiaoping to turn towards capitalism to promote higher economic
growth rates in China by turning to the outside world.
38
From a realist perspective, the mutual antagonism between the US-led ‘Free
World’ and the communist powers during the Cold War limited the rise of mutually
beneficial relations among states in the Northeast Asian region.
By the time Gorbachev came to
power in the mid-1980s, he knew that the USSR faced a systemic economic crisis. At the
global level, the end of the Cold War led to a sharp decline in ideologically-driven
conflicts between the hostile political systems of democracy and communism. The end
of communist regimes in Eastern Europe led to important mindset changes by national
leaders and mass publics around the world. It also enabled the spread of peaceful norms
of inter-state behaviour to take hold.
39

37
Francis Fukuyama, “The End of History”, The National Interest, Summer 1989.
The features of the

38
Michael Yahuda, The International Politics of the Asia-Pacific, 1945-1995. London:
Routledge, 1996. David L. Shambaugh and Michael Yahuda, International Relations of
Asia, University of California: Rowman and Littlefield, 2008.
39
Samuel S. Kim, The International Relations of Northeast Asia, University of California:
Rowman and Littlefield, 2004. G. John Ikenberry and Chung-in Moon eds., The United


207

Cold War era were a zero-sum mentality between the two antagonistic military blocs, the
US-led NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization), and the Soviet-dominated Warsaw
Pact. To deter the threat of Soviet expansionism, the US adopted its Containment Policy.
Evelyn Goh has argued that unchallenged American preponderance in the 1950s and
1960s led to a stable Asian security order, and that greater challenges in the post-Vietnam
War era, especially by China since the mid-1990s, have led to greater strategic
uncertainty in East Asia:
It was the end of the Cold War…that brought about the most significant
transition in the global and Asian regional orders. Globally, the US
remained the only superpower with resources that outstripped those of
any other single state. In Asia, China’s position continued to
strengthen, as concerns grew about the potential decline of American
strategic interest in the region. The 1990s were a decade in which
regional actors became most prominent in arguably reconstituting the
regional hierarchy, to manoeuvre the US firmly back into a position of
regional primacy.
40

In East Asia, the US adopted a policy of forming bilateral ‘hub-and-spokes’ alliances,
with itself as the leader, to cement its regional primacy. In the wake of the North Korean
invasion of South Korea in June 1950, Washington established the bilateral US-Japan
Security Treaty in 1951 as its linchpin to maintain regional peace and security in East
Asia. During the Cold War, Northeast Asia was marked by a number of features which
led realist observers like Aaron Friedberg to argue that the region was ‘ripe for rivalry’

States and Northeast Asia: Debates, Issues, and New Order, University of California:
Rowman and Littlefield, 2008.

40
Evelyn Goh,, “Hegemony, hierarchy and order”, in William T. Tow ed. Security Politics
in the Asia-Pacific: A Regional-Global Nexus?, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2009, pp.109-110.


208

and instability.
41

These features included unresolved territorial disputes, the divided
Korean peninsula, and the PRC’s claims of sovereignty over Taiwan, fears of an
escalating arms race, lingering historical animosities arising from the aggression
committed by Imperial Japan against China and Korea, and different political-economic
systems and values. Overall, the significance of the end of the Cold War is that it led to
critical mindset changes which facilitated closer regional economic and political
cooperation among the Northeast Asian states.
(B) The Rise of China and its focus on domestic modernization
China’s rise and its ‘New Security Concept’ is a critical factor shaping Northeast Asian

regionalism. Historically, China had been the paramount power in East Asia. Having
endured ‘a century of shame and humiliations’, Beijing’s strategic goal seeks the
restoration of China’s centrality in East Asian affairs. A key driver for expanded
regionalism in East Asia has been the rise of economic and military power in China,
especially Beijing’s definition of the country’s ‘national interests’. As pointed out by the
US-based Congressional Research Service in a January 2008 study, “China’s rise
represents the key driver in the evolving security landscape in Asia. China is now
attracting regional states with its economic power and is offering competing vision to the

41
Friedberg 1993, op cit. Michael Yahuda, The International Politics of the Asia-Pacific,
New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2004. Akira Iriye, Across the Pacific: An Inner History of
American-East Asian Relations, Chicago: Imprint Publications, 1992. See also Jae-Jung
Suh, “The Two-Wars Doctrine and the Regional Arms Race: Contradictions in US Post-
Cold War Security Policy in Northeast Asia”, Critical Asian Studies 35 (1) 2003: 3-32.