|
 |
Research Paper no. 13 2009–10
Australia’s proposal for an ‘Asia Pacific Community’: issues and prospects
Dr Frank Frost
Foreign Affairs, Defence and Security Section
1 December 2009
Contents
Executive Summary
- In June 2008 Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced that Australia
would seek to encourage development of an ‘Asia Pacific Community’ by 2020.
He argued that no existing cooperation forum so far brings together the whole
Asia Pacific region and it was therefore desirable to review the region’s
‘architecture’. This paper surveys the background to and recent evolution of
this proposal.
- After outlining the recent development of major cooperation
forums in the very diverse East Asia and Asia Pacific regions, the paper
discusses the proposal made by Australia since June 2008. It then surveys the
range of academic, political and other responses which have followed, from
within Australia and the region.
- The paper presents the key findings of the Government’s Special
Envoy Richard Woolcott, who has suggested that although there is little
enthusiasm in the region for creating distinctly new institutions, there is a
high degree of interest in discussing further how cooperation processes may
be enhanced.
- The paper reviews recent developments relevant to evolving
debates, including the changing emphases of the new governments in the United
States and Japan and discussions at the East Asia Summit in October 2009. It
suggests that several factors will be important in further consideration of
Australia’s proposal. These include determining the appropriate membership
and institutional arrangements and cooperation styles in a revised dialogue,
and considering the implications of such a revised dialogue for existing
regional groupings.
|
Introduction
On 4 June 2008, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced that
Australia would seek to make a contribution to enhance multilateral cooperation
in the Asia Pacific region.[1] The existing multilateral associations and dialogues, he argued, had so far not
produced a grouping which brings together the whole region for economic and
political cooperation and it was therefore timely to review long term visions
for the region’s ‘architecture’. Mr Rudd also announced that the government had
appointed Richard Woolcott (a former Secretary of the Department of Foreign
Affairs and Trade) as a Special Envoy to consult widely in the region. A
further step in the process of consultation and discussion will be a conference
on these issues in Sydney with both official and non-official participants on
4–5 December 2009.
This Research Paper will outline the background to recent
debates on Asia Pacific cooperation, the proposals advanced by the Rudd
Government, responses to and comments about the proposals, and the outcomes so
far of Mr Woolcott’s consultations (as presented in his ‘concept paper’,
October 2009). The paper concludes by reviewing some major issues and
challenges arising in the process of ongoing debate about Asia Pacific regional
‘architecture’.
In the last four decades substantial efforts have been made
to pursue inter-state cooperation in the very diverse regions of East Asia and
the wider Asia Pacific.[2] For many years, in the aftermath of World War II, such efforts were hampered by
the impact of post-colonial transitions and the impact of Cold War tensions. However,
from the late 1960s, substantial efforts at cooperation began to be made by
states in the region and in the four decades since, a number of regional
groupings have developed to help advance economic and political security.
ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations),
established in 1967, was the first major indigenous effort at cooperation and
has since been the focus of much of the region’s cooperative activity. ASEAN
now includes ten Southeast Asian states and is pursuing ambitious plans to
achieve an ‘ASEAN Community’ by 2020 with economic integration and close
cooperation in political and security issues and socio-cultural affairs. It
adopted a charter in 2008 and has also recently established a mechanism to
monitor and discuss human rights issues. ASEAN’s cooperation style has stressed
respect for national sovereignty, avoiding confrontation, reaching agreement
through consensus and proceeding at a pace all members are comfortable with.[3]
ASEAN has since 1994 sponsored several additional dialogues,
with differing focuses and memberships. The ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF,
initiated in 1994) was inaugurated after the end of the Cold War to increase
communication and dialogue among the major and regional powers. It now has 27
members from East Asia, South Asia, Oceania and North America (the European
Union also participates) which discusses security challenges and confidence
building measures.[4] It meets annually at foreign minister level and reflects the ASEAN values of
consensus decision making and minimal institutionalisation.[5]
In the wake of the Asian Financial Crisis (after mid 1997)
ASEAN also moved to increase cooperation among the countries of East Asia. The
ASEAN Plus Three grouping (inaugurated in 1997) brings together the ten ASEAN
states along with Japan, China and South Korea. It has sponsored
inter-governmental meetings in many areas, and has had a particular focus on
developing regional financial cooperation. ASEAN’s most recent initiative has
been the East Asia Summit (EAS), which encompasses the ASEAN Plus Three members
along with India, Australia and New Zealand. The EAS is a gathering of heads of
government which met first in 2005 and has sponsored dialogue and cooperation in
areas including energy and resource issues.[6]
Alongside ASEAN and its associated forums, cooperation has
also been pursued in the wider Asia Pacific region. In the broad Asia Pacific
context, discussions were pioneered by non-governmental groups including the
Pacific Basin Economic Council (PBEC, a forum for business leaders across the
Pacific since 1967) and the Pacific Economic Council (PECC) which since 1980
has been a tripartite dialogue among business, government and academic figures
to advance cooperation in the Asia Pacific.[7]
Dialogue was initiated at an official level with the
inauguration in 1989 of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) grouping
of economies which now has 21 members in East Asia, North America and Latin
America.[8] APEC was founded with a commitment to trade and regional economic growth. Its
‘three pillars’ of cooperation have been trade and investment liberalisation,
business facilitation and capacity building and it has operated on a voluntary
and consensual basis. While its prime focus is economic cooperation, since 1993
its scope has widened to include an annual leaders meeting and its discussions
have extended to include political and security issues. APEC has been effective
in areas including capacity building but has had difficulty in sustaining
momentum on promoting trade liberalisation and many members have also pursued
bilateral or multilateral free trade agreements.[9]
Other inter-governmental regional cooperation groups have
included the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO, established in 2001 by
China, Russia, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan)
which has interests focussing on East and Central Asia, and the Six Party Talks
process (South and North Korea, the US, China, Japan and Russia) which emerged
in 2003 to try to alleviate and resolve tensions on the Korean peninsula.[10] A further significant inter-governmental dialogue has developed between the
three major Northeast Asian powers; China, Japan and South Korea. The three
countries began to hold trilateral ministerial meetings in 1999 in the context
of the ASEAN Plus Three process but their dialogue now involves heads of
government discussions on a ‘stand alone’ basis (most recently in October
2009).[11]
Dialogues have also continued to be pursued on a
non-official or semi-official basis. A notable example of a forum initiated by
a non-governmental body is the ‘Shangri-La Dialogue’ on regional security
issues, which has been sponsored by the London-based International Institute
for Strategic Studies and has since 2000 brought together defence ministers and
senior officials for discussions annually in Singapore.[12]
Cooperation has thus been pursued through a number of
different dialogues, developed and pursued by differing sets of participants—and
creating in the process what some observers have termed an ‘alphabet soup’ of
dialogues and forums.
The evolution and character of cooperation in East Asia and
the Asia Pacific regions have been affected, and constrained, by several major
factors.[13] One major issue is that there has not been a consensus on how best to define
the geographical ‘region’ in which cooperation should be best pursued. Some
concepts of cooperation have sought to pursue this in a way associating major
Asian states with those across the Pacific (especially the US) and in the
Southwest Pacific: APEC is a notable example. Other cooperation concepts have
sought to focus more closely on East Asia; such as ASEAN Plus Three. These
differing ways of conceiving of ‘region’ have been one reason for the
proliferation of groupings and dialogues.[14]
A second central challenge is the great diversity of the
states in East Asia and the Asia Pacific—which includes great variations in
population size and economic development (for example between Laos and Japan),
in cultural characteristics and religious adherence (including Buddhism, Islam,
Confucianism and Christianity) and in types of political systems (which include
highly autocratic regimes, market-oriented Communist governments, polities with
elected governments normally dominated by major ruling parties, and a range of
democratic systems).
A third factor which poses challenges for multilateral
cooperation is that many states have in the past century experienced foreign
intervention and colonial domination, which in turn was often followed by
periods of struggle to regain and secure national independence. With periods of
foreign intervention and dominance still in the memories of senior figures and
leaders in a number of countries, there has been a high level of sensitivity
and reluctance to see inter-state multilateral cooperation involve any
significant surrendering of national sovereignty to a regional institution.
A third major issue is that a number of states have
longstanding historical differences, territorial disputes and political
rivalries which can easily limit the degree of trust and confidence on which
multilateral cooperation might be based (examples include relations between
China and Japan, China and India, and Thailand and Cambodia). Some major
political and strategic rivalries have also had an impact on the development of
regional institutions, with rival states preferring different groupings as
their preferred cooperation vehicle. A notable example of this is that China
has been particularly supportive of the ASEAN Plus Three process (which has a
defined membership of 13 East Asian states, among whom China can expect to play
a predominant role) while Japan has favoured the grouping of the wider 16
member East Asia Summit as a basis for long term enhanced cooperation (in which
the 13 APT members are joined by India, Australia and New Zealand). Both groups
operate alongside each other but with overlapping agendas, for example in
pursuit of trade liberalisation.[15]
Against this background, it is not surprising that
cooperation in East Asia and the Asia-Pacific has been characterised by
caution, a strong emphasis on building dialogue especially among leaders and
senior officials, and a reluctance to try to develop binding sets of rules or any
large supra-national structures or bureaucracies to pursue multilateral goals.
All of the regional dialogues and groups have made some
contributions towards building communication and fostering cooperation. ASEAN’s
contribution over 42 years so far is especially notable. However, in terms of
membership, no existing forum covers all the major countries with deep
interests in the Asia Pacific. ASEAN and ASEAN Plus Three are by design groups
with specific memberships focusing on Southeast and East Asia. The East Asia
Summit also includes India, Australia and New Zealand but not the United
States. APEC includes the major Asia Pacific economies, but does not include
India. As a result, attention has been given to whether the existing
‘architecture’ will in the future meet the needs of states across the Asia
Pacific to be able to meet and discuss issues of concern with all key
interested states able to take part as members.[16]
Prime Minister Rudd added another strand to discussion on
regional cooperation in a speech on 4 June 2008 to the Asia Society
Australia/Asia Centre, Sydney, when he argued that it was desirable to review
the long-term vision for the architecture for the Asia Pacific region. [17] Strong and effective regional institutions, he argued, are needed ‘…that will
underpin an open, peaceful, stable, prosperous and sustainable region.’ Regional
institutions are important in addressing common challenges that no one country
can address alone. These challenges, he stated, include:
Enhancing a sense of security community (we have something to
learn from Europe where centuries of animosity have been transformed into an
unparalleled degree of transnational cooperation);
Developing a capacity to deal with terrorism, natural
disasters and disease—problems that definitionally transcend national
boundaries;
Enhancing non-discriminatory and open trading regimes across
the region in support of global institutions; and
Providing long-term energy, resource and food security.
Mr Rudd said that ‘…we need to have a vision for an Asia
Pacific Community’ to be achieved by 2020: this vision needed to embrace, ‘[a]
regional institution which spans the entire Asia-Pacific region—including the
United States, Japan, China, India, Indonesia and the other states of the
region’, and ‘[a] regional institution which is able to engage in the full
spectrum of dialogue, cooperation and action on economic and political matters
and future challenges related to security.’ Mr Rudd argued that ‘At present
none of our existing regional mechanisms as currently configured are capable of
achieving these purposes.’ He proposed ‘a regional debate about where we want
to be in 2020’.
Mr Rudd stated that:
Such a debate does not of itself mean the diminution of any
of the existing regional bodies. APEC, the ASEAN Regional Forum, the East Asia
Summit, ASEAN Plus Three and ASEAN itself will continue to play important
roles, and longer-term may continue in their own right or embody the building
blocks of an Asia Pacific Community. There will be wide ranging views about
this across the region—some more supportive than others. New bodies and new
ideas will continue to emerge...
Mr Rudd referred to the experience of both Europe and the
European Union and ASEAN.
The European Union of course does not represent an identikit
model of what we would seek to develop in the Asia Pacific. But what we can
learn from Europe is this – it is necessary to take the first step. In the 1950s,
sceptics saw European integration as unrealistic. But most people would now
agree that the goal of the visionaries in Europe who sat down in the 1950s and
resolved to build prosperity and a common sense of a security community has
been achieved. It is that spirit we need to capture in our hemisphere.
Our special challenge is that we face a region with greater
diversity in political systems and economic structures, levels of development,
religious beliefs, languages and cultures, than did our counterparts in Europe.
But that should not stop us from thinking big.
ASEAN was an example of the benefits of a long-term vision. ‘In
a diverse region, ASEAN has brought together a varied group and forged a common
outlook on many questions. ASEAN has built habits of cooperation and dialogue. And
ASEAN has played a critical role in building and maintaining peace in the
region through its work...’
To pursue the initiative of seeking an Asia Pacific
Community by 2020, Mr Rudd announced that he had appointed Richard Woolcott as
a Special Envoy.[18]
Prime Minister Rudd and the Minister for Foreign Affairs
Stephen Smith have made a number of subsequent comments and statements about
the Asia Pacific Community proposal.
The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Stephen Smith, speaking on
18 July 2008, shortly before the ASEAN ministerial meetings, affirmed
Australia’s interest in engaging ‘… in conversation with our friends and
neighbours about how the Asia Pacific regional architecture might evolve…’ He
said that:
This conversation doesn’t diminish any of the existing
regional bodies. On the contrary, they will continue to play their essential
roles. There could be a new piece of architecture, as ASEAN and APEC once were.
Or it could evolve and emerge from and through the existing architecture, as
the ASEAN Regional Forum and the East Asia Summit have.[19]
Prime Minister Rudd presented his ideas to a regional
audience when he spoke in Singapore on 12 August 2008.[20] He placed strong emphasis on the contribution which had been made towards
regional cooperation by ASEAN, which he called ‘an outstanding essay in
institutional success’. He said that:
Our region has benefited greatly from the regional
architecture that has emerged. The founders of ASEAN, of APEC and of the East
Asia Summit did us a great favour in establishing these organisations. These
institutions have made, do make and will continue to make a great contribution
to our security, stability and prosperity.
It was also important to help shape the future of the region
and it was desirable ‘...to have a regional discussion about the sort of
regional architecture we want to see in the next 20 years’.[21]
When Mr Rudd had first made his proposal for an Asia Pacific
Community in his 4 June speech, his remarks on the relevance of Europe’s
experience had been interpreted by some observers to mean that he was proposing
a European Union model for the Asia Pacific region (although he had included
the statement that, ‘The European Union of course does not represent an
identikit model of what we would seek to develop in the Asia Pacific’).[22] In his Singapore address in August, Mr Rudd sought to clarify the objectives of
his proposal:
Furthermore, let us be clear about what an Asia Pacific
Community is not. It is not an economic union. It is not a monetary union. It
is not at this stage a customs union. And it is certainly not a political
union.
He went on to state that:
All of our existing regional mechanisms have a critical role
to play both now and into the future – including ASEAN, APEC and the EAS. But,
at the same time, we need to begin our conversation about where our wider
region goes from here. And this is where the wider region needs to learn from
ASEAN’s success—how to build the institutions, habits and practices of
cooperation across the policy spectrum and across historically uncomfortable
national divides…
Australia remains open to the suggestions of our regional
partners as this discussion unfolds. Because by definition, an APC by 2020 is
very much a long-term project for the future.[23]
Mr Rudd reaffirmed the Government’s support for the Asia
Pacific Community concept in several speeches in late 2008. In a speech to the
Kokoda Foundation on 20 November, Mr Rudd linked the challenges posed by the
onset of the global financial crisis with the need for enhanced architecture
for regional cooperation. He said that:
As a striking example of the interdependence of nations and
the interconnectedness of the challenges we face, the global financial crisis
highlights the need for coordinated responses and coordinated approaches to
dealing with problems. We need to ensure that we have a regional architecture
that can drive regional cooperation to meet existing and emerging challenges. Regular
dialogue across all areas of government and at all levels will be essential to
positioning the region to address the range of security and economic challenges
which we are set to face.[24]
The Prime Minister also endorsed the importance of the
proposal in his National Security Statement to the Parliament on 4 December
2008. He listed as one of the Government’s ten new priorities ‘… Support for an
Asia-Pacific Community’. He said that:
It is in Australia’s interests to be proactive about shaping
the strategic environment in the Asia-Pacific, and our own future, through
regional engagement. Our diplomacy needs to be pervasive, formative and
influential and it needs to be resourced for the challenges that Australia
faces now and into the future…
We have proposed the development of an Asia-Pacific Community
by 2020 as a means of strengthening political, economic and security
cooperation in the region in the long term. Many of the challenges we will face
cannot be addressed by one country alone. Enhancing the regional architecture
is an important step in working towards combined solutions. It is also about
inculcating and institutionalising the habits of cooperation—as our friends in
ASEAN have so successfully done over the years within their community.[25]
Prime Minister Rudd continued to advocate the concept in
2009; particularly in his address to the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore on 29
May 2009.[26] In this speech, Mr Rudd again emphasised the desirability for Asia Pacific
states to act to shape the future of the wider region by building the
architecture that would be needed. He warned of the potential dangers of
‘miscommunication, of miscalculation and misadventure’ and said that:
We need mechanisms that help us to cope with strategic shocks
and discontinuities. We need a body that brings together the leaders of the key
nations in the Asia-Pacific region, including Indonesia, India, China, Japan,
the US and other nations, with a mandate to engage across the breadth of the
security, economic and political challenges we will face in the future.
Prime Minister Rudd then presented three major findings from
the consultations undertaken by his Special Envoy, Richard Woolcott, with regional
leaders:
First, there has been broad agreement on the value of a
focused discussion about how regional architecture can best serve all of our
interests in the future...
Secondly, there is widespread recognition that our current
structures do not provide a single forum for all relevant leaders to discuss
the full range of political, economic, and security challenges we face in the
future.
Thirdly, it is clear that no one wants more meetings. There
is no appetite for additional institutions.
Mr Rudd concluded by stating that ‘Australia has no
prescriptive view...The clear conclusion from my envoy’s report is that there
is an interest in the region in this discussion, and there is a wish to explore
the possibilities without any fixed or final views on a destination.’ He said
that he would brief leaders at the forthcoming EAS and APEC summits scheduled
for later in the year and that Australia would invite ‘key government
officials, academics and opinion makers from around the region’ to attend ‘a
one and a half track conference to further explore the idea of an Asia-Pacific
community.’[27]
Mr Rudd’s Asia Pacific Community proposal has produced a
number of reactions from commentators and analysts (including academic
specialists), foreign government representatives, and the Australian
Parliamentary Opposition.
After Mr Rudd’s speech of 4 June 2008, early reactions
included cautious non-commitment, negative responses and support. Early
comments in the Australian media noted that the Asia Pacific Community proposal
had been announced with what appeared to have been little advanced preparation
or consultation and at an early stage in the Rudd Government’s term in office. Michelle
Grattan (in The Age) commented on 6 June 2008 that the announcement was
‘breathtaking’ but added that, ‘Regional countries might see Rudd’s initiative
as the new boy on the block getting above himself. Best to wait awhile before
you throw your weight around’. Grattan also suggested that there might be a
danger of the Government addressing too many issues at once.[28]
The references Mr Rudd had made in his speech to Europe and
the European Union also prompted some observers to the view that he was
proposing a European model of cooperation for the region (as noted above). This
interpretation produced some critical comments in Australia immediately after
the 4 June speech, Former Prime Minister Bob Hawke said that, ‘I don’t want to
knock references to the EU but don’t let us say that’s the way it must be for
Asia’.[29] Former Prime Minister Paul Keating wrote that ‘even the basic first step made
towards the European community—the European steel plan of the 1950s—would not,
I believe be capable of emulation these days, across East Asia and the
subcontinent’.[30]
Some early international
reactions were either cautious or clearly critical. In early June 2008, just
after Mr Rudd’s initial speech, the head of the foreign affairs committee of
the Indonesian parliament (Theo Sambuaga) said that that any moves to expand
regional cooperation should be pursued through existing bodies: ‘Rather than
create a new body in the Asia-Pacific, why don’t you push the development of
ASEAN?’[31] Several senior regional analysts were interviewed just after Mr Rudd’s 4 June
speech, during the annual ‘Asia-Pacific Roundtable’ in Kuala Lumpur. Mohamed
Jawhar Hassan (Chairman of Malaysia’s Institute for Strategic and International
Studies) said that Malaysia would not be able to support the proposal without
more information: ‘(Mr Rudd) has a responsibility to tell us more instead of
just giving us a skeleton and telling us to discuss—you know, we are quite busy
ourselves’’ Koji Watanabe, a senior former Japanese diplomat, said that, ‘I’m
not that convinced the situation has matured enough to be able to bring about
that type of all encompassing mechanism. For the time being, my view is we will
have to wait and see how various regional attempts will develop’.[32]
In late June 2008, the US Deputy Secretary of State John
Negroponte said that the Department of State did not yet have detail on the
Rudd proposal. He emphasised the importance to the US of major bilateral
relations in the Asia Pacific region and said that, ‘It makes sense to aspire
towards more meaningful region-wide institutions, but I think we’re very much
at the beginning of that process in historic terms’.[33]
In early July 2008, Barry Desker (head of the S. Rajaratnam
School of International Studies, Singapore) said about Mr Rudd’s proposal that,
‘I would think it is dead in the water right from the very beginning. It would
have been much more useful if it had been thought through before and
conceptualised with regional leaders before it was presented as a bright new
idea from Australia’.[34] Also in July, Prime Minister Badawi of Malaysia suggested that it would be
desirable to develop the existing regional institutions, saying that, ‘We
already have a forum, the ASEAN Regional Forum. We can continue with the
existing institutions’.[35]
Other early reactions were supportive. Just after the Prime
Minister’s speech, a spokesman for the Indonesian Foreign Ministry (Teuku
Faizasyah) said on 5 June that, ‘We’re following the idea with interest. We are
really keen to study the issue further’.[36] When Mr Rudd visited the ASEAN Secretariat in Jakarta on 13 June 2008, ASEAN’s
Secretary General Surin Pitsuwan said:
You are now dreaming bigger dreams, scaling another awe
inspiring height, swimming a wider ocean of hope and vision for a larger
Asia-Pacific Community. We welcome your new vision. We want to know more about
it… Australia has always been a catalyst and a strong pillar of those regional
architectures of cooperation and prosperity in the past.[37]
A senior Indonesian analyst, Hadi Soesastro (Centre for
Strategic and International Studies, Jakarta), writing in early June 2008,
indicated support for the principles and vision underlying the proposal and
said that Indonesia should back Australia on it. Dr Soesastro said that:
Australian critics of Prime Minister Rudd’s Asia Pacific
Community initiative have got it wrong about the idea not being well thought
out. Kevin Rudd’s initiative should be seen as an invitation to other leaders,
policy makers, and thinkers in the region to join... in a serious discussion
about how best the Asia Pacific region could be organised. If Rudd had come up
with a fully-baked proposal, the exercise could be self-defeating. Evolving
regionalism in Asia Pacific requires that all parties concerned should have an
active part in the process, especially in the shaping of a new vision for the
region… Indonesia should support Rudd’s initiative and the process of
deliberations that will follow from it [38]
In early July, Thailand’s foreign minister expressed his
country’s willingness to discuss the proposal. Foreign Minister Nappadol
Pattama said that, ‘Any idea that brings peace and stability to the region, we
can’t see any reason why we shouldn’t study or deliberate the issue’.[39]
Debate has continued among analysts about the Asia Pacific
Community proposal, with contributions both critical and supportive. In April
2009, Hugh White (Australian National University) wrote that the key challenge
facing the Asia Pacific was the need for a concert of powers to accommodate the
major changes under way. The discussions necessary would need to be done
quietly and might not be enhanced by big meetings of a number of regional
states, including both major powers and smaller countries. Eventually, he
suggested, once the major powers have reached a sustainable new set of
relationships, a regional forum of the kind Mr Rudd is suggesting could indeed
be needed, ‘[b]ut today it is important that APC not become a distraction from
the region’s most urgent tasks’.[40] Colin Heseltine (a former executive director of APEC) wrote in September 2009
that pursuit of a new dialogue forum for the region ran the risk of
‘re-inventing the wheel’. He stated that ‘The Prime Minister’s pronouncements
have been remarkably lacking in detail and content... [and] unless there is a
clear and substantive rationale, the concept is doomed’. He stated that ‘The
Prime Minister’s pronouncements have been remarkably lacking in detail and
content… [and] unless there is a clear and substantive rationale, the concept
is doomed’. [41]
Hadi Soesastro (in June 2009), in contrast, affirmed the
desirability of pursuing a new drive for reform of regional institutions which
should involve ‘… clear understanding of the need to have a regional forum that
can address the full range of regional and global issues affecting all regional
countries.’ There is a ‘… need for a new Heads of Government meeting or Asia
Pacific Summit – a forum that cannot be too large, because that would make it
ineffective, but needs to be broad enough to make it representative. It would
not need its own secretariat. APEC and ARF would develop issues for
consideration by this new Asia Pacific Summit’.[42] William Tow (Australian National University) wrote in October 2009 that
criticism of the Australian proposal has been unjustified. Neither the US nor
China are necessarily against the development of stronger regional security
architectures. Each individual Asia Pacific state is taking its time assessing
the Asia Pacific Community proposal and the most fundamental lesson in the
debate so far is that vigorous and systematic discussion should continue:
‘There is hardly any point in “killing the messenger” before the full meaning
of that message is absorbed and systematically considered over the longer
term’.[43]
The Australian Parliamentary Opposition has been strongly
critical of Prime Minister Rudd’s Asia Pacific Community proposal and this
criticism was expressed in a number of statements and comments from June 2008
onwards.
The Opposition’s (then) Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs
Andrew Robb made a number of critical comments. On 8 June 2008 he said that,
‘Mr Rudd must put aside his ill-conceived and embarrassing stunt to create a
Euro style Asia/Pacific Union and focus on repairing vital country-to-country
relationships’.[44] On 20 June, Mr Robb criticised the proposal as hasty and ill-conceived and
noted that it had been given only 25 lines in a speech of over 220 lines.[45] Mr Robb in a speech on 7 August 2008 depicted the Asia Pacific Community
proposal as a reflection of long-standing tendencies in Labor approaches to
foreign policy:
Labor's primary instinct is to support an over-arching set of
international and regional rules, to see the establishment of a universal set
of moral imperatives and laws that all nations should follow.
This instinct was on full display in June this year with Mr
Rudd's embarrassing proposal to create, within the next twelve years, a single
European-style Union across the Asia - Pacific region.
The announcement, made with no prior consultation with any of
our bilateral partners, presumed that the intrinsic merit of an over-arching
rules based approach to regional security, trade, climate change and disaster
response, would be obvious to all. It was not.
This presumptuous proposal marked a hasty return to Labor's
long standing view that Australia's interests are best pursued through
rule-based international systems.[46]
The Leader of the Opposition, Malcolm Turnbull, cited the
Asia Pacific Community proposal in his response to the Prime Minister’s
statement on 4 December 2008 on national security. Mr Turnbull said of Prime
Minister Rudd that, ‘… his grand plan for an Asia-Pacific community has fallen
flat in capitals around the region, not least because he sprang it on
everybody—not least, it would appear, his envoy, Mr Woolcott—by surprise and
without consultation’.[47]
Critical comments continued in 2009.[48] The Opposition’s Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs Julie Bishop, in a comment
on 18 March, cited as one of the Prime Minister’s ‘wild goose chases’, ‘his
failed attempt to establish a European Union type organisation in the Asia
Pacific…’.[49] Senator Russell Trood commented on the proposal in a speech on 16 September
2009 on the Government’s foreign policy approaches:
The Asia-Pacific community idea has all the hallmarks of
having been hastily conceived and not fully thought through. A great many
questions about the proposal remain unanswered, not least how the new institution
would relate to all of the existing elements of the regional architecture.
Having come up with a poorly conceptualised idea, the Prime Minister carelessly
tossed it into the public domain. No preparations were made and no
consultations with any of Australia’s regional friends took place.
Given all this, it is hardly surprising that the Asia-Pacific
community concept now lies dead in the water and commands no serious support
around the region. This idea is going nowhere. Rather than spending more of the
government’s limited foreign policy budget on bankrolling an international
conference in December, Mr Rudd would be well advised to find a dignified way
to walk away from the APC and quietly dispatch it into history.[50]
In the second half of 2008 and through 2009, Richard
Woolcott pursued a series of consultations on behalf of the Australian
Government. He made visits to 21 countries: the members of APEC’ (except Hong
Kong and Taiwan) all ASEAN members (with the exception of Burma/Myanmar), and
India.[51] In a speech in June 2009
Mr Woolcott noted that Mr Rudd was still developing his ideas on the
arrangements he wanted to pursue. He reaffirmed that the Government did not
have in mind an EU-type institution or the creation of some supranational
bureaucracy. Mr Woolcott also stated that the initiative reflected Australia’s
interests as a country which is a part of the Southeast Asian and Southwest
Pacific region and which is committed to active middle power diplomacy. Australia
already had a sound and established record in regional diplomacy, including its
role in relation to the inauguration of APEC, the pursuit of the Cambodian
peace process and the establishment of the ASEAN Regional Forum. It was better,
he suggested, for a middle sized country such as Australia or Malaysia to put
forward new ideas for the region than for a major power like the US, China or
Japan, lest smaller countries consider that the larger powers have some hidden
or self-serving agenda.[52]
In October 2009, Richard Woolcott completed a further
summation of his thinking on the basis of his consultations on the Government’s
proposal, in a ‘concept paper’.[53] The paper—‘Towards an Asia-Pacific Community’—began by noting the ‘major shift
in strategic weight to the Asia Pacific’ but argues that there is a ‘high risk
of instability’ because of the ‘rate of growth, change and internal interaction
in the region’.[54] In discussing the existing institutions, the paper reaffirms that ‘there is no
single institution in the Asia Pacific region with a membership and mandate to
address comprehensively both economic and strategic challenges’.
The ‘concept paper’ discusses the examples of Europe and of
ASEAN. The paper states that Europe in the first half of the 20th century ‘is a stark reminder of how badly things can go wrong’ without
effective architecture and the will to use such architecture to work
cooperatively:
Europe has now found its solution along just these lines—an
effective architecture and the will to work cooperatively. But it has built a
uniquely European architecture, predicated on history and cultural
characteristics unique to Europe. The Asia-Pacific region, which is much less
compact and more diverse, will have to devise its own architecture, based on
its own history and cultural characteristics.
The purpose of Australia’s APc initiative is to launch a
process of dialogue—a regional conversation—to make a start on collectively
designing an overarching and effective regional architecture, and on
engendering a stronger sense of the need for a region-wide will to work and
plan cooperatively and in as coordinated a fashion as possible. The groupings
and institutions already in place in the Asia Pacific region are making
valuable contributions to the region’s stability and prosperity and could
themselves become the building blocks of an Asia pacific community. But none of
them as currently constituted represents a coherent focal point through which
all of the strands of the regional dynamic can be drawn together at a meeting
of the leaders of the key regional countries.[55]
On the existing institutions,
the ‘concept paper’ states:
APEC’s mandate is economic, and its membership is so wide as
to be unwieldy. The ARF has no leaders’-level meeting, can deal only with
security matters, and many believe it is too large and has made insufficient
progress since its inception. Meanwhile, ASEAN, APT and the EAS are each, to
varying degrees, insufficiently representative of the Asia Pacific region to be
said to constitute an APc. The EAS is most representative, and has a leaders’
meeting, but does not include some key countries.
ASEAN, as a subregional grouping in the Asia Pacific,
highlights the importance of developing the right institutions at the right
time: it has been crucial in the transformation of South East Asia from a
region of strategic conflict into one of cooperation and consensus. Australia
believes the time has now come to extend the vision that drove formation of
ASEAN to the wider Asia Pacific region. An Asia Pacific community could be seen
as a natural broadening of the processes of confidence, security and
community-building led by ASEAN.
The ‘concept paper’ states that
the key findings from the consultation process are:
A high level of interest across the region in the APc
proposal, including widespread agreement about the importance of a discussion
on how regional architecture can be developed to best suit the region’s
purposes;
A strong recognition in the region that our current
institutions, as they are currently configured, do not provide a forum for all
relevant leaders to discuss the full range of economic security, environmental
and political challenges the region needs to address;
Little appetite for creating new institutions in addition to
existing forums, such as ASEAN, ASEAN+3, the EAS, APEC, ARF and others, given
the heavy travel schedule and meeting demands that regional leaders face;
ASEAN’s involvement in regional institutions is crucial to
fostering habits of cooperation and understanding across the region, and has
contributed strongly to the level of peace and stability the region has
achieved; and
A keen interest in further discussion on the Asia Pacific
community proposal, including on the geo-strategic and economic challenges we
will face in the twenty-first century and how we might develop our institutions
to meet these.[56]
The ‘concept paper’ suggests that there are three key ways
in which an Asia Pacific community could advance the interests of all countries
in the Asia Pacific:
First, an APc will be crucial to ensuring that the process of
regional economic and financial integration is driven forward, and that the
region as a whole strives for a market-driven regional economy that is open to
the world. The wealth of East Asia has been built on open markets and open
investment. To secure our future prosperity and competitiveness at the global
level, this approach needs to be reinforced through ongoing cooperation and
endorsement at the leadership level.
Secondly, an APc will be crucial to nurturing a culture of
dialogue and collaboration at the leadership level to enable regional countries
to meet current and emerging challenges arising from strategic competition. The
first steps should promote region-wide security building measures. Eventually—just
as ASEAN has been able to build a degree of strategic congruence among
countries beset with historic rivalries—an APc will help build a sharper sense
of common regional strategic interest across all of Asia, on top of helping to
ensure that regional relationships do not become adversarial.
Thirdly, an APc will provide a crucial vehicle for discussion
and cooperation across a range of challenges with transnational reach including
climate change, water and food security, non-proliferation, illegal people
movements, transnational crime and terrorism. As with more traditional security
challenges, such as territorial disputes, the objective would not necessarily
be to reach a single region-wide position, but to use the mechanism of regional
consultation to help advance solutions be they global, regional or bilateral.
As with strengthening strategic stability, it will be the habit of consultation
at the highest level that requires nurturing: not because it will solve all
problems but because it can make the search for solutions easier and diminish
the risks of miscommunication, miscalculation and of descent into crisis or
conflict.[57]
The paper notes that a further stage in the discussion
process would be a conference in Sydney on 4–5 December 2009, hosted by Mr
Woolcott, in which key government officials, academics and opinion makers from
across the region would discuss the Asia Pacific’s future and the potential
shape of future regional architecture.
The debate about a possible Asia Pacific Community is
ongoing. Since the proposal is at a stage of consultation and preliminary
discussion, governments have accordingly not needed to take explicit stances on
any particular institutional proposals. In 2009, however, several developments
have been of significance in relation to the process of debate and discussion.
In the United States, the Obama Administration came to
office with an interest in upgrading the country’s profile in East Asia and in
taking a more active role in multilateral cooperation. This approach has been
reflected in US policies towards the ASEAN region. Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton participated in July in the annual ASEAN post-conference meetings and
the ASEAN Regional Forum. In an important step, the US acceded to the ASEAN
Treaty of Amity and Cooperation. The treaty does not impose any binding
commitments on the US and will not affect US commitments to its allies in the
East Asia region. Secretary Clinton indicated that the US was taking this step
as an executive agreement that does not require ratification by the US Senate. One
significant implication of the accession is that it opens the way for possible
US participation in the East Asia Summit, since ASEAN had made recognition of
the Treaty a prerequisite for such membership.[58] The US’s capacity for discussions with all ASEAN members was facilitated by the
redevelopment of direct dialogue between the US Government and Burma/Myanmar,
which included a visit to the country by US Deputy Secretary of State Kurt
Campbell in early November 2009.[59] During his visit to East Asia in November 2009, President Obama held the first
summit meeting between the US and all ASEAN members, in Singapore on 15 November.
In his speech on US regional policies on 14 November in Tokyo President Obama
stated that:
As an Asia-Pacific nation, the United States expects to be
involved in the discussions that shape the future of this region, and to
participate fully in appropriate organizations as they are established and
evolve… And the United States looks forward to engaging with the East Asia
Summit more formally as it plays a role in addressing the challenges of our
time.[60]
These developments have aided the capacity of the US to
deepen involvement with regional cooperation activities.
The new Japanese Government led by the Democratic Party of
Japan (DPJ, which took office in September 2009) has also given emphasis to
regional engagement, although the direction of its policies is not yet entirely
clear. Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama has had a long term interest in promoting
development of what he has termed an ‘East Asia Community’ and the DPJ’s
manifesto for the elections called for the establishment of a regional cooperation
area covering such fields as trade, finance, energy, disaster relief and the
environment. Mr Hatoyama also set out a medium term goal of pursuing
development of a common currency for the countries in the community he
envisages.[61] Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada has stated that the membership of the potential
East Asia Community should be the same of that of the East Asia Summit (and
would therefore include Australia and New Zealand). The new Government has so
far been unclear on whether the US might be able to associate with the proposed
East Asia Community or whether the Community would be confined to a membership
based on that of the current East Asia Summit.[62] The new government’s conception of an East Asia Community has added to the
climate of debate alongside Australia’s own proposal for discussion.[63] However, since Japan’s proposal has still to be clarified, it is not yet
evident whether it may be a further useful catalyst for regional discussions
which can ultimately be compatible with Australia’s conception of a Community,
or whether Japan’s conception may evolve as a competitor in relation to
Australia’s proposal.
China (like Japan) is already heavily involved in the major
existing regional dialogues and has expressed support in cautious terms for further
institutional evolution. China has responded favourably towards Japan’s concept
of an East Asian Community. The Chinese Government has also indicated a
willingness in principle to consider Australia’s proposal. In August 2009, a
spokesperson for China’s Ambassador to Australia (Zhang Junsai) said that
Beijing remained open to Australia’s proposal: he commented that: ‘We hope
relevant countries in the Asia-Pacific region can work together and have more
exchanges so as to build up political mutual trust, deepen cooperation of
mutual benefit, promote common development and share win-win progress’.[64] China’s interest in further discussions on the Asia Pacific Community concept
was indicated by the fact that it offered to host the first conference on the
proposal, (which will in fact be held in Sydney in December 2009; Japan and
South Korea also made such offers).[65]
South Korea has been involved as a founding member of
existing major cooperation forums. Its government has been expressing recent
interest in expanding its foreign relations role as a middle power with strong
regional concerns and its potential interest in the Asia Pacific Community
concept was indicated by its willingness to host the first conference on it.[66]
ASEAN members have also been following closely debates over
wider cooperation. ASEAN members are well aware of the challenges of pursuing
political and economic cooperation in the East Asia region and the obstacles
which can be encountered. The group continues to be sensitive about its position
given the major role it has played as a sponsor and organiser of several of the
major dialogues, including the ARF, ASEAN Plus Three and the East Asia Summit. These
sensitivities were evident at the ASEAN and East Asia Summits in Hua Hin,
Thailand in October 2009. Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva (who was chair
for the meetings) said at the time of the Summits that, ‘Both Japan and
Australia proposed bigger communities, which is a test for us… ASEAN must be
firmly integrated when we enter a wider community’. He also said that ASEAN
leaders, ‘emphasised… that it wasn’t all that important to decide on some kind
of rigid structure at the moment, but to be aware that the regional
architecture would continue to evolve’.[67]
A further indication of emerging attitudes of regional
states towards the Australian proposal was provided by discussion in the
meeting of the East Asia Summit in Hua Hin, Thailand on 25 October. Japan and
Australia both presented their ideas on regional community building. Graeme
Dobell (writing for the Lowy Institute for International Policy) has reported
that Prime Minister Hatoyama said that the broad principles of the Australian
proposals should be supported, although he differed in emphasis with Australia
on the question of whether the US should be involved in a community-building
process at the outset. Prime Minister Rudd said after a brief meeting with Mr
Hatoyama that they were both in agreement on ‘the need for change’.[68]
At the meeting of heads of government in the EAS, Prime
Minister Rudd had the opportunity to advance Australia’s ideas on regional
community building. Graeme Dobell has reported that there were comments in the
meeting from the leaders of Singapore, China, Vietnam, Japan and New Zealand,
and:
There were no negative comments. In this game, that amounts
to a summit nod which can be parlayed into something of a mandate. The nod is
defined by its limitations: it is agreement for more talks about regional
architecture. Certainly, it is not a nod for any particular course of building.[69]
As discussion proceeds on ways of exploring Australia’s
proposal for an Asia Pacific Community, several major issues and challenges are
likely to be significant in further considerations: they are in many ways
inter-related.[70]
One issue is membership. The existing major regional forums
all have different memberships (as has been indicated). APEC for example
includes Canada as well as the US and has some members from Latin America
(Mexico, Chile and Peru). The ARF has a wide membership which includes East
Asian states but also states from South Asia and North America, as well as the
European Union (as a multilateral entity). An agreed concept would be needed as
to what an appropriate and representative group would be. If the East Asia
Summit emerges as the best focus for adaptation then its existing membership
could be added to (see below). It should also be noted that there has been some
discussion by observers about the potential value of cooperation being pursued
on major strategic and security issues among a relatively small group of states
(which might constitute an ‘Asian G 8’ or ‘G-10’).[71] This kind of approach however would not include all the members of ASEAN, and this
would be likely in turn to reduce ASEAN support for any activities pursued. A
further possible issue in relation to membership is to what extent if any the
smaller states of the Southwest Pacific may be represented or involved in the
proposed forum’s activities.
A second question is what specific institutional form might
best serve development of an Asia Pacific Community. Richard Woolcott’s
consultations have indicated that there is little support for the inauguration
of any distinctly new institution, so a development or extension of existing
groupings might be pursued. Several suggestions have been advanced. APEC has
been cited as a potential basis for further development, given that it
comprises all major Asia Pacific economies except India. However, APEC’s
inclusion of Hong Kong and Taiwan suggests that China would not be likely to
consider it an appropriate forum for the purposes envisaged. A more apposite
institutional basis may be the East Asia Summit. The EAS already comprises 16
regional states and it could be expanded to include the US (whose accession to
the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation has facilitated its position as potential member)
and Russia (which has already expressed interest in it).[72]
Development of the East Asia Summit in this way seems so far
the most feasible basis for further pursuit of the Asia Pacific Community
concept. Such a development, however, might have implications for APEC, whose
annual leaders meeting would constitute a second gathering of many of the same
major Asia Pacific leaders. It is unlikely that two different meetings of heads
of government would be considered desirable or would attract continued
participation. One suggestion in this context is that the two leadership
meetings of APEC and the EAS could be merged to constitute an overarching forum
for the region. APEC could continue its activities and role, led by ministerial
meetings. An alternative concept would be to convene alternate meetings of
heads of government, between APEC and the EAS.[73] Based on the outcomes of the consultations by Richard Woolcott, some form of
modification and rationalisation of the existing forums appears to provide the
most acceptable pathway towards development.
A third question is how the style of cooperation may evolve
and how decisions might be made in an agreed institutional forum. If the forum
is to be based on an extension of the EAS, then its initial mode of dialogue
and deliberation is likely to reflect those of ASEAN, which established the
body. ASEAN’s styles of operation have depended heavily on the pursuit of
consensus, caution and reluctance to establish binding commitments. These modes
of cooperation were very necessary for ASEAN to be able to operate at all in
its early years, but they have also been seen to have limited the capacity and
effectiveness of forums sponsored by ASEAN, including the ARF. This consensual
style of cooperation may not meet the expectations and requirements of
participants, especially some of the major powers.
William T Tow and Brendan Taylor (Australian National
University) have argued that in relation to the issue of ‘security
architecture’, there are differences in the way the US and ASEAN approach such
cooperation. While the US in multilateral activities tends to be very oriented
towards material ‘outcomes’, ASEAN members see the process of cooperation as a
means to an end, rather than an end in itself, and so emphasise processes and
trust-building more than particular ‘outcomes’. Developing an agreed basis for
operations within an Asia Pacific Community may thus involve some major
challenges, not only in identifying and agreeing on an agenda but in reaching
agreement on how issues are to be defined and considered.[74]
A fourth (and related) issue is the extent to which the
major powers will be willing and able to cooperate in an Asia Pacific Community
on sensitive issues. As William Tow and Brendan Taylor have argued, the
development of multiple regional groups in East Asia and the Asia Pacific so
far, has in fact facilitated the major powers’ capacities to be able to pursue
their often competing national interests through different regional forums:
Thus far, the multiplicity of multilateral institutions and
activities in Asia has actually afforded the region’s great powers, in
particular, the option of using these mechanisms as instruments of competitive
influence. Occasionally these regional heavyweights will square off against one
another within institutional settings, as occurred between China and Japan at
the inaugural EAS. Yet, more often than not, the broad menu of choice allows
the region’s great powers to make their presence felt within those institutions
with which they feel most comfortable, and with which they have the most
influence—Beijing in ASEAN+3 and the SCO; Moscow in the SCO; Washington in APEC
and through its own ad hoc mechanisms such as the Trilateral Strategic Dialogue
and the Proliferation Security Initiative; and Tokyo through the ARF and,
increasingly, the EAS as it strives to check China’s growing influence in the
ASEAN+3 process. In short, this remains one of the great ironies of the
remarkable growth in regional multilateral institutions and activities which
has occurred since the beginning of the 1990s: that their emergence has raised
as many problems as it has potentially addressed in terms of forging
architectural consensus and establishing viable regional ‘security
architecture’. [75]
Developing an Asia Pacific Community in which major and
smaller powers can cooperate within an overarching dialogue process, when a
number of those states have competitive interests and have been used to
pursuing them in parallel regional groupings is part of the rationale for the
proposed revisions to cooperative institutions. Such developments are
nonetheless likely to pose major challenges for community building and the
fostering of a new ‘culture of cooperation’.
A fifth (and also related) issue is what the implications may
be for pre-existing dialogues if an Asia Pacific Community emerges in
institutional form. One question here is whether the development of a model of
cooperation based on an Asia Pacific membership (specifically including the US)
may leave countries in East Asia still wishing to caucus and cooperate in an
‘Asia focused’ grouping (such as ASEAN Plus Three). If the ASEAN Plus Three
grouping continued to operate, which seems likely, ongoing inter-group dialogue
and coordination would be desirable to minimise overlap and potential clashes
in agendas and goals. Such a process should be feasible but would require
careful attention.[76]
These are some of the issues which may be considered at the
conference in Sydney in December, and in further dialogues beyond that meeting.
The process of discussions initiated by Australia on the
Asia Pacific Community proposal is at an early stage. Since the proposal was
first raised in June 2008, several developments have added to the degree of
interest in reviewing regional institutions. The Obama administration in the US
has given increased priority to regional cooperation in East Asia, including by
acceding to ASEAN’s Treaty of Amity and Cooperation and indicating an interest
in developing formal linkages with the East Asia Summit. The new government in
Japan led by Prime Minister Hatoyama has also expressed increased interest in
fostering a regional East Asian Community, although the details of this concept
are still to emerge clearly. The discussions at the East Asia Summit on 25
October 2009 suggest that there is an interest among many regional states in
reviewing regional institutional arrangements. However, the process of
discussion so far has not reached the stage of specific proposals and
governments have not needed as yet to take stances on any particular model for
reordering of regional institutions.
The evolution of discussion is likely to be influenced by
two major factors. The ways in which major bilateral relations evolve in the
coming decade—and especially the relationships among the US, China, Japan and
India—will play a major role in determining the potential for enhanced Asia
Pacific cooperation. A viable arrangement for Asia Pacific cooperation would
need to be based to a substantial degree on the capacity and willingness of the
major powers, as well as the smaller regional states, to discuss and consider
sensitive issues on a collective and cooperative basis. The quality of key
bilateral relationships is in turn likely to influence substantially the degree
of leadership which Asia Pacific governments can give to recasting multilateral
cooperation. As this paper has suggested, the existing pattern of multiple and
overlapping regional forums has developed partly because it has been congenial
for states to pursue their competing national economic and strategic interests
in different forums with differing memberships. It will take considerable
inputs of leadership to develop agendas for cooperation on an Asia Pacific
basis which can ensure that ongoing competition does not preclude opportunities
for coordination on common problems and challenges.
A second key issue will be defining the type of
institutional arrangements which can gain widespread support. Consultations so
far indicate that a revised process of Asia Pacific dialogue is most likely to
evolve from development of the existing forums. Of the possible options,
expansion and remodelling of the East Asia Summit appears to be the most
promising direction to pursue. Given that the EAS originated from ASEAN,
further development of the Summit would underscore ASEAN’s contribution to
regional institution building. Development of the EAS is also likely to have
implications for the roles and operations of some other forums and especially
the current APEC leaders meeting. The forthcoming Sydney conference may produce
clarification about what avenues can attract support for further discussion and
development.
[2]. ‘Regions’
in international politics are often not geographically defined but
socially-constructed entities, and appropriate definitions of them are
frequently contested. For the purposes of this paper, the term ‘East Asia’
refers to the states of Southeast Asia along with China, Japan, and the two
Korean states. The term ‘Asia Pacific’ commonly refers to those just mentioned
states, along with other interested countries including the United States,
Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the Pacific islands, Russia, and some states in
Latin America which have declared significant identities with this wider
region. In this paper, unless otherwise stated, ‘Asia Pacific’ will refer to
the countries participating in ASEAN, the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation group,
and the East Asia Summit (see footnotes below for specific membership details).
For recent comparative analyses of East Asia and Asia Pacific cooperation
groupings see W T Tow, Tangled Webs: Security Architectures in Asia, Australian
Strategic Policy Institute, Canberra, July 2008 and A Gyngell, ‘Design
faults: the Asia Pacific’s regional architecture’, Lowy Institute for
International Policy, 18 July 2007, viewed 22 November 2009, http://www.lowyinstitute.org/Publication.asp?pid=638
[17]. K Rudd, (Prime Minister of
Australia), ‘Address to the Asia Society Australasia Centre, Sydney: It’s time
to build an Asia-Pacific Community’, 4 June 2008, viewed on 15 November 2009, http://www.pm.gov.au/media/Speech/2008/speech_0286.cfm
[19]. S Smith
(Minister for Foreign Affairs), ‘Australia, ASEAN and the Asia-Pacific’, 18
July 2008, Lowy Institute, Sydney, viewed on 15 November 2009, http://www.foreignminister.gov.au/speeches/2008/080718_lowy.html
[24]. K Rudd (Prime Minister of
Australia), ‘Towards an Asia-Pacific century: Speech to the Kokoda Foundation
Australia-US Trilogy’, 20 November 2008, viewed on 29 November 2009, http://www.pm.gov.au/node/5460
[25]. ‘The First National Security
Statement to the Parliament: Address by the Prime Minister of Australia the
Hon. Kevin Rudd MP, 04 December 2008’, viewed on 29 November 2009, http://www.pm.gov.au/node/5460
[28]. M Grattan, ‘The danger of
taking on too much’, The Age, 6 June 2008, viewed 27 November 2009, http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=(Id:media/pressclp/tsnq6);rec=0; ; see also P Kelly, ‘Time may not be ripe for brave new forum’, The
Australian, 9 July 2008, viewed on 27 November 2009, http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=(Id:media/pressclp/74yq6);rec=0;
[33]. D Flitton, ‘US
diplomat wary of Rudd’s big idea’, The Age, 30 June 2008, viewed on 27 November
2009, http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=(Id:media/pressclp/vzuq6);rec=0;
[35]. A Grigg, ‘Blow to Rudd’s Asia
plan’, Australian Financial Review, 23 July 2008
[46]. A Robb (Shadow Minister for
Foreign Affairs), ‘Australia in the world: past, present and future’, Address
to the Australian Institute of International Affairs 75th Anniversary National Conference Melbourne, 28 July 2008, viewed on 27 November
2009, http://www.liberal.org.au/news.php?Id=1374.
See also R Trood, ‘Rudd needs a clearer idea to stem growing disarray’, The
Australian, 4 July 2008, viewed on 27 November 2009, http://senatortrood.com/Media/Publications/NewspaperArticles/tabid/94/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/225/Rudd-needs-a-clearer-idea-to-stem-growing-disarray.aspx
For copyright reasons some linked items are only available to members of Parliament.
|
|
