Asean And The Institutionalization Of East Asia

This book examines the evolving multilateral security arrangements in East Asia, with a focus on the role of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). It explores the function and relevance of ASEAN in East Asia's emerging institutional security landscape. These issues have direct implications for the future of the ASEAN Security Community, the relevance of the ASEAN cooperative model to wider regional arrangements, and finally, for the further institutionalization of great power relations within these multilateral structures. The book highlights ASEAN's successes and shortcomings. It also considers ASEAN-led institutions in the wider region and goes on to analyse alternative approaches to regionalism, including the China-Japan-South Korea Trilateral Summit. Overall, it assesses how the various initiatives are likely to develop, concluding that ASEAN, despite its shortcomings, is likely to continue to play a key role.

Institutional activities have remarkably transformed East Asia, a region once known for the absence of regionalism and regime-building efforts. Yet the dynamics of this Asian institutionalization have remained an understudied area of research. This book offers one of the first scholarly attempts to clarify what constitutes institutionalization in East Asia and to systematically trace the origins, discern the features, and analyze the prospects of ongoing institutionalization processes in the world’s most dynamic region. Institutionalizing East Asia comprises eight essays, grouped thematically into three sections. Part I considers East and Southeast Asia as focal points of inter-state exchanges and traces the institutionalization of inter-state cooperation first among the Southeast Asian states and then among those of the wider East Asia. Part II examines the institutionalization of regional collaboration in four domains: economy, security, natural disaster relief, and ethnic conflict management. Part III discusses the institutionalization dynamics at the sub-regional and inter-regional levels. The essays in this book offer a useful source of reference for scholars and researchers specializing in East Asia, regional architecture, and institution-building in international relations. They will also be of interest to postgraduate and research students interested in ASEAN, the drivers and limits of international cooperation, as well as the role of regional multilateralism in the Asia-Pacific region.

This edited volume proposes that an understanding of ASEAN – its development and institutionalization – is invaluable to our conception of international relations theory in the Asian context. Southeast Asia and ASEAN host peoples, ideas, institutions, and relations that contribute to a critical reassessment of theories in social sciences. In the field of IR, studies on transnational networks, diasporas, small states, middle powers, the role of history, and identity learn from Southeast Asian practices. ASEAN has long been established as an authoritative example of alternative ways of regional institutionalization. Besides empirical analysis, these fields can also benefit from their interactions with regional scholarly communities. This edited book offers an opportunity for a dialogue among scholarly communities on a variety of issues of which Southeast Asia and ASEAN provide ample opportunities for a critical analysis. This book will be of great interest to scholars of ASEAN, the broader Asian region, and for scholars of regionalism in general.

Institutional activities have remarkably transformed East Asia, a region once known for the absence of regionalism and regime-building efforts. Yet the dynamics of this Asian institutionalization have remained an understudied area of research. This book offers one of the first scholarly attempts to clarify what constitutes institutionalization in East Asia and to systematically trace the origins, discern the features, and analyze the prospects of ongoing institutionalization processes in the world's most dynamic region. Institutionalizing East Asia comprises eight essays, grouped thematically into three sections. Part I considers East and Southeast Asia as focal points of inter-state exchanges and traces the institutionalization of inter-state cooperation first among the Southeast Asian states and then among those of the wider East Asia. Part II examines the institutionalization of regional collaboration in four domains: economy, security, natural disaster relief, and ethnic conflict management. Part III discusses the institutionalization dynamics at the sub-regional and inter-regional levels.0The essays in this book offer a useful source of reference for scholars and researchers specializing in East Asia, regional architecture, and institution-building in international relations. They will also be of interest to postgraduate and research students interested in ASEAN, the drivers and limits of international cooperation, as well as the role of regional multilateralism in the Asia-Pacific region.

This book examines the key motivations for and challenges to greater regional integration in Southeast Asia. It demonstrates how security and economic concerns -domestic, regional and international - have either contributed to, or detracted from, an increased level of unity and cooperation in ASEAN. It also explores how the patterns of interaction and socialization generated by these issues, together with the nature of domestic political systems, have affected the emergence of common values, norms and interests. It covers the full range of issues confronting ASEAN at present, and the full range of ASEAN countries, and discusses both developments in ASEAN to date and also likely future developments.

In the wake of the 1997-1998 Asian economic crisis, the leaders of East Asia came together to establish the ASEAN+3 forum; a forum to accommodate thirteen countries heterogeneotis in nature with diverse political, economic, social and cultural backgrounds. Some political scientists interpreted the establishment of the ASEAN+3 as the emergence of a new form of regionalism. This new regionalism represents a clear break from the region's strong history of multilateralism. The countries of East Asia have also been exploring ways of expanding intra-regional trade including the establishment of regional trade agreements (RTAs) such as the ASEAN+3, planning to establish an East Asia Free Trade Area (EAFTA) as well as negotiating bilateral trade agreements (BTAs). This thesis hypothesizes that the philosophy of Asian values and the 1997-1998 Asian economic crisis stimulated the creation of the ASEAN+3. It is important to understand this philosophy for it is likely to influence the ASEAN+3 in the future. The understanding of whether the Asian economic crisis spurred the creation of the ASEAN+3 is crucial to determine whether the ASEAN+3 will play an economic role in the region.

Developments in East Asia have progressed rapidly in terms of regionalism since the 1997 crisis. The end of the Asian miracle called into question not only the capacity of regional states to meet the needs of their attendant peoples, but also challenged the viability of regional organizations, such as ASEAN, to adapt and respond to the changing circumstances. Advancing East Asian Regionalism looks at the ways in which ASEAN has expanded since the crisis, and evaluates the potential of East Asia to come together in a regional formation - one capable of representing the region as a whole - akin to the European Community. It draws upon the knowledge and perspectives of academics and policy makers actively engaged in the contradictory issues of regionalism. Coupling case study material on regionalism, institutions, and sectoral cooperation, with theoretical debates on regionalization, this book is an invaluable resource that pushes our understanding of East Asian regionalism forward.

Since the early 1990s and the end of the Cold War, the implications of China's rising power have come to dominate the security agenda of the Asia-Pacific region. This book is the first to comprehensively chart the development of Southeast Asia’s relations with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) from 1949 to 2010, detailing each of the eleven countries’ ties to the PRC and showing how strategic concerns associated with China's regional posture have been a significant factor in shaping their foreign and defence policies. In addition to assessing bilateral ties, the book also examines the institutionalization of relations between the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and China. The first part of the book covers the period 1949-2010: it examines Southeast Asian responses to the PRC in the context of the ideological and geopolitical rivalry of the Cold War; Southeast Asian countries’ policies towards the PRC in first decade of the post-Cold War era; and deepening ties between the ASEAN states and the PRC in the first decade of the twenty-first century. Part Two analyses the evolving relationships between the countries of mainland Southeast Asia - Vietnam, Thailand, Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia - and China. Part Three reviews ties between the states of maritime Southeast Asia - Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, Brunei and East Timor - and the PRC. Whilst the primary focus of the book is the security dimension of Southeast Asia-China relations, it also takes full account of political relations and the burgeoning economic ties between the two sides. This book is a timely contribution to the literature on the fast changing geopolitics of the Asia-Pacific region.