Contents
|
 |
Current Issues
The East Asia Summit, Kuala Lumpur, 14 December 2005 : issues and outcomes
E-Brief: Online Only issued 17 January 2006
Dr Frank Frost , Analysis
and Policy
Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Section
Ann Rann , Information and E-links
Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Section
Introduction
The first East
Asia Summit was held in Kuala Lumpur on 14 December 2005. The participating
countries were the ten members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations – ASEAN
– (Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines,
Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam) and China, Japan, the Republic of Korea,
India, Australia and New Zealand.
The East Asia Summit took place during the 11th ASEAN Summit in Kuala
Lumpur from 12-14 December. The ASEAN Summit involved a series of
meetings among the ten ASEAN members and dialogues with major partners
(including the ‘ASEAN Plus Three’ grouping of the
'ASEAN ten' along with Japan, South Korea and China). The East Asia Summit
was held as part of these overall ASEAN meetings.
The East Asia Summit began with a Gala Dinner on 13 December,
and concluded with a Leaders' Summit on the morning of 14 December. The
Summit was preceded by a Foreign Ministers' working lunch on 10 December
and a senior officials' meeting on 8 December.
The Summit is a significant development both for East
Asia and for Australia. The 15 other countries taking part in the East
Asia Summit together receive over 60 per cent of Australia’s exports and
Australia is a direct participant from the outset in what may become a
very important focus for both political and economic cooperation.
This electronic brief provides a short introduction to
the background to and initial outcomes from the Summit, links to major
official and analytical sources, and basic statistical data on the Summit
participants.
ASEAN since 1967
The East Asia Summit has arisen particularly from the
discussions and cooperation pursued by ASEAN and by the ASEAN Plus Three
process and it is useful to consider the Summit against this background.
ASEAN has been a key factor in regional cooperation since
the mid 1970s. After a tentative beginning
in August 1967, ASEAN was stimulated into more concerted action by the
end of the wars in Indochina in 1975. At its Bali conference in 1976,
ASEAN upgraded its cooperation efforts towards regional stability and
also pursued some initial efforts towards economic cooperation. ASEAN’s
most important single contribution has been to contain conflict and create
confidence among its own members and thus to improve greatly the basis
for peace and security in Southeast Asia. ASEAN’s credibility on this
issue was underscored by the eagerness of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos to
join it, after the end of the Cambodia conflict in 1991-93, which made
this possible.
Since the early 1990s, ASEAN has increased its efforts
to deepen cooperation among its own members. A primary focus for ASEAN
has been development of the ASEAN
Free Trade Area. ASEAN, in 2003, adopted the goal of achieving an
‘ASEAN Economic Community’ by 2020
which is intended to achieve a single market and production base among
the ten members.
ASEAN has, in addition, sponsored efforts to improve
dialogue on regional security issues, particularly by establishing the
ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) in 1994.
The ARF now has 25 members and is pursuing a gradual three-stage evolution
from confidence building, to preventive diplomacy and, in the longer term,
approaches to conflict resolution.
Wider East Asia cooperation and the ‘ASEAN Plus Three’
process
ASEAN members have also been interested in developing
wider dialogues on cooperation in East Asia. There was some support within
East Asia for an ‘Asia-focused’ form of cooperation at least from the
early 1990s when Malaysia's Prime Minister Mahathir proposed an 'East
Asian Economic Group' which would have an exclusively Asian membership.
At this time, however, attention on regional cooperation was focused on
the development of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC)
grouping of Asia-Pacific economies. APEC now has a membership of 21 economies
and continues as a major focus for cooperation across the Asia-Pacific
region.
However a series of factors from the mid-1990s increased
support for an East Asian grouping. These included:
- The inauguration of the Asia-Europe Meetings (ASEM)
in 1996, which explicitly involved dialogue between Europe and an 'Asian
side';
- The traumatic impact on many regional economies of the Asian financial
crisis from mid 1997, which prompted many regional states to consider
the desirability of greater cooperation to forestall any future crisis
and to add greater 'weight' for Asia in relations with international
institutions such as the International Monetary Fund;
- APEC’s inability to maintain the momentum towards trade liberalisation
it had in the mid 1990s;
- A continuing sense that the ongoing development of regional groupings
in Europe (the EU) and the Americas (the North American
Free Trade Agreement) should be accompanied by greater East Asian
cooperation; and
- China’s dynamic economic growth which stimulated a rise in the importance
of trade among the countries of East Asia.
All these developments contributed to the opening up
of 'political space' for an East Asian grouping (Richard Stubbs, ‘ASEAN Plus Three: Emerging
East Asian Regionalism?’, Asian Survey, v. 42 no. 3, May -
June 2002, pp. 440–455).
ASEAN’s first major step towards wider cooperation in
East Asia was the inauguration of the ASEAN Plus Three
process, which stemmed from a meeting of the ASEAN members and China,
Japan and South Korea in Kuala Lumpur in 1997 (Sanae Suzuki, 'Chairmanship
in ASEAN+3: A Shared Rule of Behavior', Discussion Paper no. 9, Institute
of Developing Economies, October 2004). ASEAN Plus Three is not a formalised
organisation but is a loose cooperative framework based on conferences
and dialogue. The ASEAN Plus Three members have pursued dialogues at several
different levels simultaneously: among all thirteen members, among the
ASEAN 'ten' and one other member (which has enabled China and Japan, in
particular, to maintain and develop their own specific relationships with
ASEAN), and among the three Northeast Asian members (China, Japan and
South Korea) — who held their first trilateral meeting in 1999.
The ASEAN Plus Three process has involved annual meetings
of the members' leaders, and many meetings of ministers and senior officials
in areas including politics and security, trade, labour, agriculture and
forestry, tourism, energy and environment. A significant element in ASEAN
Plus Three activities has been the development of regional financial
cooperation, which has included the inauguration of Asian Bond Funds
(to mobilise capital for investment in the region) and a series of ‘currency
swap’ arrangements designed to help avoid any repetition of the financial
crisis which affected much of the region in 1997 (Jennifer
Amyx, 'What Motivates Regional
Financial Cooperation in East Asia Today?', Asia Pacific Issues,
Honolulu, East-West Center, No. 76, February 2005). The ASEAN Plus Three
leaders have also commissioned studies and reports to explore bases for
further East Asian cooperation – which encouraged development of proposals
for an 'East Asia Summit'.
The East Asia Summit : key issues
The first meeting of the ‘East Asia Summit’ in December
2005 is intended to initiate a further development in the 'architecture'
of regional cooperation. In the leadup to the Summit however, it was clear
that the new grouping faced a series of challenging issues and questions.
One relevant issue is that the character and level of
economic development among the Summit participants is very wide (for example,
between Japan and Laos) so agreement on cooperation programs could be
difficult to reach.
A second issue is that clear central leadership of the
Summit is likely to be difficult while relations among key Northeast Asian
participants remain politically distant (especially between China and
Japan). At the end of November 2005, as the Summit approached, there were
indications of continuing sensitivities among the Northeast Asian participants.
A senior Chinese official (Cui Tiankai, head of the
PRC Foreign Ministry’s Asian Affairs Department) said on 30 November that
it would be ‘impossible’ for Premier Wen Jiabao to hold a bilateral meeting
with Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi at the Summit because of ongoing
Chinese opposition to the Prime Minister’s visits to the Yasukuni Shrine
(where 14 figures classified by the World War Two Allies as war criminals
are among those enshrined). South Korea’s Foreign Minister Ban
Ki-moon stated on the same day that South Korea was not considering
holding a bilateral meeting between Mr Koizumi and President Roh Moo-hyun
during the Summit (Richard McGregor & Anna Fifield, ‘Divisions
undermine east Asia summit’, Financial Times, 1 December 2005).
A third issue is that the relationship between the new
East Asia Summit and existing cooperation dialogues, particularly ASEAN
Plus Three, remains to be clarified. It was reported in
the lead up to the Summit that this was an issue of contention between
China and Japan, with China arguing that it considered that the ASEAN
Plus Three dialogue should be the primary venue for discussions about
the overall future of East Asian cooperation while Japan considered that
such discussions could appropriately be pursued by the new East Asia Summit
('Japan, China clash
over E. Asia summit', Yomiuri Shimbun, 25 November 2005).
It seems probable that the Summit process—at least in its early phase
of activity—will proceed in parallel with the existing network of ASEAN
Plus Three discussions and not as a process which will incorporate those
networks. (For a valuable overview of the emerging East Asia Summit concept
see Ralph Cossa, Simon Tay and Lee Chung-min, 'The Emerging East Asian
Community: Should Washington be Concerned?', Issues and Insights,
vol. 5, no. 9, Honolulu, Pacific Forum CSIS, August 2005.)
A fourth issue is membership. ASEAN, as the convenor
of the Summit, had made it clear that Summit participants must be signatories
of the ASEAN Treaty of Amity
and Cooperation (or be prepared to sign it), needed to be full ASEAN
Dialogue Partners, and had to have substantial relations with ASEAN. On
those bases, and after a considerable amount of internal debate, it was
agreed that India, Australia and New Zealand should be participants in
the Summit.
The Summit, however, also attracted interest from some
major countries not invited to participate. Russia made an attempt to
gain representation. While its request was not agreed to ('Russia
not invited to inaugural East Asia Summit', Kyodo News, 3 October 2005),
Russia did attend the first Summit as an observer and may be invited to
join as a full member in the future.
The United States has also viewed the Summit with interest.
Ever since the formation of APEC in 1989, US policymakers have favoured
modes of regional cooperation in East Asia in which the US can participate
and have been wary about institutional arrangements which might ‘divide’
the region from the US. Some American observers have expressed concern
that the East Asia Summit will be a venue where major East Asia states
including China and Japan will be represented but the US will not, and
which could be another avenue for China to sponsor dialogues and discussions
which define ‘East Asia’ discussions and cooperation as not needing to
include the US ('Locking
Uncle Sam out of Asia', Christian Science Monitor, 8 December
2005). The question of how the US reacts to, and is able to interact with,
the East Asia Summit will be one of the most significant issues in the
early phases of the new grouping’s activities.
The First Summit : initial outcomes
The 16 participants in the first East Asia Summit duly met on 14 December
2005. The meeting was relatively short (at three hours) and few specific
decisions were made: the emphasis was on developing communication among
the members.
Malaysia's Prime
Minister Badawi, the chair for the meeting, in his Chairman's
Statement described the Summit as a 'leaders-led' gathering that initiated
confidence-building among the members as a first step towards more substantial
collaboration. The main issues discussed during the Summit included the
need for de-nuclearisation of the Korean peninsula, terrorism, avian flu,
sustainable development, the need for progress in the Doha round of World
Trade Organisation negotiations and the role which the EAS should play
as a complement to existing cooperation dialogues (including ASEAN Plus
Three) in the process of community building in the region.
The leaders' statement issued by the Summit (the
'Kuala Lumpur Declaration on the East Asia Summit') indicated that
it will be a 'forum for dialogue on broad strategic, political and economic
issues of common interest and concern, and with the aim of promoting peace,
stability and economic prosperity in East Asia'. It affirmed that the
EAS is intended to be an 'open, inclusive, transparent and outward-looking
forum, in which we strive to strengthen global norms and universally recognised
values, with ASEAN as the driving force working in partnership with other
participants of the East Asia Summit'. The Summit would be 'convened regularly',
would be hosted and chaired by an ASEAN member and would be held 'back
to back with the annual ASEAN Summit'.
The Summit participants issued a specific declaration
on avian flu, with a commitment to report all outbreaks rapidly and
transparently, and to take steps to ensure that the disease does not develop
into a form which could be transmitted directly between humans.
Initial reactions to the Summit from observers and analysts have been
varied. Sceptical analysts have emphasised the wide differences in character
and policy among the members and the very cautions nature of the first
meeting. Mohan Malik (Asia Pacific Center for Security
Studies, Hawaii), for example, commented that,
in the absence of a thaw in Sino-Japanese or Sino-Indian
relations or great power cooperation, the EAS is unlikely to take
off because multilateralism is a multi-player game… At best, the EAS
will be a talk shop like the APEC or the ARF where leaders meet, declarations
are made, but little community building is achieved.
Other observers argue that the EAS should be viewed as an important further
step toward dialogue in a region which does have strong motivations for
cooperation, but which will not necessarily follow the type of institution
building models pursued by other regions (particularly Europe). Yiyi
Lu (Chatham House, London ) and Chris Hughes (University of Warwick)
have argued that,
once again, the sceptics have failed to appreciate
that the development of regionalism in East Asia is taking a different
route from elsewhere. The existence of multiple fora, some of which
may even compete with each other, is not necessarily an obstacle and
may well turn out to be a positive factor in regional integration.
Barry Desker (Director, Institute of Defence and Strategic
Studies, Singapore) has suggested that the 14 December Summit was
a meeting which could in time be seen as a major step towards a new era
of regional cooperation. He has written that:
The Dec. 14 meeting is significant because
it went beyond narrow geographical definitions or ethnic/racial identity
in attempting to lay the groundwork for a new regional institution…
The inclusion of India , Australia , and New Zealand and the presence
of Vladimir Putin of Russia demonstrate an outward- looking, inclusive
approach to participation in the emerging East Asian regionalism.
In a comment after the Summit, Singapore 's Prime Minister Lee Hsien
Loong stressed the importance which East Asian countries place on the
process of dialogue. He said that,
You don't always get spectacular fireworks, big decisions
and major changes in policy. But step by step, each time you meet,
you are cultivating ground, keeping it fertile, maintaining relationships
and dealing with problems before they arise, before they become serious.
(Baradan Kuppusamy, 'False
dawn in East Asia', Asia Times, 17 December 2005.)
The Summit 's character and role should be clarified as it holds further
meetings and its dialogue is consolidated. The second Summit is scheduled
to be held during the next ASEAN Summit, in Cebu, The Philippines, on
13 December 2006 .
Australia’s interests
Australia’s participation in the first East Asia Summit
marks another important step in the process of engagement with Asia.
Australia has a longstanding interest in regional cooperation
in Asia and is involved in a number of cooperation dialogues simultaneously.
- Australia has been a dialogue partner of ASEAN since 1974 and has
built up an extensive multilateral relationship (for a review of Australia-ASEAN
relations from 1974 to 2004, see Frank Frost, 'Australia,
ASEAN and the Vientiane summit, November 2004: new prospects for cooperation',
Parliamentary Library Research Note, no. 21, 2004–05, Foreign
Affairs, Defence and Trade Section, 29 November 2004).
- Australia is a founding
and active member of the ASEAN Regional Forum.
- Australia is also a founding member of the Asia
Pacific Economic Cooperation grouping, which brings together economies
in both East Asia and the Americas. Australia will host the 2007
annual meeting (including the leaders' summit) in Sydney
in 2007.
The invitation for Australia to participate in the first
East Asia Summit followed a period of consolidation in Australia-ASEAN
relations. Australia and New Zealand were invited to attend a special
summit meeting with ASEAN in Vientiane in November 2004 to celebrate thirty
years of the Australia-ASEAN multilateral relationship. That meeting decided
to proceed with negotiations for a multilateral free trade
agreement between Australia, New Zealand and the ASEAN ten. Australia
in 2005 also decided to sign ASEAN's Treaty
of Amity and Cooperation, a step which ASEAN requested all countries
interested in participation in the East Asia Summit to take.
In a speech
on 1 December 2005, Australia’s Minister for Foreign Affairs Alexander
Downer suggested that the character and direction of the East Asia Summit
may take some time to become apparent but welcomed the fact that Australia
would be an inaugural participant. Mr Downer stated that:
This is just the first meeting and
nothing is set in stone. And if there is to be an emergence of an
East Asian community, it will not, in my view, be built around one
institution or meeting. An East Asian community will emerge for practical
reasons, not for ideological reasons. APEC, the ASEAN Regional Forum,
ASEAN plus three, and the East Asia Summit will all contribute to
an open but increasingly integrated region…
The East Asia Summit is only in
its very first iteration and will take some time to bed down. But
we can say now that we have a regional architecture that serves Australia's
interests well. It is open and inclusive. It addresses security and
economic issues in a practical way and Australia has a very strong
voice in how it develops.
Prime Minister John
Howard, in comments
in Kuala Lumpur on 14 December 2005, just before the Summit, stated
that,
although the meeting is a short
one, it's a very important one not only for its symbolism but also
for its substance because it will bring together for the first time,
16 countries of the East Asian region. We will have an opportunity
to talk necessarily in general terms about the major issues confronting
the region.
Mr Howard also indicated that the Australian goverrnment at this time
continued to see APEC as the single most important avenue for regional
dialogue. He commented that APEC is the 'premier body' which has the 'great
advantage...that it does bring the United States to this region...'
Speaking just after the Summit had taken place, Mr
Howard expressed his satisfaction with its first meeting. While the
leaders had talked necessarily in general terms about various issues,
Mr Howard said of the Summit that, 'I regard it as a great success...I
would say that the meeting in some respects exceeded my expectations'.
Key links and resources
The official
website for the 11th ASEAN Summit.
The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade site for
the Association of Southeast Asian
Nations.
For a detailed overview of issues in relation to the
East Asia Summit see Ralph Cossa, Simon Tay and Lee Chung-min, 'The
Emerging East Asian Community: Should Washington be Concerned?', Issues
and Insights, vol. 5, no. 9, Honolulu, Pacific Forum CSIS, August
2005.
A useful discussion of possible issues which could be
taken up by the East Asia Summit agenda is provided by See Seng Tan and
Ralf Emmers, (eds), An
Agenda for the East Asia Summit: Thirty Recommendations for Regional Cooperation
in East Asia, Singapore, Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies,
November 2005.
For a perspective from India on the East Asia Summit
see Nagesh Kumar, Towards a Broader East Asian Community:
Agenda for the East Asia Summit', Research and Information System
for Developing Countries, New Delhi, November 2005.
A valuable analysis of the evolution of Australia-Southeast
Asia relations in the lead up to the Summit is provided by Michael Richardson,
'Australia-Southeast
Asia relations and the East Asian Summit', Australian Journal
of International Affairs, vol. 59, no. 3, September 2005, pp. 351-365.
For assessments of the first East Asia Summit see:
Yiyi Lu and Chris Hughes, 'The
East Asia model towards creating a regional community', Straits
Times, 24 December 2005.
' EAS
is first step on long road towards regional integration', Oxford
Analytica, 19 December 2005.
Barry Desker, 'Why
the East Asia Summit matters', PacNet, No. 55B, Pacific Forum/CSIS,
Honolulu, Hawaii, 19 December 2005.
Ron Huisken, 'The
First East Asia Summit', PacNet, No. 55A, Pacific Forum/CSIS,
Honolulu, Hawaii, 19 December 2005.
' The First East
Asia Summit: Towards a community – or a cul-de-sac?', IISS
Strategic Comments, London, International Institute for Strategic
Studies, vol. 11, issue 10, December 2005.
Mohan Malik, 'The
East Asia Summit: More Discord than Accord', YaleGlobal Online,
20 December 2005.
East Asia Summit Participants : Statistical Information
| Country |
Population |
Exchange Rate |
GDP (US $bn): |
GDP per capita (US$): |
Real GDP growth (% change
YOY): |
| Australia |
20.2 m (2004) |
A$1=US$0.7666 (Jun
2005) |
692.4 |
33,629 |
2.6 |
| Brunei |
0.4 m (2004) |
A$1=B$1.2815 (Jun 2005) |
5.7 |
15,764 |
1.6 |
| Burma (Myanmar) |
50.2 m (2004) |
A$1=710.5280 Kyats
(2004) |
10.4 |
205 |
1.3 |
| Cambodia |
13.8 m (2004) |
A$1=3,131.68 Riels
(Jun 2005) |
4.6 |
317 |
1.9 |
| China |
1,299.8 m (2004) |
A$1=6.3450 Yuan (Jun
2005) |
1,851.2 |
1,416 |
9.1 |
| India |
1,080.3 m (2004) |
A$1=33.4125 Rupees
(Jun 2005) |
750.8 |
685 |
7.1 |
| Indonesia |
223.8 m (2004) |
A$1=7,384.79 Rupiah
(Jun 2005) |
280.9 |
1,237 |
5.7 |
| Japan |
127.3 m (2004) |
A$1=83.2790 Yen (Jun
2005) |
4,694.3 |
36,841 |
1.2 |
| Republic
of Korea |
48.2 m (2004) |
A$1=775.9676 Won (Jun
2005) |
819.2 |
16,897 |
3.1 |
| Laos |
5.8 m (2004) |
A$1=8,061.24 Kip (Feb
2005) |
2.7 |
451 |
7.0 |
| Malaysia |
25.5 m(2004) |
A$1=2.9132 Ringgit
(Jun 2005) |
129.4 |
4,989 |
4.8 |
| New
Zealand |
4.1 m (2004) |
A$1=NZ$1.0820 (Jun
2005) |
108.7 |
26,373 |
2.7 |
| Philippines |
86.2 m (2004) |
A$1=42.3019 Pesos (Jun
2005) |
95.6 |
1,088 |
5.1 |
| Singapore |
4.2 m (2004) |
A$1=$1.2815 (Jun 2005) |
116.3 |
27,180 |
3.7 |
| Thailand |
64.6 m (2004) |
A$1=31.3293 Baht (Jun
2005) |
178.1 |
2,736 |
4.5 |
| Vietnam |
82.6 m (2004) |
A$1=11,594.08 Dong
(2004) |
51.0 |
610 |
7.8 |
Source: Data from
Country Fact Sheets, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. (The
data is as compiled by the Market Information and Analysis Section, DFAT,
using the latest data from the ABS, the IMF and various international
sources. Please note that data listed for GDP statistics and unemployment
rates are either IMF or Economist Intelligence Unit forecasts for 2005.)
For copyright reasons some linked items are only available to
members of Parliament.
|
|
