Japanese PM Proposes East Asian Community

The idea of creating an East Asian community has been floating around for many years and the newly-elected Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama wants to rejuvenate it. He has advocated an East Asian bloc inspired by the European Union.

“It will be more of an economic integration,” said Martin Schultz, an economist in Tokyo. “On the corporate level, corporations are working very closely together and capital comes from Japan, Hong Kong and Singapore. Most investment is in China and also in Southeast Asia. So we are seeing a lot of integration there.”

But Huang Jing, an East Asian affairs expert at the National University of Singapore, does not find the idea very realistic because the countries involved are at a different level of development.

“For example, China is still a very much a developing country and Chinese currency has not been opened up in the international market. If we include other countries like North Korea and South Korea, the differences in the level of economic development are so substantial it will be difficult to really build up an EU-like community in terms of economic co-operation,” he said.

“The other problem is that it is difficult to define what East Asia is all about. Will it also include countries like Vietnam, the Philippines or Southeast Asian countries or just the countries in North East Asia?”

Some sticking points

There are some other sticking points, such as the long-running dispute between China and Japan over gas resources in the East China Sea, or the interpretation of Second World War history.

Japan’s controversial Yasukuni shrine, which honours over two million Japanese war dead, continues to seen by many in Asia as a symbol of Japan’s militarist past. The countries in the region also share different opinions on North Korea’s nuclear programme.

After his meeting with China’s President Hu Jintao, Hatoyama was optimistic that these differences could be overcome. He said the new East Asian community should be formed by building a “relationship of trust”.

Beijing welcomes Japanese proposal

Beijing, for its part, has welcomed Hatoyama's proposal. But, as expert Huang Jing put it, Japan will have to take a number of steps in order to seek China’s full support, and will have to take a clear stance on its alliance with the US.

“Some Chinese leaders are still very suspicious that this alliance can be used against China,” warned Huang Jing. Hatoyama has of late said he wants this alliance to be based on equal terms, and he wants the US to have less of a defining role in Japan.

But this will not be easy, said Huang Jing: “By its constitution, Japan is not allowed to have military forces but only self-defence forces, which means that in the foreseeable future Japan has to depend on US for defence. In other words, if Japan really wants to be independent of the US, it has, number one, to have more independence in military affairs, and then more independence in diplomatic affairs and last but not least, Japan may need a new constitution because we all know that the Japanese constitution was written by the US.”

Until these issues are resolved, experts do not believe there can be an EU-like East Asian community -- at least not in the next decade or so.

Author: Disha Uppal
Editor: Anne Thomas