Tokyo: United Nations University Press, 2013. xxx, 356 pp. (Figures, tables.) US$40.00, paper. ISBN 978-92-808-1222-0.
East Asian integration has progressed steadily during the last decades, largely driven by the region’s economic success. A rapid intensification of trade and investment flows between East Asian countries related to the establishment of regional production networks has promoted real sector integration. The trend of closer economic interdependence was initially set by market forces and later supported by intergovernmental policy initiatives through the signing of various regional free trade agreements (FTAs) and broader economic partnership agreements. Today, 50 to 55 percent of East Asia’s total trade occurs at the intraregional level—a clear indicator of the region’s high degree of interdependence in the real sector.
Progress has also occurred in the area of money and finance, albeit with lower intensity, as East Asian financial markets remain somewhat underdeveloped. Besides, regional financial integration has followed a reverse pattern from that of the real sector: it was prompted by initiatives for intergovernmental cooperation introduced in response to the Asian financial crisis of 1997/98, more than by market forces. Typically, such initiatives were adopted by the Association of Southeast Asian Nation (ASEAN) plus China, Japan and the Republic of Korea—ASEAN+3.
East Asian regionalism is also showing continuous progress in a multiplicity of other areas from people-to-people exchanges, security, infrastructure development, environment, energy, health, sport, education, and the provision of other regional public goods through the shared management of common resources. Although in recent years political problems have been troubling the horizon for international relations among key East Asian countries (mainly due to disputes over a few islands in the Japan Sea and South-China Sea) all in all the last few decades have been marked by a rapid intensification of East Asian regionalization, at a time when East Asian countries have also been undertaking an unprecedented move towards globalization: economically, socially and culturally.
The book Regional Integration in East Asia: Theoretical and Historical Perspectives, edited by three well-known scholars from Waseda University (Satoshi Amako, Shunji Matsuoka and Kenji Horiuchi) provides an excellent analysis of how East Asian countries are following at the same time both processes of regionalization and globalization, with few contradictions but large synergies and complementarities. The study provides an insightful review of the theoretical approaches that contribute to the understanding of East Asian integration logic and trends, including long-term historical perspectives of key countries such as China, Japan and the ASEAN member states.
The book is structured in three parts. The first part covers a detailed discussion of theoretical contributions on East Asian integration, including issues related to mandates, norms and governance of regional institutions, social aspects concerning the creation of a region-wide community in comparison with the European experience, and the influence of domestic politics on the pace of regionalization through FTAs. The second part analyzes specific issues, from economic integration, to cooperation in areas such as energy, the environment, education and regional security. Finally, the third part provides an interesting historical perspective to Asian integration, covering the views of several key thinkers who promoted the idea of regionalism and pan-Asian approaches. It also includes a review of key historical events which contributed to the formation of today’s East Asian regionalization.
In addition to the need for promoting regionalism in parallel and in a complementary fashion with globalism, a major finding of the study is that China’s emergence as a key player in the process of East Asian integration creates both centripetal and centrifugal forces that operate at the same time. While China is helping in many ways to make East Asia a more cohesive region, it also pushes for a reconsolidation of old alliances between East Asian countries (for example Japan, Korea and the Philippines) with the United States, and non-regional powers as well. In turn, this contributes to making the current status of East Asian integration particularly complex and defined by a multiplicity of layers and non-univocal perspectives. The ability to treat such complexity in a rigorous analytical framework, such as the one adopted by Waseda’s Global Institute for Asia’s Regional Integration (GIARI), is a major contribution of the study.
The focus on international relations is, however, one of the book’s intrinsic limitations. The chapter by Shujiro Urata is the only one in the whole book that focuses on economic issues. And while this chapter provides an excellent analysis of integration and cooperation in the real sector, it is also important to discuss the financial and monetary pillar of East Asian integration, as well as other key components of regional economic interdependence such as infrastructure and connectivity.
Many important institutions and initiatives for East Asian integration were created in response to the 1997/98 financial crisis, and given the need to further develop Asian financial sectors, and increase their efficiency, money and finance will likely play a major role as drivers of regional integration in the future. At the same time, the development of regional infrastructure has greatly facilitated the creation of economic corridors linking subregions, such as the one involving Mekong River countries, and deserve a detailed analysis in order to provide a complete snapshot of today’s East Asia.
Other important aspects of integration which are missing in the study relate to the various dimensions of people-to-people exchanges, including tourism flows, cultural activities, sports, and community-building initiatives organized through the civil society. These exchanges are fundamental contributions to the formation of regional identity and, as explained in the GIARI model, to the creation of a new culture emerging from the civil society that appreciates the benefits of social, political, and economic integration with regional neighbors.
The GIARI model could also be strengthened by a wider and deeper analysis of the issues of leadership and legitimacy. Now that economic development is providing the internal financial resources needed to build an East Asian community, legitimacy remains a crucial factor for aspiring regional leaders. The mechanisms to ensure the region’s equitable and sustainable development deserve more space too, as they are of utmost importance to guarantee regional harmony—a key feature stressed in the East Asian model compared with that of Europe and other regional groupings.
Despite these shortcomings the study remains a major contribution and a key reference for future works.
Giovanni Capannelli
Asian Development Bank Institute, Tokyo, Japan