The non-traditional security concept and the EU-ASEAN relationship against the backdrop of China's rise

The rise of China raises questions about international order and whether traditional power structures will be transformed peacefully or confrontationally. Actively engaged in trade and investment activities with its Southeast Asian neighbourhood, China has been exerting political influence on many Southeast Asian states, cleaving regional cohesion and raising levels of tensity in the region. This article presupposes that within so-called non-traditional security (NTS) areas, there is room for China and Southeast Asian countries to circumvent the political tensions, to some extent. It presumes that NTS issues facilitate greater interaction with/on China for Southeast Asian states, including enhanced European Union (EU)-Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) engagement on China. Recognising the increasing and rather underexplored importance of the NTS perspective on the official and scholarly levels, this article delves into the rhetoric of NTS from a European perspective with particular view towards the South China Sea issue to demonstrate the use and utility of the NTS concept in the EU-ASEAN context against the backdrop of China's rise.     

The United States — Japan relationship: A post‐cold war future

Abstract

In the introduction, the editors discuss the emergence of a new body of literature on Southeast Asia's regional relations that is both theoretically informed and stimulating. One element of this literature features a constructivist challenge to realism, traditionally the dominant perspective on Southeast Asian International Relations. Constructivist writings have helped to broaden the understanding of Southeast Asia's regional order by capturing its ideational determinants (norms and identity), the agency role of local actors, and the possibility of transformation through socialization and institution building. But constructivism itself has been challenged by other perspectives, including neo-liberal, English School and critical approaches. The essays in this special issue of The Pacific Review capture this emerging debate. The editors argue that the articles in this special issue are a good indicator of the theoretical pluralism that marks the study of Southeast Asia's regional relations today. Southeast Asian studies need not be dominated by either realism or constructivism, but can accommodate a diversity that vastly enriches our understanding of regional conflict and order.     

Asia … whose Asia? A ‘return to the future’ of a Sino-Indic Asian Community

Abstract

This article is an attempt to provide a corrective to a marked Sinocentrism in contemporary debates on regional integration in Asia. In order to do so, firstly, as a heuristic device, a crucial distinction is made between ‘regionalization’, as involving multifaceted integrative socio-economic processes, and ‘regionalism’, defined as a form of identity construction akin to nationalism. Secondly, a degree of historical depth is proposed to better explain recent developments. Finally, throughout the article, an interdisciplinary approach is taken involving employing realist, historical/sociological institutionalist and constructivist perspectives in the area of international relations. The first two East Asian summits are contextualized in relation to various conceptualizations of an Asian Community over the last century or so. Particular attention is given to the 1955 Asian-African Conference in Bandung as a watershed in this evolution. Varying conceptions of East Asia as part of a larger, transpacific regional entity (APEC) and in, and of, itself (East Asian Economic Group/ASEAN +3) are examined. In situating the first two East Asian summits five developments of significance are examined. These are: a continuing Japanese role in setting the regional agenda; the ambivalence of China's positioning vis-à-vis neighbouring countries; the re-entry of Central Asia in the Asian regional equation; India's ‘return to Asia’; and efforts to maintain ASEAN's centrality in regional construction. These factors, it is argued, are militating towards a return to the Sino-Indic Asia of Bandung. It is thus suggested that notions of an Asian Community involving only Northeast and Southeast Asia are now rejoined by a concept of a Greater Asia. While the historical roots of this conception partly explain its salience, it nevertheless competes with other complementary – and antagonistic – definitions of an Asian Community of more recent lineage.     

The elusiveness of regional order: Leifer,the English school and Southeast Asia

Abstract

‘Regional order’ was Michael Leifer's yardstick of choice to assess the international relations of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Leifer's recurrent theme was how elusive, and at times how illusory, regional order was for Southeast Asia. The elusiveness of regional order is attributed to ASEAN's lack of a set of genuinely shared assumptions about their interrelationships with each other and external states. This article challenges Leifer's portrait of a Southeast Asia devoid of regional order. I argue that Leifer's notion of order is theoretically underdeveloped and methodologically imprecise, allowing the analyst to see disorder in every minor perturbation in the region. I propose replacing ‘regional order’ with ‘peace and stability’, the preferred terms of the discourse by ASEAN's policy elites. By the latter criteria, ASEAN and the Asia-Pacific, contrary to the skeptics, have made impressive progress in the last forty years.     

US rebalance: potential and limits in Southeast Asia

A central theme of US policy towards Asia during 2012 has been the strengthening of America's military deployments, political relationships and economic partnerships in Southeast Asia. It is evident that China's growing power and assertiveness have provided an important stimulus for renewed US policy activism in a sub-region towards which some observers had detected neglect by Washington over the previous decade. But while Southeast Asian states may take advantage of renewed American interest to hedge against China's rise, most of them will keep their strategic options open.     

China's dual strategy of coercion and inducement towards ASEAN

ABSTRACT

This article contributes to the discussion about China's divisive influence on the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). It argues that recent China–ASEAN relations are based on Beijing's successful implementation of a dual strategy of coercion and inducement. The effectiveness of this strategy is tested against the South China Sea disputes – the issue that lies in the core of regional security and a key platform of power display. The article outlines Beijing's recent interaction with individual ASEAN member-states and its implications for the regional multilateral diplomacy. While by no means identical, Beijing's dual strategy of coercion and inducement with individual ASEAN states have resulted in an effective abuse of the ASEAN consensus principle – a tactic often referred to as ‘divide and rule’. Consequently, the group's internal discord has further eroded and affected the institutional confidence of ASEAN. This article draws attention to the psychological effect of coercion as a perception of punishment, and inducement as a perception of reward.     

Taming the tigers? Reforming the security sector in Southeast Asia

Abstract

Despite global trends towards military reform characterized by processes of professionalization and democratization, militaries in Southeast Asia have continued to play prominent roles in domestic politics since 11 September. This suggests that wider patterns of global military reform have not had as great an impact on the control, capacity and cooperative functions of armed forces in Southeast Asia as they may have elsewhere. In order to explore why the security sector reform agenda has had so little impact in the region, we investigate recent patterns of civil–military relations in Southeast Asia by focusing on the experiences of four of the region's militaries: Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines and Indonesia. We argue that the security sector reform agenda is informed by a predominantly North American approach to civil–military relations based on a number of core assumptions that do not reflect Southeast Asian experiences. Hence, we ask whether the reform agenda itself could be modified to better suit the Southeast Asian context. We suggest that although the regional military sector has not reformed along a ‘Western’ path it is nonetheless possible to see other types of, and potential for, reform.     

Food in China's international relations

Abstract Food is a tireless referent in international relations studies about China and its ties with the rest of the world. This paper addresses two contemporary issues. First, why is China so sensitive about grain self-sufficiency? Second, why does there seem to be a lack of effective dialogue between epistemic communities in China and outside over China's overseas agricultural activities? The first part of the paper reviews the development of China's agricultural sector and underlines the importance of China's contribution in stabilizing the world food markets. Next, it explores the ideational sources of Chinese food insecurity, in spite of its success in attaining high levels of self-sufficiency in grain. The third part of the paper reviews the evolution of China's overseas agricultural activities and analyzes the factors that contribute to a mismatch of understanding about the political implications therein. The paper concludes by proposing a couple of conceptual road maps for securitizing food as a referent in debates about China's security environment and Chinese international relations.     

Chinese and Japanese investment in Southeast and South Asia: case studies of the electronics and automobile industries

Abstract

This article uses extensive fieldwork data to focus on the question of how Chinese and Japanese companies are competing in neighboring countries of Asia, and what economic forces will shape their future growth in the region. It begins by briefly discussing the history of Chinese and Japanese investment in the South and Southeast Asian regions. It traces the development of Japanese overseas investment policies, as well as China's more recent ‘Going Out’ government program to encourage overseas flows of capital. It then builds on prior political economy work as it uses case study focuses, with primary data based on the author's fieldwork research in several nations of Southeast Asia and in India, of the two key sectors of automobiles and electronics. It compares and contrasts the investment strategies of companies from each country, as well as the successes and failures of investments in the industries. It finds that Japanese companies’ advantages lie in industries utilizing advanced technology and management skills. Though the Japanese continue to lead in many areas, including automobiles, they have begun to face competition and potentially reduced profits in vital manufacturing areas. Meanwhile, Chinese overseas companies have made significant advances in the consumer electronics sector, using low prices and good quality, though overseas automobile investments have gained little traction. The article concludes that, if the Chinese can improve their product quality, capitalize on improving managerial skills and a deeper level of experience in the region, and establish brands they can sell with reliable distribution networks, Japanese companies could face losses to their Asian neighbor in these important parts of the continent they have dominated for decades.     

ASEAN and human rights: resisting Western pressure or emulating the West?

Abstract

Observers of Southeast Asian affairs commonly assume that the members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) are reluctant to pursue liberal agendas, and that their main concern is to resist pressure from Western powers to improve their human rights practice. This article, however, argues that such a conventional view is too simplistic. The Southeast Asian countries have voluntarily been pursuing liberal agendas, and their main concern here is to be identified as ‘Western’ countries – advanced countries with legitimate international status. They have ‘mimetically’ been adopting the norm of human rights which is championed by the advanced industrialized democracies, with the intention of securing ASEAN's identity as a legitimate institution in the community of modern states. Ultimately, they have been pursuing liberal agendas, for the same reason as cash-strapped developing countries have luxurious national airlines and newly-independent countries institute national flags. Yet it should be noted that the progress of ASEAN's liberal reform has been modest. A conventional strategy for facilitating this reform would be to put more pressure on the members of ASEAN; however, the usefulness of such a strategy is diminishing. The development of an East Asian community, the core component of which is the ASEAN–China concord, makes it difficult for the Western powers to exercise influence over the Southeast Asian countries. Hence, as an alternative strategy, this article proposes that ASEAN's external partners should ‘globalize’ the issue of its liberal reform, by openly assessing its human rights record in global settings, with the aim of boosting the concern of its members for ASEAN's international standing.     

From ambiguity to contestation: discourse(s) of non-traditional security in the ASEAN community

‘Non-traditional security’ (NTS) is prominently featured in the agenda of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and other ASEAN-led institutions in the Asia-Pacific. ‘NTS’ brings together a series transnational and non-military security threats that are considered common among regional states, urgent for them to attend to, and non-sensitive all at the same time. This a priori makes it a self-evident focus of attempts to bring regional security cooperation ‘to a higher plane’. However, this paper reveals that the uncontroversial character of NTS is overestimated, by shedding light on the co-existence of divergent – and potentially contradictory – interpretations of its meaning and implications in ASEAN and the wider region. In a context where ASEAN's relevance to the pursuit of regional security is increasingly being measured against its (in)ability to provide a coherent approach to security challenges that affect the region, the contested nature of NTS has important implications for the grouping's resilience in the twenty-first century.     

China in East Asia: The process and implications of regionalization

This paper assesses the impact of foreign direct investment on China's integration into the East Asian regional economy. The phenomenal growth of investment since 1992 has both benefited from, and also fuelled, the growth of local autonomy in post‐Mao China. The central state's ability to control the process of integration has subsequently been significantly undermined as the relationship between the local and the international becomes ever more important. While the tendency to emphasize low cost production advantages has attracted considerable inward investment in some areas, impressive short‐term growth rates may hide less beneficial long‐term consequences for China's position within East Asia, and for the trajectory of China's development in general.     

Renewable energy and East Asia's new developmentalism: towards a low carbon future?

Abstract

East Asia's renewable energy (RE) sector has grown faster than any other region's since the mid-2000s. It is argued that renewables formed an integral part of the region's new industrial policies and new developmentalism, which are founded on new configured forms of state capacity shaped in response to various challenges, primarily climate change, energy security, globalisation and global neo-liberalism. By studying the recent progress of East Asia's RE sector, we gain useful insights into these key developments in East Asia's political economy and the region's prospects for transition towards low carbon development. This analysis considers how and why different approaches to RE policy emerged in East Asia, to what extent the promotion and expansion of East Asia's RE sector is part of a new industrial policy paradigm and new developmentalism, and what the study of East Asian policies on promoting renewable energy can tell us about the region's broader approach to low carbon development. Although the promotion of renewable energy has been a fundamental part of East Asia's recent macro-development plans and new developmentalism generally, these same plans suggest that East Asian states will simultaneously continue to significantly promote high carbon and ecologically damaging industrial activities, thus undermining the low carbon credentials of East Asia's new developmentalism. The path to meaningful low carbon development will be very long and will take many decades to achieve. However, it is contended that by maintaining and improving their various forms of state capacity over time, the East Asian states will be well positioned to sustain the significant growth of their renewable energy sectors and thereby further strengthen the low carbon development orientation of their new industrial policies, macro-development plans and strategic economic thinking.     

Philippine legal move stirs South China Sea disputes

Recent moves by the Philippines to seek international arbitration in its long-standing territorial dispute with Beijing in the South China Sea have exposed potentially damaging rifts within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. Manila's attempt to invite legal scrutiny of China's territorial claims has divided regional opinion and could actually strengthen Beijing's hand in future attempts to resolve such disputes diplomatically.     

What are the strategic and economic implications for South Asia of China's Maritime Silk Road initiative?

This article focuses on South Asia's role in China's Maritime Silk Road (MSR) initiative. Given the saliency of this MSR enterprise as part of ChinesePresident Xi Jinping’s “One-Belt-One-Road” strategy, how this ambitious scheme impacts China’s relations with South Asian states along the MSR’s route, i.e. India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Maldives and Bangladesh, merits investigation. The fate of the MSR will be determined by China’s relations with these states, since South Asia is in the middle of major sea-lanes between East/Southeast Asia and Middle East/Europe. The study examines the intentions and executions of China’s MSR projects in South Asia, evaluates the political and economic calculations of participating in the MSR for regional states, and identifies actions taken by them that can decide the initiative’s success. Politically, reactions of South Asian states to the MSR are explained as: fear of expanding Chinese influence in the Indian Ocean for India; and attempts by which Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Maldives and Bangladesh use China to counteract possible domination by India. Economically, two MSR pathways for South Asian states are analyzed: increases in Chinese infrastructure investments; and expansion in South Asia-China trade; both of which are reducible by loans owed to China, or “strings”/conditions attached.     

The North Korean factor in the improvement of Japanese intelligence capability

Abstract

Since the early 1990s, human rights have been a contentious issue for relations between the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the European Union (EU), especially in the Asia–Europe Meeting (ASEM). It is an issue that has constantly led to tensions in interregional cooperation. However, the ASEAN–EU dialogue on human rights has, in fact, had a significant impact on regional dynamics by stimulating the process of regional identity formation, especially in Southeast Asia. The core mechanism through which this development takes place is that of interaction, the process in which the two regional groupings engage while negotiating human rights policy. It can be argued, therefore, that interregional and intraregional human rights interactions are mutually dependent. ASEAN's rather confrontational mode of interaction with the European Union in relation to human rights has served as a catalyst for the dynamic growth of a collective definition of self in ASEAN. It has led to an ‘essentialization’ of ASEAN's idea of self as opposed to a common other, something which has undermined the possibility of maintaining an interregional dialogue that is not confrontational. However, it has also contributed to the development of a regional space for communicating about human rights and has thus played a central role in the gradual transformation of ASEAN's collective identity formation.     

The rise of China as a constructed narrative: Southeast Asia's response to Asia's power shift

This article examines the rise of China from the perspective of three selected countries – the Philippines, Vietnam, and Malaysia – in Southeast Asia. I argue that their perceptions of China's rise are political constructs: while the objective reality may be an increasingly powerful China, their responses have been far from uniform. They vary in ways that are shaped by their domestic politics. These constructed narratives serve their respective political agenda, from leadership legitimacy to the supremacy of a party faction. Since theories of international relations tend to fixate on power politics between great powers, this article explains how and why small regional powers add to the process of understanding China's rise. In short, regional states’ domestic politics affect their narratives of China, and therefore affect how China's rise is being understood in the region and beyond.     

Quiet power: Japan's China policy in regard to the Pinnacle Islands

Abstract

This paper explores how the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has tackled the threat of terrorism since 9/11 and the Bali bombings. It claims that ASEAN has applied its traditional approach to security, based on comprehensive security and the principle of resilience, when addressing this challenge. The resilience concept underpins the nexus between national and regional security and emphasizes domestic regime consolidation re-enforced by regional consultations. In their pursuit of resilience, member states have sought in various degrees to address terrorism domestically through a mixture of security, law enforcement, socio-economic, ideological, and educational policies. It is noted that Indonesia, the Philippines, and Singapore have tackled terrorism more comprehensively than Thailand and Malaysia. Reflecting the synergy between national and regional resilience, ASEAN has operated as an umbrella organization meant to complement domestic and sub-regional efforts. It has been committed rhetorically, has produced frameworks of action, as well as reached agreements with the great powers. The paper is not overly optimistic, however, about ASEAN's role in promoting regional resilience against the threat of terrorism in Southeast Asia.     

Seeds of an Asian European Union? Regionalism as a hedge against the United States on telecommunications technology in Japan and Germany

Abstract

Germany and Japan have both used regionalism as a hedge against American power in the area of telecommunications, but this strategy has taken very different forms. Germany's regionalism is within the European Union. Since 2002 Japan has developed an ad hoc technology alliance in telecommunications with China and South Korea. Both the European Union and Northeast Asian countries have used industrial policy to promote telecommunications technology and both regional organizations have expressed concern about American dominance in telecommunications. Both Germany and Japan have looked to their lower income neighboring countries for investment opportunities in telecommunications, but each has taken a different approach. Japanese telecommunications firms have not been very successful in investing in other countries or in exporting Japan's very sophisticated and expensive telecommunications equipment. The Japanese government and business organizations have taken the lead in trying to promote joint research and pursue development of joint standards. Germany's Deutsche Telekom has been much more active than Japanese firms in international investment. The European Union differs from the Northeast Asian group in that it has pressed Germany to keep its domestic telecommunications market open and to make Deutsche Telekom compete internationally. It is surprising that China, Japan and South Korea have reached out to each other to cooperate on technology and standards development despite longstanding mutual antagonisms. The Northeast Asian agreements on telecommunications recall the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) of 1952, an initiative that also sought to link economically states divided by deep resentments. Like the ECSC, the current Asian initiative targets some of the most important economic sectors of the day. However, strong market pressures tend to undermine cooperation, and it is uncertain how much impact the agreements on telecommunications will really have.     

Response and responsibility: China in East Asian financial cooperation

Abstract

China's behaviour in East Asian financial cooperation has overall changed from passively responding to external pressures to taking proactive initiatives, which are highlighted by Chinese elites as evidence of a sense of responsibility. China has taken varied positions towards proposals for Asian financial regionalism, from ‘silent’ objection, to lukewarm or superficial support, to enthusiastic participation and substantial contribution, and this variance has not always taken place in a chronological order. Despite much speculation over the trajectory of China's role in East Asian regionalism, there has not been a study focused on China's policymaking towards East Asian financial cooperation. Therefore, this paper fills the gap by analysing the factors and policymaking processes that have led to those varied positions. It argues that China, recognising the momentum in the region to enhance cooperation, has replaced the blunt dismissals of proposals, particularly those from Japan, with a more subtle approach that is aimed at ensuring China's influence and promoting the image of a responsible great power; that the extent to which it can contribute to this process is mainly constrained by its economic conditions, particularly the financial institutions.