The challenges of economic integration: the case of shipping in ASEAN countries

Abstract

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has agreed to establish an ASEAN single-shipping market (ASSM) by 2015. This paper aims to assess the impediments in achieving this vision and how they can affect the pace of integration. These impediments include the differences in their national shipping capacity, national shipping policies and regulations, and in their quality of shipping-related infrastructure and institutions. Due to these differences, the economic implications are likely to vary and raise important conceptual and implementation issues. The ASEAN experience could contribute to the understanding of shipping market integration and provide some lessons for other countries.     

Between bilateralism and regionalism in East Asia: the ASEAN–Japan Comprehensive Economic Partnership

Abstract

This paper examines economic regionalism in East Asia with a focus on the key issues in harmonizing bilateral free trade agreements. The ASEAN+1 free trade agreements with China, South Korea and Japan represent the first attempts to structure cooperation in trade across Southeast and Northeast Asia. It is therefore important to examine the coverage of these agreements and the extent to which they actually liberalize trade. This study focuses on major choices made in the negotiation of the ASEAN–Japan Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement and the ways in which these choices help or hinder the consolidation of economic regionalism. The results achieved in the ASEAN–Japan Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement are limited at best. The agreement does establish some new areas of cooperation among the signatories but fails to address important issues for regionalism such as labor mobility. It also makes limited progress in harmonizing and liberalizing rules of origin. The ASEAN–Japan Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement applies product-specific rules to fewer categories of goods than most of Japan's bilateral agreements with ASEAN members but those rules in place are still very restrictive. Moreover, the parties to the ASEAN–Japan Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement have the option of applying the rules of their bilateral agreement if it provides more favorable treatment. Thus, there is no guarantee the more liberal terms of the ASEAN–Japan Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement will be applied.     

The ASEAN naval build‐up: Implications for the regional order

This paper examines the ongoing ASEAN force modernization in the light of whether it is stabilizing or destabilizing for the region. Donald K. Emmerson's framework for analysing security regimes — the concentration or dispersion of power in achieving regional order — is employed as a basis for analysis. The paper comes to the conclusion that while the ASEAN arms build‐up will not have a destabilizing effect on the wider Asia‐Pacific regional order or balance, it could have serious implications for ASEAN and Southeast Asia. This is because while the actual increase in the number of weapon systems and platforms is not large, it still constitutes a significant increase in percentage terms, and even more so with regard to capability. Moreover, the ASEAN members are building up their forces at a time when there are no obvious military threats. They are in effect engaged in contingency planning. All these factors could be destabilizing for ASEAN's internal balance. As such, there is a need for ASEAN to address the arms build‐up, and introduce confidence‐building measures. One suggested forum for transparency measures is the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF).     

Global norms in domestic politics: environmental norm contestation in Cambodia's hydropower sector

Policymakers in many developing Asian countries have commonly relied on investment incentives as a major policy instrument to attract foreign investment. Using comparative case studies of Asian transnational corporations (TNCs) in Southeast Asia, this paper argues that investment incentives per se are ineffective in attracting foreign investment. The paper first examines the role of government incentives in the inflow of foreign investment, with particular reference to the Southeast Asian region. It then provides a comparative study of Hong Kong and Taiwanese investments. Hong Kong TNCs are shown to have invested in Southeast Asia because of market or market‐related reasons, not investment incentives per se. To these firms from Hong Kong, investment incentives are more a kind of post hoc rationalization of their decision making. For the Taiwanese investors in Malaysia, government incentives are less important than the existence of market access and the friendly host country environment. The paper also suggests some implications and specific policy recommendations for policymakers in host country governments. Instead of over‐reliance on investment incentives, host country governments should be more concerned with: 1) a commitment to internationalization through the promotion and marketing of international images; 2) the upgrading of domestic resources through continuous training and development; 3) a more efficient allocation of resources; 4) supra‐national coordination and promotion.     

The ASEAN Regional Forum in United States East Asian strategy

This paper analyses the development of the US approach to the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), from 1991 onwards. It examines theories of why a superpower would participate in a multilateral security institution, and investigates the motivations for the attitudes and extent of participation of the George H. Bush, Clinton and George W. Bush administrations towards the ARF. It argues that, in the post-Cold War period and in the face of a rising China, US East Asia strategy has been geared towards retaining the American preponderance of power. Thus, the US has pursued a strategy of containment and deterrence centred upon the regional bilateral alliance structure. Multilateral institutions have been treated as a supplementary means of supporting the secondary strategy of engaging with China. However, the ARF is not viewed as one of the important institutions through which to fulfil this supplementary aim. Because it cannot deal with the key regional security issues, the ARF is seen as a low-stakes arena by Washington. But the paper concludes that US participation in the ARF may nevertheless be crucial in boosting the legitimacy of American security interests in the region, thus helping to safeguard US preponderance.     

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.     

Normalizing Sino‐Indian relations

Realism and neoliberalism, two schools of international relations theory, provide contending explanations for state behaviour in the international system. The latter believes that interstate cooperation will create institutions and regimes for the peaceful settlement of conflicts. The former argues that only ‘self help’ — the building of individual state military capabilities — can assure that state interests will be protected. A review of Southeast Asian security policies demonstrates that both paradigms coexist as the region's members enhance their individual military capabilities because of territorial disputes with neighbours, while simultaneously entering into new collaborative arrangements such as the ASEAN Regional Forum. The ARF has begun as a venue for discussions and reassurance among Southeast Asian states and external powers in hopes that the zero‐sum character of pure realism may ultimately be transcended.     

ASEAN and Northeast Asian energy security: Cooperation or competition?

For several decades, Northeast Asia has invested heavily in ASEAN’s fossil fuel industries. This investment has been fundamental in ASEAN’s industrial and regional development and has also been a main source of foreign exchange. In recent years, however, while energy demand in Japan and Korea has been slowing down, it has begun to increase rapidly in ASEAN at a time when some of its own oil and gas fields are beginning to decline. The sharp rise in ASEAN's demand for energy is partly the result of massive FDI from Northeast Asia in manufacturing enterprises. This investment is enabling ASEAN to become less dependent on the export of fossil fuels for foreign exchange. Indonesia has already announced it is reducing its energy exports to Japan because it wants to use the fuel domestically. Without doubt, the other ASEAN energy exporting countries will also soon be reconsidering their energy export contracts with Northeast Asia.     

ASEAN's norm adherence and its unintended consequences in HADR and SAR operations

This paper examines the effects and expressions of norm compliance in Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the ‘unintended consequences’ arising from such compliance. This is done through an analysis of ASEAN's responses in humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR) efforts in the Typhoon Haiyan disaster and in the search for missing flight MH370. It argues that the lethargic ASEAN responses in the Haiyan disaster and the uncoordinated search efforts for missing flight MH370 are unintended outcomes arising from norm adherence specifically to the norms of ‘respect for sovereignty’ and ‘consensual decision-making’ which constrained the range of ASEAN responses.     

东盟FTA战略的新进展及影响

当前,东盟与中国、日本、韩国、澳大利亚、新西兰和印度成功达成自由贸易协定,标志着东盟的FTA战略已经取得了阶段性的进展。自此,东盟建成了包括所有周边主要国家在内的FTA/EPA网络,巩固了其在亚洲区域合作中的中心地位,话语权不断增强,在亚洲区域经济合作中发挥着重要的作用。东盟FTA战略的不断推进,对于东盟自身和中国都将产生重大影响。