Most of the current scholarship focuses on the functional aspects of regionalism such as economic and security issues, and the literature tends to be too focused on American or European concerns (Katzenstein, Reference Katzenstein2005; Higgott, Reference Higgott2007; Ravenhill, Reference Ravenhill, Calder and Fukuyama2008). Despite the early examination of varied ideas of Asian regionalism (Milner and Johnson Reference Milner, Johnson and Ingelson1997, He, Reference He2004, Acharya Reference Acharya2009), there remains a substantive lack of critical scholarship that focuses on the study of Asian ideas, proposals, and visions of regionalism.

This volume will study ideas of regionalism in Asia with a particular focus on the relationship between ideas and power politics. It assesses the ideas of regionalism that have been promoted by great power actors, as well as those that have been promoted by middle powers, looking at how different actors sell their vision of the region to others, build support for their ideas, and manoeuvre against competing proposals. Although ideas about regionalism often appear to be thinly disguised expressions of national interests, an important question for Asia is whether or not ideas about the region can move beyond the limits of narrow national interests into a shared sense of community.

There is no single Asian idea of regionalism. Individual countries such as South Korea and Japan demonstrate vast internal differences in developing, modifying, and shifting ideas of regionalism. A complex variety of national or even sub-regional ideas of regionalism has emerged. This includes the early Japanese, Indian, and Chinese notions of pan-Asianism; Mahathir's notion of an East Asian Economic Group (He, Reference He2004); Indonesian, Malaysian, and Filipino conceptions of pan-Malayism, as well as other regional groupings such as the Association of Southeast Asia (ASA) and MAPHILINDO (Clark, Reference Clark2011), the Asia Pacific Community (APC) idea (Boutin, Reference Boutin2011; He, Reference He and Xiangyang2011a, Reference Heb), Kim Dae-jung's idea of an East Asian Community (Hundt and Kim, Reference Hundt and Kim2011), and Hatoyama's proposal of East Asian Community (Inoguchi, Reference Inoguchi2011). Also the idea of Southeast Asian Treaty Organization (SEATO), a sort of hegemonic regionalism, is a sharp contrast to the idea of weaker states (ASEAN).

A strength of this volume will be its mapping of the historical evolution of ideas about the region, allowing not only a comparison between the ideas about Asian regionalism that have emerged in different countries, but also an investigation of how these ideas interact with one another and how they are revised over time. It covers not only the ‘big ideas’ about regionalism that focuses on questions such as defining who is included as part of the Asian community, but also the ‘small ideas’ that focus on solving practical problems such as instituting mechanisms for regional finance or establishing a regional currency. The papers included in this special issue examine various ideas of Asian regionalism that encompass East, Southeast, and South Asia, Australia, and the United States. An important comparative feature is the comprehensive examination of ideas of European regionalism (Murray, Reference Murray2011).

This introduction consists of five sections. Section 1 provides historical background to the Asian regionalization process. Section 2 examines why we need to study Asian ideas of regionalism. Section 3 discusses an intellectual framework to analyse the variety of ideas on regionalism. Section 4 puts our studies in a comparative context. Section 5 discusses three propositions about the nature and limits of Asian regionalism that will impact on the regionalization process in Asia and constrain the development of indigenous Asian ideas of regionalism in Asia.

Evolution of Asian regionalism

Regionalism is an inspirational enterprise in human history. As well as being inspirational, we can even say that it is quietly revolutionary since it involves the reorganization of political, economic, cultural, and social lives along the lines of an imagined region rather than according to the standard political unit of the nation-state.

In order to understand the ideas of regionalism in Asia and speculate about the future of Asian regionalism, it will be most helpful to trace the evolution of Asian regionalism using four benchmarks: 1968, 1989, 1997, and 2010 (Shiraishi, Reference Shiraishi2011).

In 1968, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations was born with five original members: Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, and Singapore. The primary goal of the ASEAN, as far as the United States and its friends were concerned, was to consolidate Southeast Asia against communism, which was raging in the form of the Vietnam War. Its focus was on security. The ASEAN was an outgrowth of the stillborn SEATO idea, which was envisaged as a type of Asian NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) organization against communism.

In 1989, the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting was institutionalized with the goal of monitoring and analyzing regional markets and institutions as well as governing rules and norms for facilitating transparent and efficient business transactions in the region. Its focus was economic and its style was technocratic. It was in a sense the growth of the idea of the Asia Pacific economic cooperation mechanism envisaged by Saburo Okita and John Crawford in the 1960s and 1970s. In 1989, the APEC was born with the United States’ strong support.

In 1997, the ASEAN plus Three (Japan, Korea, and China) was instituted. Japan, Korea, and China were major economic engines. Both the ASEAN and the Three wanted to benefit from being closer each other. No less important was the consideration to help the Three to talk to each other regularly and without too much fuss. The Three were at odds when they came together as a trio because of their insistence on face, rank, and politics before they even reached the negotiation table. For example, during negotiations it was necessary to use a room with three entrances and a desk of a triangular shape. In the 2000s, the tide of globalization swept through East and Southeast Asia as well as the rest of the world. The Three registered more than 50% of their total trade as intra-regional (i.e., Japan, Korea, and China) by the early 2000s. Japan and China competed over how to adapt to the relentless tide of globalization via the politics of membership, that is China's insistence on the ASEAN plus Three formula versus Japan's new proposal to form the ASEAN plus Six (Japan, Korea, China, India, Australia, and New Zealand) now labelled the East Asian Summit.

In 2010, the East Asian Summit decided to add two more members, the United States and Russia. This has initiated a new phase for Asian regionalism. The regionalism surrounding the big northeast Asian three is becoming more comprehensive. In 2006, the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) proposal was inaugurated as an economic partnership agreement among small Asia Pacific countries such as Singapore. The TPP grew by 2010 into a large and ambitious framework to liberalize economic transactions in the Asia Pacific through adding new members, including the United States, Australia, and some other countries. The year 2010 was also marked by the vigorous and deep advances into the region by two giants, China and the United States. China engaged in assertive and largely unilateral actions in the region, such as maritime security thrusts in the East China, South China, and Bengal seas; resource exploitation in Myanmar, Vietnam, India, and Indonesia; and investment in business firms in Korea and Japan. The United States decided to depart from its ambiguity strategy to focus on an engagement strategy. The United States has inaugurated and/or consolidated security dialogues and military exchanges with India, Indonesia, and Vietnam with a big package of scientific, technological, military, and energy components. It is clear that by 2010 the stage was set for a new evolution of Asian regionalism.

Why Asian ideas of regionalism?

Ideas of regionalism play a constructive role in providing visions of what a regional community should look like and in setting up guiding principles for creating and organizing a regional community. They touch upon the fundamental question of what kind of regional organizations should be formed, as well as how those organizations should be formed and operated.

Europe has developed its own ideas about regionalism and has put into practice a particular version of regionalism that is increasingly independent of the position of the United States (Murray, Reference Murray2011) while remaining closely aligned to the US in security matters. Asian regionalism, in contrast, is still largely under the shadow of American influence. There may be strong arguments for the US playing this role in Asia, such as its importance in terms of regional trade and security or its role as an external balancer in territorial disputes and other intra-regional rivalries, but in this context Asian ideas have been largely ignored.

Despite the rich and varied indigenous tradition of Asianism (He, Reference He2004), Asia lacks autonomous and strong ideational power. This edited volume will make a positive start towards exploring indigenous Asian conceptions of regionalism and the role that these conceptions play in moving towards a more independent approach to building regionalism in Asia. We need to demonstrate that Asians have ‘some ability to self-organize and to resist and/or socialize hegemonic power, rather than simply playing to the hegemon's tune’ (Acharya, Reference Acharya2007: 378); and ‘Asia should be seen not merely as the testing ground for Western theory or theories derived primarily from the West, but also as an arena out of which one can develop original theoretical insights that can be exported and applied at the global level or to other regions of the world’ (Acharya, Reference Acharya2007: 374).

Asian ideas of regionalism have interacted with non-Asian ideas. Asian ideas have been the outcome of power struggles, with competing actors promoting their own particular idea of regionalism while attempting to undermine rival claims. The outcome of this competition is that some visions of the region, for example the APEC, materialize in the form of institutions, while other grand ideas rise briefly, only to sink again. Mahathir Mohamad's proposal of an East Asian Economic Caucus, for example, was vetoed down by US power, but was modified and revived in the form of ASEAN plus Three by Kim Dae-jung's efforts for an East Asian Vision Group. In this contest to define the region, why do some ideas fail to win support and others succeed? How do ideas of regionalism gain historical resonance and how are they transmitted from one nation-state to another? What current ideas are in conflict with one another, what ideas are complementary, and how will this contest over ideas shape the future of the Asian region?

How to analyse Asian ideas of regionalism?

Since regionalism deals with the task of transforming time-tested schemes in which national governments handle issues of national and international life (Inoguchi and Marsh, Reference Inoguchi and Marsh2008) into more international and transnational schemes, the study of regionalism has to examine at least three dimensions of institutions: normative, economic, and security (cf. Katzenstein and Shiraishi, Reference Katzenstein and Takashi1997). The normative dimension touches on norms, rules, and culture (He, Reference He, Timmermann and Tsuchiyama2008). The economic dimension deals with demography, technology, and the economy. The security dimension deals with climate, weapons, and strategy. It is important to note that these three dimensions encompass some factors that have longer time span variables, such as culture, climate, and demography.

Katzenstein and Shiraishi (Reference Katzenstein and Takashi1997: 7–11, 23–31) examine the role of international power, norms, and domestic state structures to explain the differences between European and Asian regionalism (Katzenstein and Shiraishi, Reference Katzenstein and Takashi1997). These three key factors will be utilized to examine and explain the ideas of regionalism in Asia. We must locate ideas in the interaction of these three key variables, otherwise ideas are empty and meaningless. We need to examine how ideas are translated into political programs, policies, and action.

Sources of divergence in approaching regionalism: Europe and Asia

To understand the variety of Asian ideas of regionalism, we need a comparative approach (Murray, Reference Murray2010, Reference Murray2011). By adopting European regionalism as a benchmark to characterize Asian regionalism we elucidate differences from Europe rather than emulate Europe. The obvious difference is that the drivers of Asian regionalism are not particularly interested in building transnational institutions with the authority and capacity to act. Asian regionalism is more interested in each state empowering itself primarily on a national basis, and secondarily with the help of partial and pragmatic regionalist arrangements.

There are at least two major approaches to regionalism. One is to cope with globalism by uniting through a transnational regional organization. European integration seems to adopt this approach. The other is to adapt to globalism, which permeates national life, primarily directly and not necessarily through a transnational regional organization. Thus, far many indigenous ideas of Asian regionalism seem to adopt this latter approach. Needless to say, ideas of Asian regionalism to be examined in this special issue have both aspects. Therefore, regionalism has two faces: defensive and offensive faces vis-à-vis globalization (Inoguchi, Reference Inoguchi and Sugimoto2009). Globalization has induced ‘porous’ or outward-looking ‘open’ regionalism in the Asia-Pacific region.

Europe wants to be a greater power on the world stage through union, while today Asia attempts to deal with the rise of China through regional cooperation. The EU does not face the challenge of a great power within the region, although the US remains an external influence, but Asia faces a serious challenge from the rise of China. Through NATO and the political Transatlantic relationship, the US has supported the Europe Union's process of regionalization (Murray, Reference Murray2011). In contrast, US power has penetrated into East Asia for centuries, contributing to both regional peace and the division of East Asia. The European process of integration is increasingly autonomous from the US now (although not in security and defense). This is not the case in Asia. Asia cannot undermine the US the way the EU can. The US remains the security guarantor in Asia, but is no longer required as a security umbrella in Europe. There is a divergence in three dimensions as follows:

On the normative dimension, relative European homogeneity and Asian diversity are two most stark differences in characterization. In Europe, a tradition of a Christian civilization has tended to characterize the continent, more or less. Five civilizations and their religious bases reside in Asia (Huntington, Reference Huntington1997). In other words, culture seems to be a basic discriminator in leading to different approaches to regionalism. In terms of identity, European citizens exhibit symptoms of being happy non-nationalists such as in Germany, and Sweden (Inoguchi and Blondel, Reference Inoguchi and Blondel2008). European identity has become visibly strong as has been evidenced by the European provision of rescue packages to avoid bankruptcy by some countries in Southern Europe. In stark contrast, in Asia regional identity is shown only by those citizens of small countries such as South Korea, Thailand, and Mongolia. Big powers such as China and India seem to think that they themselves are Asia. Their Asian regional identity is not very strong at all. Those countries with big Muslim populations such as Indonesia, Malaysia, Bangladesh, and Pakistan exhibit much stronger Muslim identity than Asian regional identity. Japan is torn between Asianists and non-Asianists. For the latter, Japan is posited as against Asia: ‘Japan and Asia’ rather than ‘Japan in and among Asia.’ Asian regional identity is not easy to inculcate for this latter group (Inoguchi, Reference Inoguchi2004).

On the economic dimension, European economic developmental momentum is a thing of the past; arguably, Europe is in a twilight phase. European economic developmental momentum is perhaps more diverse country by country, as has been made clear by near-bankruptcy in Greece and some Southern European countries and by chronic difficulties in Central European countries. In contrast, Asian economic developmental momentum is still on the rise, more or less. Although demographic trends show that most of East and Southeast Asia has exhibited net population decline, economic developmental momentum is still robust. South Asia is on a strong demographic rise and maintains a robust developmental momentum.

On the security dimension, Europe does not perceive there to be an external direct threat, notwithstanding internal problems such as the Islamic terrorist threat, although the 2003 European Security Strategy did enunciate several threats to global society and to the EU. Evincing their no-threat mentality, Germany has decided to abolish conscription and France and Britain are planning to share the use of the same nuclear submarines by alternating month by month. In contrast, Asia is ripe for conflict, if not outright confrontation. The armed populations on the Korean Peninsula and on both sides of the Taiwan Strait are the two largest armed groups in the world. Needless to say, Table 1 above certainly simplifies much immensely, yet it serves to illustrate how different Asia is from Europe in terms of their sources of different ideas of regionalism.

Table 1.

Sources of divergence

Three propositions of Asian regionalism

On the basis of Table 1, we develop three propositions that would help understand the thrusts the following articles jointly put forward in describing varieties of ideas of Asian regionalism.

About the author

Baogang He is chair in International Studies, Deakin University, Australia.

Takashi Inoguchi is Professor Emeritus, University of Tokyo, and the President of University of Niigata Prefecture.