"East Asian Community" initiative, to engage U.S. or not

By Li Hongmei People Daily Online

Yukio Hatoyama, newly elected as the Japanese Prime Minister and about whom little is known, made a splash in late August with his vision of an East Asian Community to unify the region. The initiative to forge a regional membership club emulating the EU is generally applauded by Asia-Pacific nations and openly backed by China. Meanwhile, the bold idea greatly upset the monolithic super power on the other side of the ocean. The U.S. promptly made utterances showing its clear-cut attitude to the proposal which is on the surface independent of American clout.

If linked with a recent spate of diplomatic strategies the Obama administration hammered out in a bid to "return to South-East Asia", it will be understandable why the U.S. takes such considerable interest in the "East Asian Community" idea. Perhaps, President Obama's high-sounding "return to Asia" strategy might as well be described as refocusing its attention on Asia, as the U.S. has never dissociated itself from Asia, not even for an instant.

Admittedly, the U.S. has its hand in wide arrays of Asian affairs ranging from economy and trade to security. On the one hand, it keeps close ties with the Asian allies like Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines. On the other hand, it is developing an in-depth contact with the emerging economies like China and India. It is no exaggeration to say the American leverage has actually found its way into any diplomatic space across Asia, with Uncle Sam's footprint well-scattered over the region.

Why need recalibrating its diplomatic focus? The reason must be as simple as ABC----the former President George W. Bush had his eyes mainly on the two counterterrorism battle fronts: Iraq and Afghanistan, leaving a wide margin for China and ASEAN to boost their ties. As a result, the ASEAN 10+1 and 10+3 cooperation had made much headway for that duration. However, the golden momentum gained and harnessed by Asian countries to get closer ever to one another finally sent the U.S. a sense of being marginalized in the region, where it had long played heavy weight.

In the event that it could be left out in the cold with its strategic interests dwindling in the Asia-Pacific region, the U.S. new administration decided to stake all on a single throw to recapture the spotlight of the Asian Continent, which is considered strategically critical to the U.S. core interests.

Kurt Campell, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State, did not mince words in his recent Beijing visit with the aim to negotiate with Chinese leadership for a solution to DPRK nuclear issues. Facing the media, he said without reservation that the guiding mechanism in Asia is so far ambiguous, but any mechanism of significance concerning security, economy and trade cannot do without the American role.

Viewed from the realistic prism, what he said is partially right. Take East Asia, the multi-lateral mechanisms in place, like ASEAN, APEC, East Asian Summit, ASEAN 10+3 and the just-concluded China-Japan-South Korea Summit, are considered, with no exception, as far from perfect to forge a stable, sustained and effective leading mechanism. Given this, the U.S. cannot be excluded from the conception of "East Asian Community".

That said, it is still a moot point whether the engagement of the U.S. will definitely help forge a highly effective dominant mechanism in time for the launch of East Asian Community. One more thing, what role will the U.S. play in the regional club which exists still in theory, and will it be a pushing hand or an adverse impact?

Despite the unpredictable prospect, one thing is certain: once the U.S. pushed its hand deep into the community in dreamland, mutual trust amid the to-be members concerned would possibly be eroded and the mechanism correspondingly be bogged down in a quagmire, or it would be converted into nothing but a political elite club rallying merely for handshakes and empty talks.