AEJ
DOI 10.1007/s10308-005-0005-7
ORIGIN AL PAPER
Zhimin Chen
NATO, APEC and ASEM: triadic
interregionalism and global order
© Springer-Verlag 2005
Abstract Among the three core regions in today’s world, Europe, North America
and East Asia, interregional arrangements have been developed in various forms.
Transatlantic relations were institutionalized in the form of a security alliance
(NATO), although not in the field of economic relations. The transpacific relations
were institutionalized in the economic field with the creation of APEC in late
1980s. The Asia–Europe Meeting (ASEM) emerged in 1996, with an aim to
strengthen the ‘weak leg’ in the triadic interregional relationship. Although the
three sets of triadic interregional arrangements display discernable differences, they
tend to share some identical functions, such as balancing, governance and identity
building. Interregionalism rests on and promotes multi-polarization, complementing the multilateral system, and could be seen as an indispensable element of the
world order, which may be better characterized as a multi-level governance system.
1 Introduction
Although the world is globalized, the global economic activities have been
concentrating in three core regions, the European Union in Europe, NAFTA in
North America, and the APT (ASEAN plus three) in East Asia. As Table 1 shows,
in 2003, 25 EU states, 3 NAFTA states, and 13 APT states together, occupy
30.2% of world total land, with 46.3% of world total population, but produced
82.2% of world total Gross National Income (GNI). Their share in world merchandise export and import was 77.1% and 74.9%, respectively. Such an economic landscape reflects the early advancement of capitalism in Western Europe
and North America, and the rapid economic catch-up of the APT countries during
past three decades.
Led by the European Union, previously the European Community, three core
regions develop regionalism along different paths and with different levels of
Z. Chen (*)
Department of International Politics, Fudan University, Shanghai, China
E-mail: [email protected]
Zhimin Chen
Table 1 The triad in the world, 2003
Triad Triad share EU
in world
total (%)
Population
(million)
Land
(million
km2)
GNI (billion
USD)
Merchandise
import
(billion
USD)
Merchandise
export
(billion
USD)
2904 46.3
4057 30.2
28465 82.5
5999 77.1
5618 74.9
459
(EU25)
389
(EU25)
NAFTA APT
ASEAN China Japan South
Korea
425
2020 547
1297
128
48
2172
1496 448
960
78
10
9116
(EU15)
2920
(EU15)*
12340
7009 626
1715
1364 389
413
383 179
2901
(EU15)*
1162
1555 451
438
472 194
1417 4390 576
Source: World Bank, World Development Report 2005: A Better Investment Climate For
Everyone; World Trade Organization, International Trade Statistics 2004
*Figures include intra-EU import and export
achievements. The European Union began its regional process in early 1950s. With
a half-century deepening and enlargement, the European Union is now having a
membership of 25 states, and has built a monetary union with single currency, the
Euro, a common market with an unified foreign trade policy, a common foreign
policy based on intergovernmental cooperation. Driven by the success of the
European integration and challenges it posed to non-EU states, United States also
embraced regionalism by building the North American Free Trade Area (NAFTA)
among Canada, United States and Mexico. For decades, East Asian countries have
been slow in developing their own regional arrangements. The southeast Asian
countries of ASEAN did launched a free trade arrangement in early 1990s, but until
very recently, the major economic powers of the east Asia, Japan and China, both
were not enthusiastic at the various projects of East Asian regionalism. However, at
the end of twentieth century, China launched the FTA initiative with ASEAN, and
similar proposals with Japan and Korea. With the new interests in building regional
arrangements in East Asia from all countries in the region, the APT dialogue
mechanism was strengthened, and the first ever East Asian Summit is to be convened in 2005.
As regionalism in three regions advanced or unfolded, interregional arrangements were also constructed. The transatlantic relations has two dimensions: the
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was created in April 1949, which
established an highly institutionalized security alliance between Western Europe
and North America; on the economic aspect, the transatlantic relations is much less
NATO, APEC and ASEM: triadic interregionalism and global order
institutionalized, but strong two-way trade and investment have produced a close
economic partnership.
If the transatlantic arrangements were mainly cold war legacies, the transpacific
interregional arrangement could be seen as a product of the end of cold war. In
1989, 12 Asia-Pacific countries launched the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation
(APEC), to foster transpacific economic cooperation. Now, APEC has 21 member
economies, and a free trade project is undergoing. Partly as a response to the initial
successes of APEC, leaders of 15 EU countries and 10 East Asian countries held
a summit in 1996, inaugurated the new Asia–Europe Meeting (ASEM) process
between these two regions. With the emergence of ASEM, every two of the three
core regions eventually are all tied with one set of interregional arrangement.
This paper will look at the theoretical and empirical aspects of interregionalism,
and its impacts on our global order. It will address the following questions: What
are the driving forces behind the phenomenon of regionalism and interregionalism?
Is it a result of power politics, or is driven by market force? Is there any difference
among the various forms of interregionalism, particularly between APEC and
ASEM? Is regionalism and/or interregionalism ‘stumbling blocks’ or ‘steppingstone’ to multilateral liberalization? Will interregionalism weaken the multilateral
regimes of trade and finance, or instead, reinforce a multilateral system? How
could interregionalism play a role in shaping the world order? As interregionalism
rests on a world vision of multipolarity, does its development indicate a more
decentralized governance model rather than a unipolar system dominated by a
single power?
2 Interregionalism and its various forms
2.1 Defining interregionalism
Björn Hettne refers interregionalism to institutions and organizations mediating
between regions.1 As Jürgen Rüland observed, studies on interregionalism
constitute a novel area of research in the field of international politics.2 As a
result, scholars are yet to agree to a commonly acceptable definition of
interregionalism. Students of interregionalism tend to see that interregionalism
includes two sets of international relationship, one is interregional, and the other
is transregional. Christopher M. Dent sees interregionalism as about the
relationship between two distinct, separate regions, whereas transregionalism
implies the establishment of common ‘spaces’ between and across regions in
which constituent agents (e.g. individuals, communities, organizations) operate
and have close associative ties with each other.3 He then goes on to contend that
1 Björn Hettne, ‘Interregionalism and World Order’, Paper presented to Section 33, States, regions
and regional world orders, SGIR, Fifth Pan-European International Relations Conference,
Netherlands Congress Centre, the Hague, September 9–11, 2004.
2 Jürgen Rüland, ‘Inter- and Transregionalism: Remarks on the State of the Art of a New
Research Agenda’. University of Freiburg National Europe Centre Paper No. 34. Paper prepared
for the Workshop on Asia-Pacific Studies in Australia and Europe: A Research Agenda for the
Future, Australian National University, 5–6 July 2002.
3 Christopher M. Dent From inter-regionalism to trans-regionalism? Future challenges for
ASEM, Asia Europe Journal (2003) 1: p.224.
Zhimin Chen
ASEM has just begun to make a contribution to cultivating interregional relations
or an ‘interregionness’ between East Asia and Europe, and that it faces many
challenges ahead along the long path to establishing Eurasian trans-regionalism.
Heiner Hänggi differentiates interregional arrangements into three types: (a)
relations between regional groupings; (b) biregional and transregional arrangements; (c) hybrids such as relations between regional groupings and single powers.4
Jürgen Rüland distinguished two types of interactions among regional organizations: First, a type of interaction termed as bilateral interregionalism; and
second, transregionalism. Examples for bilateral interregionalism are the ASEAN–
EU dialogue, ASEAN–Mercosur relations, EU–Mercosur ties, etc. Such a relationship can be defined as group-to-group dialogue with more or less regular
meetings centering on exchanges of information and cooperation (projects) in
specific policy fields (trade and investment, environment, crime prevention, narcotics trafficking etc.). There are no common overarching institutions; both sides
exclusively rely on their own institutional infrastructure. Rüland regards ASEM
and APEC as both transregional institutions, with a more diffuse membership
which does not necessarily coincide with regional organizations and may include
member states from more than two regions. As the agenda grows in complexity,
transregional fora may, unlike bilateral interregional relations, develop their own
organizational infrastructure such as a secretariat for research, policy planning,
preparation and coordination of meetings and implementation of decisions.5
In author’s view, interregional arrangements are those inter- or transregional
ones; therefore, arrangements between one regional group with single country in
other region should not be included. Based on previous authors’ definition, the
author would like to define interregionalism as institutions or organizations, which
promote dialogue and cooperation between countries in different regions. It could
take at least three forms: inter-group, biregional and transregional. Inter-group
relation is formed between regional groups, such as EU–ASEAN dialogue. Biregional relation is established if multiple countries in each of the two distinct regions
set up cooperation mechanism. I try to put ASEM into this category, because
Europe and East Asia are two distinct regions, and ASEM is an interregional
dialogue mechanism, yet to develop a sense of common transregionness. Transregional relation is developed while countries in two or more regions are brought
together by a trans- or mega-regional identity, or a sense of mega-regional community. Examples of transregional arrangements are NATO and APEC. The former
includes countries in North America and West Europe, was established in the Cold
War era to form a security community among western countries, in the common
struggle against the socialist camp in the East. The latter includes most countries
along the Pacific Rim, was encouraged by the mega-regional identity of belonging to the Pacific community.
Starting from this definition of interregionalism, I will then compare the
differences of the three sets of triadic interregional arrangements: transatlantic,
transpacific and Euro–Asian. I choose four indicators: policy fields or domains
4 Heiner Hänggi, ‘Interregionalism: empirical and theoretical perspectives’. Paper prepared
for the workshop “Dollars, Democracy and Trade: External Influence on Economic Integration
in the Americas”Los Angeles, CA, May 18, 2000.
5 Jürgen Rüland, ‘Inter- and Transregionalism: Remarks on the State of the Art of a New
Research Agenda’.
NATO, APEC and ASEM: triadic interregionalism and global order
Table 2 Forms of triadic interregional arrangements
Transatlantic
Domain of interregionalism
Forms of interregionalism
Symmetry
Institutionalization
Security
Economics
Interregional
Trans-regional
Transpacific
NATO
Euro-Asian
ASEM
APEC
Interregional
Transregional
US-dominated
High
Transregional
US-dominated
Low
Symmetric
Low
of interregional arrangements; forms of interregional arrangements; symmetric
nature of the relationship; level of institutionalization of the relationship
(Table 2).
2.2 Interregionalism: the transatlantic way
The transatlantic arrangement is embodied in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which was founded in 1949. Originally, NATO was a mutual
defense alliance between two north American countries, Canada and the United
States, and 10 West European states. It now has a membership of 26 countries. As a
transregional institution, NATO’s membership includes states in North America
and West Europe, and it was not a result of any preexisting inter-group or biregional arrangements. Rather, it was the common values, political and economic
system and security interests which brought these countries together into permanent security alliance. During the Cold War era, Nato’s objectives were threefolded: to be a collective defense organization directed against a possible Soviet
threat to Western Europe; to militarily restrain Germany; and to ensure a continuing
US commitment to European Security. As Lord Ismay, the first Secretary General
of NATO, once put it, the aim was to keep the Soviets out, the Germans down and
the Americans in.6
As West European states mainly relied on the nuclear umbrella of United States
to ensure its security from perceived Soviet threat, NATO was clearly dominated
by the United States in the Cold War era. That has not changed very much since
the end of the Cold War. The United States still sees NATO as the most fundamental security structure in Europe, and regards it as the main vehicle for
maintaining its leadership in west alliance. Nevertheless, the end of the Cold War
unleashed new momentum of European integration, economically as well as
politically. With the development of the Common Foreign and Security Policy of
the European Union since the Mastricht Treaty took effect in 1993, the European
members of NATO adopted many steps in strengthening their cooperation in
security policy within the framework of European Union. The militarizing of the
EU thus posed a real challenge to the primacy of NATO in the European security
structure and the American leadership in the alliance. The recent transatlantic
friction over the American invasion of Iraq is another example of the ongoing
tensions across the Atlantic.
6 see Rob de Wijk, NATO on the Brink of the New Millenium: The Battle for Consensus
(London: Brassey’s, 1997). pp.5–6.
Zhimin Chen
NATO has developed a high level of institutionalization. Politically, NATO is
an intergovernmental institution; its decision-making system is based on unanimity, whereby every member state retains its sovereignty. Its most important
institution is the North Atlantic Council, which brings together representatives of
26 member states at level of ambassadors ministers or heads of state or government. Militarily, NATO established a highly integrated military structure, which
performs the role of multinational force planning, operation organization and
command. It provides for joint planning, training, excising and operational deployment, under command of NATO’s strategic commanders.
The United States supported the European integration from the very beginning,
but economically, in the Cold War era, it mainly relied on the multilateral/global
frameworks, like GATT, to manage its relations with West Europe. After the end
of cold war, along with the success of European integration, calls for transatlantic
declarations, agendas, partnerships, FTAs, and action plan proliferated. United
States and the EU adopted the New Transatlantic Agenda (NTA) in December
1995, committing the two sides to closer cooperation across a broad range of issue
areas.7 Yet, the two sides has not moved into any serious discussion of a common
transatlantic free trade area, and NAFTA as a regional trade arrangement has yet
to develop an institutionalized relation with EU. However, the absence of an
inter-governmental biregional arrangement has not blocked the thriving economic
relations across the Atlantic, which is characterized by a strong trade and particularly investment ties. As early as 1996, value of bilateral trade combined with
sales of US and EU foreign affilates in each other’s markets already exceeded
USD 1.7 trillion.8
2.3 Interregionalism: the transpacific way
In 1989, along with a major policy shift of the United States in the direction of
embracing regionalism, twelve countries along the Pacific rim launched the first
informal Ministerial-level dialogue meeting in Canberra, Australia. Since then,
Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, or APEC, has expanded to include 21 members, officially referred to as “Member Economies”, which account for more than a
third of the world’s population (2.6 billion people), approximately 60% of world
GDP (US\$19, 254 billion) and about 47% of world trade. It also proudly represents the most economically dynamic region in the world which has generated
nearly 70% of global economic growth in its first 10 years.9
7 Mark A. Pollack and Gregory C. Shaffer, ‘Transatlantic Governance in Historical and
Theorectical Perspective’, in Mark A. Pollack and Gregory C. Shaffe(eds), Transatlantic
Governance in the Global Economy (New York and Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers,
2001), p.3.
8 Anthony Gardner, A New Era in US-EU Relations? The Clinton Administration and the New
Transatlantic Agenda (Aldershot, UK: Avebury, 1997), p. viii.
9 APEC’s 21 Member Economies are Australia; Brunei Darussalam; Canada; Chile; People’s
Republic of China; Hong Kong, China; Indonesia; Japan; Republic of Korea; Malaysia; Mexico;
New Zealand; Papua New Guinea; Peru; The Republic of the Philippines; The Russian
Federation; Singapore; Chinese Taipei; Thailand; United States of America; Viet Nam. See
http://www.apec.org/apec/about_apec.html.
NATO, APEC and ASEM: triadic interregionalism and global order
Since its inception, APEC’s was designed to be a basically economic cooperation forum, which is reflected in its name. Its main purpose has been to reduce
tariffs and other trade barriers across the region. Key to achieving APEC’s vision
are what are referred to as the ‘Bogor Goals’ of free and open trade and investment
in the Asia-Pacific by 2010 for industrialized economies and 2020 for developing
economies. APEC Leaders adopted these goals at their 1994 meeting in Bogor,
Indonesia.
As a transregional rather than a biregional arrangement, APEC’s member
economies spread over North America, Latin America, East Asia and Oceania, all
very distinct and separate regions. It certainly is not an inter-group arrangement
too. Rather, it tries to build a mega-regional group, an Asia-Pacific region, or a
“Pacific Community”. To some extent, a Pan-Pacific region is not just a fiction. It
does have its real basis. APEC’s member economies all locate along the Pacific
Rim, easily connected by various transportation routs across the ocean. These
economies have the most vibrant economic growth rates in the world, with the
expectation that the 21st century shall be the “Pacific Century”. Further more,
measured by trade interdependence, the APEC member economies exhibit a higher
level of intra-regional trade ratio than members of any other regional groupings,
including even the EU. Trade between members occupies 62.9% of EU’s total
foreign trade, 45.8% of NAFTA’s, 22.3%of of ASEAN’s 35.0% of APT’s and
70.3% of APEC’s.10 Therefore, a certain sense of regionness is there, which helped
the initial rapid development of APEC process.
In terms of institutionalization, unlike EU, APEC is not a legally speaking
international organization. It was not founded on the basis of any international
treaty or agreement. It has no decision-making and decision-enforcing common
institutions. Basically, it is an international forum, where member economies in
the region could cooperate in trade and investment liberalization. Since 1989,
APEC developed a forum mechanism, including annual APEC Economic Leaders’
Meeting which is held in one APEC host economy; annual APEC Ministerial
Meetings of foreign and economic/trade ministers are held immediately prior to
APEC Economic Leaders’ Meetings; Sectoral Ministerial Meetings are held
regularly covering areas such as education, energy, environment and sustainable
development, finance, human resource development, regional science and technology cooperation, small and medium enterprises, telecommunications and information industry, tourism, trade, transportation and women’s affairs. Besides these
intergovernmental dialogues, APEC process is also supported by a range of informal networks, such as the Pacific Economic Cooperation Conference (PECC)
and the Pacific Basin economic Council (PBEC).
In the APEC, Consultation and consensus are the main working procedure. It
operates on the basis of non-binding commitments, open dialogue and equal
respect for the views of all participants. If a consensus is reached, member economies submit their own individual action plans (IAPs) as part of an Asian approach
to unilateral liberalization. But IAP commitments are non-binding and entirely
voluntary.
Such an institutional arrangement reflected the intention of the developing
members to compensate their relatively weak bargaining position vis-à-vis the
Webber, “Two funerals and a wedding? The ups and downs of regionalism in East
Asia and Asia-Pacific after the Asian crisis”, The Pacific Review, Vol. 14 No. 3 2001. p.352.
10 Douglas
Zhimin Chen
United States. To develop a more WTO-like or EU-type strong institutionalization
would render these members to be exposed to a huge asymmetry in political and
economic power when negotiating with the US.11 Because of its military supremacy and huge domestic market, US possess “disproportionate power in every
international organization to which it belongs”.12 ASEAN way of APEC diplomacy serves to mitigate the predominance of the United States. At the same time,
for those countries, which intended to use APEC as an instrument to push trade
and investment liberalization in Asia-Pacific and globally, APEC turned out to be
not convenient.
2.4 Interregionalism: the Euro–Asian way
The existence of a strong transatlantic alliance and the fast growing transpacific
APEC process in early 1990s prompted the EU and East Asian countries to find
ways to provide the missing link between East Asia and Europe, which gave birth
to the first Asia–Europe Meeting (ASEM) in March 1996. Unlike the NATO
which is mainly a security alliance, and also unlike the APEC which is basically
a economic cooperation mechanism, ASEM, from the very beginning, is “multipurposed and multi-faceted”.13 Its focus extends from politics, security, to economy and culture, though the leaders refrained themselves from engaging
contentious issues such as human rights and democracy.
It could be argued that ASEM process was an expansion of the previously
existed inter-group mechanism between EU and ASEAN. The fact that ASEAN
mainly conducted the preparation work for the first ASEM summit indicated that
link. Nevertheless, ASEM’s particular form of interregionalism seems to be better
described as biregional. As APT does not form a new formal regional group,
ASEM is not an inter-group process. On the other hand, because of the geographical and cultural distance between the two regions, a real or imagined Euro–
Asia identity is clearly absent, which a transregionalism may reckon on. In a word,
ASEM is a biregional or interregional process, a dialogue mechanism between
Europe and East Asia, with the aim to strengthen the comprehensive and longawaited cooperation between the two core regions in the world. The interregional
nature of ASEM is better illustrated by its coordinator system. ASEM has four
coordinators, two from European side, namely the European Commission and the
presidency, two from East Asia, one from Southeast Asia and one from Northeast
Asia. Except the coordinator from the Commission, all other three coordinators are
rotating ones. These coordinators perform the role of intra-regional and interregional coordination of the ASEM process.
In 1996, fifteen European Union (EU) member states, seven then ASEAN
member countries and three countries in Northeast Asia–China, Japan and Korea
11 Simon Lee, “Asia-Pacific Economic Regionalism: Global Constraints and Opportunities’’, in
Christopher M. Dent (ed.), Asia-Pacific Economic and Security Cooperation: New Regional
Agenda (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2003), p.21.
12 N. Woods, ‘Global governance and the Role of Institutions’, in David Held and A. McGrew
(eds), Governing Globalization: Power, Authority and Global Governance (London: Polity,
2002). P.38/.
13 Sung-Hoon Park, “ASEM and the future of Asia-Europe relations: Background, characteristics
and challenges”. Asia Europe Journal, (2004) 2: p.341.
NATO, APEC and ASEM: triadic interregionalism and global order
attend the first Bangkok ASEM summit. In the fifth ASEM Hanoi summit in
October 2004, ASEM expanded to include 10 new EU member states and 3
ASEAN new member states, with its total membership reaching 38, plus a separate
seat for the European Commission. So far, ASEM has set up a dialogue mechanism
which in many ways similar to the APEC mechanism. ASEM also has a summit
meeting, though it is held biannually, not annually as APEC. ASEM started with
the summit meeting, but APEC members in the beginning met at the ministerial
level, only in 1993 APEC dialogue reached summit level. Like APEC, ASEM
member foreign and economic ministers meet once a year, and there are also
other sectoral ministerial meetings, along with series of meetings among senior
officials, various functional working groups and expert meetings.
As a dialogue mechanism, ASEM also adopted a consultation and consensus
working approach. ASEM’s informality approach indicates that, ASEM is not a
decision-making and rule-making body, and at the moment, there is no serious
discussion about any major shift of this approach. Members may endorse various
initiatives at the intergovernmental meetings, and their participation in the action plans is also voluntary.
In terms of power balance within the ASEM, Europe and East Asia are more or
less comparable with each other. It is also the intention that the two regions could
develop a historically unprecedented equal partnership. This desire for equal
partnership was manifested by the political symbolism of the inaugural ASEM
summit in Bangkok. As Yeo Lay Hwee observed, “Having sixteen European
leaders journey all the way to bangkok for this very first meeting was in and of
itself significant. It was a symbol of Asia’s new economic status in the world, and
a demonstration of Europe’s recognization of that status”.14
3 The raison d'etres of the interregionalism
As Jürgen Rüland argued, transregional forums may be regarded as adopting
several functions. They act as balancers, institution builder, rationalizer of global
multilateral organizations, and identity builders.15
3.1 Balance
Interregionalism, even its original transatlantic form—NATO, could be seen as a
result of balancing strategy. The birth of NATO was clearly a collective western
response to the Soviet influence on the European continent. In 1948, major western European countries already signed the Brussels Treaty, established a security
alliance among them. However, facing the increasingly assertive Soviet Union
in the East, these western European countries asked for more credible military
protection, particularly the American conventional and nuclear protection to
14 Yeo
Lay Hwee, Asia and Europe: The Development and Different Dimensions of ASEM,
(London and New York: Routledge, 2003). P.84.
15 Jürgen Rüland, ‘ASEM-Transregional Forum at the Crossroads’, in Wim Stokhof and Paul van
der Velde, (eds), Asian-European Perspectives: Developing the ASEM process (UK: Curzon
Press, 2001). 61.
Zhimin Chen
counterbalance the Soviet influence. That was the main reason behind the establishment of NATO in the following year. In the cold war era, NATO explicitly
performed its external balancing role against the Soviet Union, and implicitly,
played a role of internal balancing against the Germany. Even after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, NATO’s balancing functions are still there,
though with much reduced importance. Russia is still the second biggest nuclear
power, and the United States seems to be satisfied with NATO’s role in exerting
American leadership in Europe and preventing European states or EU as a group
from challenging American primacy.
APEC and ASEM both are not security alliances. Therefore, as Hanns W. Maull
and Nuria Okfen contended, it is really hard to think that they have a function of
power balancing.16 Nevertheless, if we move away from the traditional forms of
balancing, like security alliance, the cooperative institutions which APEC and
ASEM built across Pacific and between Europe and East Asia, still could be seem
as some sort of soft balance of the two components of the triad against the third.
Such interregional arrangements allow traid players to pool bargaining power,
reduce the prospect that one region dominating the other two. In Jürgen Rüland’s
words, “the genesis and evolution of ASEM shows that –like in the case of APEC–
its role as balancer has been a major raison d'etre of the forum”.17
Hänggi argued in the same direction. He thinks that one of the two reasons,
which explain the new phenomenon of interregionalism, is the “need to balance
regionalism in other regions as well as interregionalism between other regions”.18
Such a balancing consideration led to an interregionalist chain reactions in the
1990s.
The launching of the European Single Market in 1986 prompted the negotiation
of the North American Free Trade Area and later on, the emergence of the APEC.
Therefore, APEC’s balancing functions could be seen as two-dimensional: externally, it serves to balance the strengthening of regionalism in Europe; internally, it
allows East Asian countries to influence the NAFTA process, so as to ensure the
continuing access to the North American market, while the United States could use
APEC as a safeguard against the creation of a regional bloc in East Asia. The
upgrading of APEC in 1993 to summit level and the announcement of the APEC
free trade plan in 1994 prompted the Europeans to reassess its relations with East
Asia. From 1993 to 1996, the European Commission adopted a series of policy
papers towards Korea (1993), Asia (1994), Japan and China (1995), and ASEAN
(1996). All these led to the first ASEM summit in 1996.
3.2 Governance
Interregional arrangements, like any other international institutions, also perform
certain governance function. As institutions with fairly big memberships, ASEM
of 38 members, NATO of 26 members and APEC of 21 members, they do intend
16 Hanns W. Maull, Nuria Okfen, “Inter-regionalism in international relations: Comparing APEC
and ASEM”, Asia Europe Journal (2003) 1: pp.239–242.
17 Jürgen Rüland , ‘ASEM-Transregioanl Forum at the Crossroads’, p.62.
18 Heiner Hänggi, “ASEM and the Construction of the new Triad”, Journal of the Asia Pacific
Economy (1999) 4, no. 1, pp. 56–80.
NATO, APEC and ASEM: triadic interregionalism and global order
to develop some problem-solving capacities, aiming to manage the relations among
themselves internally and to project their common interests and objectives globally.
As a security alliance, NATO has played a successful roll of territorial defense
during the Cold War era. After the cold war, NATO was to remain the crucial
Atlantic organization. It is the predominant institution for homeland defense of its
members. Beyond that, through its enlargement, NATO’s political role in building
a security and democracy zone of Europe is strengthened. NATO’s new missions
also include peacekeeping and humanitarian invention beyond the traditional
NATO area. It launched a successful military operation in Kosovo in 1999 and is
conducting a large-scale post-war peacekeeping operation in Afghanistan. In a
sense, NATO has maintained its traditional role of homeland defense for its members, while taken on new mission globally to advance the collective interests and
values of its members.19
NATO’s post-Cold War success is largely due to its high level of institutionalization, which was achieved during the Cold War era, and the strong American
leadership in the alliance. In contrast to that, APEC and ASEM, both being
young institutions, and with their relatively low level of institutionalization, are
yet to develop their ability of governance.
APEC, in its initial years, appeared to be very successful. The 1994 APEC
summit set out the so-called “Bogor Goals” for free and open trade and investment
in the Asia-Pacific by 2010 for developed economies and 2020 for developing
economies. This initial achievement was outstanding and it was followed by
proposals from member economies in three key areas, known as APEC’s ‘Three
Pillars’, namely, trade and investment Liberalization, Business Facilitation and
Economic and Technical Cooperation. However, as the 1997 Asian financial crisis
hit many East Asian economies, APEC could not lend almost any help for these
countries. As a result, “Overall, members seem to have lost interest in APEC as a
forum for trade liberalization; in recent years the emphasis in international trade
policy in Asia-Pacific has shifted towards bilateral free trade agreements (such as
the recently signed agreement between Singapore and Japan, or the proposed
ASEAN–China FTA)”.20
Externally, APEC’s ‘open regionalism’ approach aims to give additional
momentum to the GATT/WTO multilateral trade liberalization process. Nevertheless, APEC economies never acted as a unified caucus in the WTO negotiation,
and the slow process of internal trade liberalization in reality added no new serious
pressures on the non-APEC parties in speeding up the WTO negotiation.
While ASEM has explicitly proclaimed itself as a comprehensive dialogue
forum, with political, economic and culture cooperation as its three pillars,
ASEM’s first decade performance is more of symbolism than of real substance.
19 On
February 20th, 2005, during his reaching-out visit to Europe, US President George W. Bush
delivered a keynote speech to European Union and NATO leaders in Brussels in which he
highlighted the transatlantic relationship. He said, “The alliance of Europe and North America is
the main pillar of our security in a new century. No temporary debate, no passing disagreement
of governments, no power on earth will ever divide us.”, Financial Times, February 22, 2005.
20 Hanns W. Maull, Nuria Okfen, “Inter-regionalism in international relations: Comparing APEC
and ASEM”, p.244.
Zhimin Chen
3.3 Identity building
From a constructivist perspective, interregionalism is also about identity building,
the construction of both “We-ness” and “Other-ness” at both regional and transregional level. Interregional arrangement may serve as an instrument to consolidate
the exiting regional or transregional identity. As in the case of NATO, APEC and
ASEM, the institutions that have been set up, the interactions members encounter
with each other, could function as a socialization process, which would produce or
reproduce the identity and interests of members. NATO is a result and manifestation of the transatlantic security community. APEC was built on an illusive
mega-regional concept of belonging to the “transpacific community”. Even in the
case of ASEM, as the process unfolded, some are arguing that we should build
Euro–Asian relations from an interregional one to transregional one, which could
develop certain level of community sense.21
But the identity politics involves also a regional dimension. The ASEM
process, as preferred by the EU as first and foremost an interregional arrangement,
was intended by the European Union as a vehicle to consolidate EU’s actorness in
the global stage, along with the various interregional arrangements EU has developed over last two decades, like EU–ASEAN, EU–Mercosur dialogue mechanisms. As a regional grouping itself, EU also encourages regionalization around
the world. Implicitly, by expanding the preexisting EU–ASEAN dialogue mechanism to include the three major economies in the northeast Asia, EU encourages
regionalism in East Asia. On the side of East Asia, some scholars also argued that
certain Asian countries, like Singapore, instrumentalised the interregional
dialogue with Europe to enhance regional cooperation among them.22 Intentionally or not, the ASEM process did require Asian members to coordinate their
positions prior to ASEM meetings. Furthermore, the Asian membership of ASEM
incidentally corresponds to the intended membership (minus Taiwan and Hong
Kong) of the East Asian Economic Group (EAEG), which was put forwarded by
the then Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir. Therefore, ASEM process intentionally or unintentionally set off a process within East Asia for intra-regional
cooperation, helping define and encourage an ‘Asian’ identity.
If ASEM process helped the initial forming of a new Asian identity and
regionalism in East Asia, APEC process was intended by the United States to
preempt such development in East Asia. Mahathir’s EAEG proposal intended to
form an exclusively Asian club, which aroused strong opposition from the United
States and received no support from Japan due to US pressure. Like in NATO, the
United States feels comfortable to deal with other members individually, and tries
its best to prevent them from “ganging up”. As a small compromise to Mahathir,
Asian economies were able to form an informal caucus, the EAEC, within the
APEC, which is not very active. As East Asian nations developed their consultation
and coordination framework within ASEM, and because the ineffectiveness of
APEC in helping the East Asian countries in the Asian financial crisis, the regionalism trend within the East Asia was set in force. China proposed a China–
21 Christopher M. Dent From inter-regionalism to trans-regionalism? Future challenges for
ASEM, Asia Europe Journal (2003) 1: p.224.
22 Yeo Lay Hwee, Asia and Europe: The Development and Different Dimensions of ASEM,
(London and New York: Routledge, 2003). Pp.110–114.
NATO, APEC and ASEM: triadic interregionalism and global order
ASEAN free trade area, and the APT countries are scheduled to hold the first ever
East Asian Summit later this year.
Even within the NATO, the transatlantic identity is challenged by the “the
Europeanization of the alliance”, which is seen by many in Washington as the
“harbinger of transatlantic decoupling”.23
4 Interregionalism and global order
4.1 Interregionalism and multipolarity
Waltz once observed that, “upon the demise of the Soviet Union, the international
political system became unipolar”.24 Other observers repeatedly echoed this view
in recent years when the United States further strengthened its military supremacy.
However, the post-war uniplorization is coupled with a simultaneous multipolarization process, obviously in the diplomatic and economic arenas. As one
of most prominent champions of a multipolar world, the French president Chirac
believes that, “when you look at the changes in the world, we’re clearly, quite
naturally, witnessing the creation of a multipolar world, whether we want it or not,
it’s inevitable, and in the near future, i.e. in the next 50 or hundred years, alongside
the United States, not just Europe, but also China, India and South America will
form entities”.25 Trying to integrate these opposite views, Samuel Huntington
agrees that there is now only one superpower, but that does not mean that the world
is unipolar. A unipolar system would have one superpower, no significant major
powers. As a result, the superpower could effectively resolve important international issues alone, and no combination of other states would have the power to
prevent it from doing so. Therefore, he prefers to use a new term, “uni-multipolar
system”.26
Interregionalism thus finds itself caught by these contesting forces. It is used
by the only superpower to consolidate its supremacy in world affairs. However,
more fundamentally, we tend to see interregionalism rests on and promotes
multipolarization.
The Unites States used the two transregional organizations, the NATO and
APEC, to preempt the other two core regions from becoming real challengers to the
US supremacy. Through NATO, the United Stated has been demanding the EU not
to transform itself into a new security alliance and military superpower. The militarizing process of the European Union over the recent years aroused strong
concerns on the US side, and the United Stated has used every means to protect the
status of NATO as the central security structure in Europe. Similarly, APEC serves
the US interest to prevent the emergence of the East Asian regional bloc. By
23 Stuart Croft, Jolyon Howorth, Terry Terriff and Mark Webber, “NATO’s Triple Challenge”,
International Affairs 76, 3 (2000), p. 496.
24 Kenneth Waltz, “Structural Realism After The Cold War”, International Security; Summer
2000, p.27.
25 Statements made by Jacques Chirac, President of the Republic, during his joint press conference with Gerhard Schroeder, Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, Jean-Claude
Juncker, Prime Minister of Luxembourg, and Guy Verhofstadt, Prime Minister of Belgium, Paris,
April 30, 2003.http://www.info-france-usa.org/news/statmnts/2003/chirac_defense043003.asp.
26 Samuel Huntington, “The Lonely Superpower”, Foreign Affairs; March/April 1999, pp.35–50.
Zhimin Chen
making other region unorganized, or not further integrated, the United States could
avoid any “ganging up” of secondary states to challenge its leadership.
However, interregionalism, as the ASEM process indicates, also serves the
other relatively weaker regions to strengthen themselves. By reaching out to each
other, and by cooperating on political and economic issues, Europe and East Asia
could both boost their bargaining position when they face the United States respectively. Moreover, as the paper argues above, the ASEM process also promotes
regionalism in Europe and in East Asia. It allows EU to project collective power
to defend Europe’s values and interests in the world, and establish Europe as a
cornerstone of a multipolar world order. It also prompts East Asia to join the
global trend of ‘racing to regionalism,27 viewing regionalism as about pooling
sovereignty to enhance sovereignty. The more regions can unite, the more they
can determine their own destiny in the global order.28
The multipolarization trend is also displayed in the evolution of the NATO and
APEC. As the European Union takes on its new roles of common security policy,
overseas military intervention, and military mutual assistance which is specified in
the yet-to-be-ratified new EU Treaty of Constitution, NATO is not that indispensable in the Europeans’ eyes, and the United States is potentially going to face
a coordinated joint European position in the NATO. In APEC, the launching of
East Asian Summit, and the shift of policy priority of Asian countries from
APEC process to intra-regional cooperation reduced the relevance and salience of
the APEC process. In a word, the development of these regional processes which
the United Stated is excluded and could not control, reflects the momentum
of the multipolarization process.
4.2 Interregionalism and multilateralism
How the ongoing development of triadic interregionalism affects the multilateral
system? Do these arrangements tend to weaken the legitimacy and/or effectiveness of the multilateral system, or they serve to contribute to the strengthening
of that system? In the global economic governance, these questions were translated into the following one: is regionalism and/or interregionalism ‘stumbling
blocks’ or ‘stepping-stone’ to multilateral liberalization?
The lack of multilateral/global governance system was seen as one of most
important reasons for the outbreaking of the Second World War. Therefore, led by
the United States, nations built up a network of multilateral organizations
immediately after that war, which included the United Nations dealing with
political, security and social issues, the GATT regulating international trade, the
IMF for helping nations to secure financial stability, and the World bank for
providing developmental loans to poor countries. These multilateral institutions
have been strengthened over the past 60 years, which form the backbones of
today’s global governance system.
27 See K. P. Thomas and M.A.Tetreault(eds), Racing to Regionalize (London: Lynne Rienner,
1999).
28 Brigid Gavin and Luk Van langenhove, ‘trade in a world of regions’, in Gary P. Sampson
and Stephen Woolcock (eds), Regionalism, Multilateralism, and the Economic Integration:
The Recent experiences (Tokyo: United Nations University Press, 2003), p.277.
NATO, APEC and ASEM: triadic interregionalism and global order
Starting from the 1950s, regionalism has spread from Europe to other regions.
A new wave of regionalism came from the late 1980s. According to the WTO, the
successor of the GATT, in the period 1948–1994, the GATT received 124
notifications of regional trade arrangements (RTA), and from 1995 to the end of
2002, over 130 additional arrangements covering trade in goods or services have
been notified, at a rate of 15 RTAs every year compared with 3–4 before.29
The accelerating of regionalism and the forming of interregional arrangements
corresponds to the strengthening of the multilateral system, at least in the trade
sector. A more forceful WTO replaced the GATT, and trade liberalization extends
from manufactory products to all commodities and service. With these parallel
developments in mind, we cannot help thinking that, regionalism as well as
interregionalism has not been obstacles to the strengthening of multilateral economic system.
Woolcock argued that, RTAs can contribute to the development of rule-based
trade and investment regimes in a number of ways.30 They could provide models
for wider multilateral agreements. They could provide a pathfinder and a learning
function, for developing countries to have time and space to make the domestic
changes needed to engage more fully in the global trading system. Because RTAs
are generally compatible with the substantive provisions of the WTO, increased
membership of regional agreements will also strengthen the multilateral system, in
the sense that more countries are signing up to the principles set out in the WTO.
RTAs also bring about a degree of policy approximation, which helps to reduce the
costs of market access for all suppliers, whether within or outside the region.
In a few instances, the major actors appear to have sought to use regional agreements as a means of shaping future trade agendas to fit their policy preferences by
setting precedents.
As a matter of fact, new regionalism and interregionalism are increasingly
guided by the idea of “open regionalism”, which is WTO-compatible or even
WTO-plus. As Wei and Frankel observed, the concept of open regionalism was
formally introduced during the APEC discussion but a uniformly agreed-upon
definition of the concept is lacking. According to the definition of Gamble and
Payne, “open regionalism means that policy is directed towards the elimination of
obstacles to trade within a region, while at the same time doing nothing to raise
external tariff barriers to the rests of the world”.31 Compared with the mere WTOcompatible definition, Wei and Frankel define “open regionalism” as external
liberalization by trade blocs, that is, the reduction in barriers on imports from
nonmember countries that is undertaken when member countries liberalize the
trade among themselves. The degree of liberalization on imports from nonmembers
need not be as high as that for member countries.32 For some others, the APECstyle open regionalism centred around the WTO-style of non-discriminatory MFN
“Regional Trade Agreements: Facts And Figures”, http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/
region_e/regfac_e.htm.
30 Gary P. Sampson and Stephen Woolcock (eds), Regionalism, Multilateralism, and the
Economic Integration: The Recent experiences . pp.229–338.
31 Andrew Gamble and Anthony Payne, ‘ Conclusion: The New Regionalism”, in Andrew
Gamble and Anthony Payne (eds), Regionalism and World Order (London: MacMillian, 1996),
p251.
32 Shang-Jin Wei And Jeffrey A. Frankel, “Open Regionalism in a World of Continental Trade
Blocs”, International Monetary Fund Staff Papers, v45, no3, Spring 1998. pp.440–53.
29 WTO:
Zhimin Chen
liberalization with concessions automatically extended to all members.33 No matter
what open regionalism really means, they are WTO-compatible, and in the case
of APEC Bogor goals, it could even be WTO-plus, which would drive the
WTO multilateral liberalization further.
In terms of political regionalism and interregionalism, similar line of arguments
could be tabled. Here, the relatively weak United Nations could draw benefits from
strong regional and interregional institutions. These institutions could help build
peace within their own regions, and may lend resources and capacities for UN
operations, such as peace-keeping and even peace-making. Nevertheless, if the
regional or interregional institutions, like NATO, with their military and political
capacities, try to bypass the UN to conduct military interventions by themselves,
the legitimacy or credibility of the UN would be in jeopady. The case of Kosovo
War is reminder of this negative impact.
4.3 Interregionalism and multi-level governance
What we see then is a world of multi-level governance, whereby interregionalism is
becoming a indispensable level.
It is still true that great powers remain the most crucial actors in today’s world.
Even in the European Union, member states are still sovereign with regard to foreign
and security policy. The convergence or divergence of their interests determines the
cooperative or conflictual nature of international relations. Therefore, states continue to play the diplomacy of bilateralism, and bilateral inter-state relations, such as
US-Russia, Sino-Japan, Franco-UK, occupy the central stage of international politics.
Nevertheless, nation states are now living in a globalized world. They are increasingly relying on each other to provide wealth, security and identity. The interdependence of the nation states requires a global/multilateral governance system,
to regulate the transborder inflows of goods, services, people and capital, to ensure
the overall stability of the international system. Therefore, states do share interests
in the establishment and strengthening of the multilateral governance system.
But a unified global/multilateral system may not serve the interests of nation
states fully, either because it is too weak or because it is too strong and rigid. A
weak multilateral system may not be able to provide the governability which is
needed to address international problems. Meanwhile, a strong global rule may not
be tailored to address the particular local and regional concerns. Thus, a regional
and interregional arrangement, as a “plurilateral” one, 34which is broader than bilateral but narrower than the multilateral arrangement, may fill the governance gap.
Garvin and Van Langenhove argued that, regional trade agreements are more
manageable than multilateral negotiations because they involves smaller numbers
and because members are more homogeneous, decision-making is more efficient.35
33 Linda Low, “Multilateralism, Regionalism, Bilateral and Crossregional Free Trade Arrangements: All Paved with Good Intentions for ASEAN?” Asian Economic Journal, 2003, Vol. 17
No. 1. pp.70–71.
34 Björn Hettne, ‘Interregionalism and World Order’, Paper presented to Section 33, States,
regions and regional world orders, SGIR, Fifth Pan-European International Relations Conference,
Netherlands Congress Centre, the Hague, September 9–11, 2004.
35 Brigid Gavin and Luk Van langenhove, ‘trade in a world of regions’, p.286.
NATO, APEC and ASEM: triadic interregionalism and global order
As regionalism becomes increasingly fashionable, particularly as East Asia, where
regionalism has long underdeveloped, also collects momentum in the constructing
its own regional arrangements, interregionalism serves to tie the three core regions
together. Along with the global multilateral system, triadic interregionalism helps
keep these core regions open to each other, not develop themselves into closed and
competing blocs.
5 Conclusion
The launching of ASEM process fill the “ missing link” among the three core
regions in the world. Although the three sets of triadic interregional arrangements
display discernable differences, they tend to share some identical functions, such
as balancing, governance and identity building. Interregionalism rests on and
promotes multi-polarization, complementing the multilateral system, and could be
seen as an indispensable element of the world order, which may be better
characterized as a multi-level governance system.
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