East Asian Multilateralism: Fukuyama on Chinese democracy

I attended a fantastic event this week at the Japan Society in NYC with Francis Fukuyama and Kent Calder about their new book East Asian Multilateralism: Prospects for Regional Stability. Gideon Rose moderated.

One of the take away points that Fukuyama made was on Chinese democracy: It won't come anytime soon. The idea that development will push democracy in China doesn't work, he said. No one knows whether Chinese will accept the notion that the country has to embrace human rights to get what it wants. Fukuyama's concern is that gains from growth in China are so lopsided that democratic representation could mean a redistribution of wealth that would cancel out those gains. In any case, China could become the first country to democratize over the environment "because the are poisoning themselves." But he is optimistic for the long run.

In the book, Fukuyama, Calder, and their coauthors grapple with a changing security environment in East Asia where the traditional hub and spoke system has become outdated. What is dramatically different about the current situation, argues Fukuyama, is "the changed posture of South Korea... South Korea has shifted from being a bastion of anti-communism to seeking reconciliation and ultimate reunification with North Korea." Meanwhile, Korea-China relations have warmed. The South Korean spoke is "slowly rotting away."

To deal with new trends in China, South Korea, North Korea, and Japan, the United States needs to consider a multilateral framework for Asia, beyond the hub and spoke system. As Kent Calder put it, Northeast Asia is under-institutionalized, suffering from an organization gap. The areas of promise for institutionalization include the environment, energy, and finance.

Fukuyama outlined five options in his chapter:

Option one would be to maintain the current bilateral system and oppose multilateral institutions that do not include the United States, as Richard Armitage has argued.

Option two would be to lay the foundations for a multilateral containment barrier against China. He said a "sophisticated version" of this idea is contained in the project I ran at CSIS. In that project, Sherman Katz, Robert Fauver, and I argued for an East Asian economic community that would "incorporate as criteria for membership certain elements of good governance--for instance, rule of law, transparency, government accountability, and so on," as Fukuyama put it. You can read my proposal with Katz for these Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreements (CEPAs) here from the American Interest.

Option three would be to create a five-power organization based on the six party talks. This is a proposal that Ian Bremmer and many others have proposed. My only critique about this concept is that it not take on too many sectors, as I argued in the National Interest here.

Option four would be to revitalize existing forums such as APEC in which the United States is a member. This is a concept that has been touted by many government officials in public but sometimes scoffed at in private. Many say that APEC is too big to get anything done.

The final option would be "re-Asianize" Japan by taking an existing forum such as ASEAN Plus Three and having Japan engage that forum in a more meaningful way. This idea was pushed by Kazuhiko Togo in the book and seemed to be Fukuyama's preferred route.

Can China Lead?

The National Interest has just published a piece Joshua Kulantzick and I wrote based on our research trip over the summer to six Asian nations. Our main question was: What is the impact of China's emergence on Asian regionalism? We interviewed more than 50 senior sources.

Our findings were surprising as they seemed to verify my hunch that Southeast Asian policymakers would be forced to be more honest, and less cyncial, about their interests in the face of dramatic political change in Asia. Here is an excerpt for our article titled "Hu's on First?":

In nations like Vietnam, political elites have even begun to analyze the “China model” of development, assessing whether China’s combination of moderate economic liberalization and no concurrent political reform could be duplicated in Hanoi.

But Beijing’s charm may be reaching its limits.

While China has pursued more sophisticated diplomacy in the region, its own political system has hardly become more transparent. Just the opposite: Though many foreign governments hoped for substantial political reform when Hu Jintao came to power, studies by groups like Human Rights Watch actually show Beijing has backslid on political and social freedoms under Hu, with crackdowns on local media and civil-society organizations like China Development Brief (CDB), a prominent Beijing- based website that monitored Chinese non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

This summer, with little warning, the Chinese government shut down CDB. At the same time, China clearly has been upgrading its military, boosting defense spending by some 20 percent last year alone and beginning to develop a blue-water navy, but failing to coherently explain to its neighbors the rationale behind its build-up.

Worse, even as wealthier Asian nations are beginning to embrace environmental stewardship, better labor rights and corporate social responsibility, China’s companies, now beginning to invest abroad, remain plagued by low environmental standards, poor governance and little accountability.

As Xiaobo Lu, a Columbia University professor, says, China needs institutions to establish the ethical “rules of the game.” “Right now, it is everything goes—precisely because, yes, everything goes—no good credit checking system, no well-placed fear of violating good norms, one can get away with cheating, et cetera”, Lu told The Wall Street Journal.

Indeed, to many Southeast Asian nations, there seems no way to hold Chinese firms accountable for disasters ranging from clear-cutting in northern Myanmar to exports of tainted products to significant problems with Chinese joint venture partners.

ASEAN Embraces Human Rights

ASEAN seems to be stepping up to the plate on regional leadership.

In previous blog postings, I have mentioned my research with Josh Kurlantzick on ASEAN's relationship with Japan and China. One big question is whether ASEAN can play a role in the formation of a regional identity. The answer will depend on whether the grouping can consolidate its power, construct a strong charter this fall, codify universal values, and avoid being restricted by the noninterference principle. Good news today on those fronts:

During ASEAN's meeting in Manila, the group reached consensus on including provisions in the ASEAN charter for the establishment of a human rights commission. Read the Associated Press article here.

The AP reporter quotes a Singaporean official:

"We have agreed that there will be a human rights body," Singapore Foreign Minister George Yeo said after the ministers met for four hours to discuss the draft. "There was a consensus."

Yeo said details will be settled later but that the foreign ministers hoped to have everything worked out by the time that ASEAN leaders hold their annual summit in November, when they plan to approve the charter.

"I'm very optimistic," Yeo said.

And on the noninterference principle?

Some ASEAN countries fear any scrutiny of their human rights, and the group has traditionally held to a cardinal policy of noninterference in each other's affairs. Human rights groups complain that this noninterference principle fostered undemocratic governments in the region.

Lee Hsien-Loong: ASEAN Needs Charter

Speaking at the 16th World Economic Forum on East Asia in Singapore over the weekend (press release here), Prime Minister Lee Hsien-Loong praised the economic progress made in India, China, Japan, and Korea, but had a more tempered assessment on ASEAN:

"Within Southeast Asia, the picture is mixed. Some countries like Vietnam are pressing ahead with reforms, and are in the early stages of take-off. Others have not restructured their economies and reformed their institutions to the extent that investors had hoped to see. Investment flows have reflected these differences. Nevertheless, Southeast Asia as a whole has regained its balance, and with high energy prices benefiting the oil-exporting economies, the region is moving forward again.

The ASEAN countries realise that they need to strengthen their cooperation with one another in order to stay on the radar screen of international companies and investors. This is why ASEAN is drafting a Charter to strengthen its institutions and define its long-term goals. We are also striving for an ASEAN Community by 2015, to create a single economic entity and realise the full potential of our combined market of 550 million people."

"Asia" as Postmodern Experiment

Asia is not Europe.

This statement seems obvious but it is important to remember that it is dangerous to use the framework of European integration to predict Asia's future. I am in Tokyo today, headed back to New York tomorrow morning. One of the themes of my current research trip on ASEAN's relations with China and Japan is that the primary motivation for ASEAN to consolidate its political structure is simply to balance China.

We are witnessing old fashioned balance of power politics in Asia, not necessarily a unified or ambitious vision. Sure, human rights and democracy may make it into the charter ASEAN will negotiate this fall, but to understand where Asia is going is to think about managing chaos without a concrete destination. Many of the people we interviewed in Asia called ASEAN an experiment, with no direction, an experiment that is both the product and manager of power politics.

A few months ago a group of Russian students asked me if we are living in a uni, bi, or multipolar system. I don't think that kind of thinking is helpful anymore.

My answer was that it depends on the question. Russia can be an energy superpower. Think about Syriana, the messy, chaotic story of the globalized energy supply chain: No one is in control; everyone is in control. This understanding of the international system, I have found, is common among those who study globalization and Asia--both of which I follow.

CSR on the (Elite) Mind in East Asia

I am in the Singapore airport bound for Shanghai, reflecting on my visits to Manila, Jakarta, and Singapore. Three policemen armed with automatic weapons just walked by the free Internet stall to take the escalator downstairs.

I don't want to get carried away, but I am happy to say that issues such as the environment, human rights, and good governance are not confined to conversations in California, Washington DC, New York, Europe, and Japan. Every day, the local newspapers ran at least one article about the environment, climate change, and their popularization in ASEAN.

I read about an eco beauty pageant in Manila and about how Bangkok shut off its lights a couple of days ago to promote eco awareness. On the TV, I saw an ad in Manila (sponsored by the UNDP) against corruption and a music video in Jakarta promoting energy efficient light bulbs. In the cab ride the the airport this morning, the driver spoke about the environmental problems in Southeast Asia broadly, and said that he has never seen such bizarre weather in Singapore. Every businessman, scholar, and government official we interviewed acknowledged the importance of eco and human rights leadership in the world economy.

Now, I don't want to overstate the case. Clearly, the biggest problems facing many countries in ASEAN are poverty and political stability. I understand that I was reading newspapers in English, the TV was in English, our interviewees were elite, and the taxi driver was in fact from a highly educated family. But we should not forget how human rights abuses and environmental degradation can conflate with terrorism, corruption, and instability. The perfect storm could go something like this:

Imagine an area saturated with corruption (which is seen by investors as the number one problem in the Philippines). Officials take bribes from criminals, and gangs are allowed to arm undisturbed by law enforcement. They are able to prosper by engaging in illegal activities such as piracy or smuggling. Lack of equity creates resentment toward more successful groups in the society. An environmental disaster, such as a flood, destroys homes and makes people more receptive or vulnerable to a strongman. Gangs seize the opportunity to overthrow the local government. Martial law is declared, rights are curtailed, foreign direct investment flees, and a downward spiral of poverty and violence ensues.

It isn't that far fetched. All these issues are related.

A New Day for ASEAN?

I woke up today at dawn to the morning call to prayer in Jakarta.

Carnegie Endowment scholar Joshua Kurlantzick and I are traveling through Manila, Jakarta, and Singapore, asking businesspeople, government officials, journalists, and scholars what China's rise means for the future of ASEAN and business and human rights norms. The subtext is that China and Japan are trying to outdo one another in creating goodwill in this battleground for influence.

The topic of China's relationship with the developing world is very timely. I spoke at the New School's Project Africa program and at Wellesley College on the same subject last month. Kurlantzick also just published a book on China's soft power in Southeast Asia called Charm Offensive, and UCLA scholar Josh Eisenman will be presenting his new book on China and the developing world at the Carnegie Council this May.

In my mind, the question is: What will China's economic weight and activity do to business, environmental, and human rights norms around the world? Particularly since state to state war seems less and less likely in East Asia (or "unthinkable" as ASEAN puts it), rivalry between big powers falls into the more nuanced games of economic diplomacy, investment, institution building, and fighting nontraditional global security threats, such as climate change, pandemics, and piracy.

It could turn out to be a net positive in which China keeps trying to attract markets and business partners in areas previously believed to be the domain of Japan and the United States, such as Indonesia or Philippines. China may also build ties in areas in which the West will not go, such as Sudan. Or the story could end up in nasty rivalries, rampant suspicion, and a virtual cold war. But so far the tone is positive.

ASEAN is courting anyone who will dance—the United States, Japan, and China—in what some call "promiscuous diplomacy." Whether ASEAN can be the hub for a vision that increasingly seems to appreciate the importance of social responsibility at the upper levels will depend on whether ASEAN can become a more coherent, political entity. That in turn will depend on ASEAN resolving major debates on the noninterference principle and on decision-making by voting. It will also mean gluing together the world's largest Muslim democracy with tenacious Communist states, and exemplar market economies.

Whatever the outcome, ASEAN is waking to a new reality.