The East Asia Summit (EAS), a slowly-stabilising geopolitical forum that includes India and China as also Japan, is running behind schedule by a year. The fourth annual meeting of the EAS leaders, which Thailand is set to host later this month, should have taken place last year itself. Thailand’s internal political crisis explains the delay; and vivid still are the images of Thai protesters disrupting the planned summit last April.
It may be politically correct to avoid a value judgment now as to whether or not the delay has been a blessing in disguise for the 16-state EAS forum. However, two new political “visions” of East Asia as a potential community, overlapping and even competing in scope, are now in focus. The prospective summit will take place in the shadow of these “visions.”
Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who assumed office after the EAS met in Singapore in 2007, has proposed an Asia Pacific Community. More recently, the new Japanese Prime Minister, Yukio Hatoyama, has envisioned an East Asia Community. A logical question is whether the United States, now a self-proclaimed resident power in East Asia, will figure in the nuclei of these communities.
The question is acquiring a politically-compelling tone, too. U.S. President Barack Obama is expected to attend a summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in Singapore later this year. Also likely then is a summit between the U.S. and the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN). The 10-nation ASEAN prides itself on being the “driving force” behind the EAS and a host of other crisscrossing East Asian groups. This aspect and Mr. Obama’s new status as a Nobel Peace Prize winner are seen to raise the stakes of the prospective Singapore summitry.
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