Professor He Baogang, Public Policy and Global Affair
Program, the School of Humanities and Social Sciences,
Nanyang Technological University
Aims
 This lecture will examine the foundations of the
practice and theory of regional governance and
regulatory regionalism with regards to regional public
policy in East Asia.
 Focus on the intellectual foundation of regional
governance
 An introduction to and critique of Australian school of
new regional governance study
Outline
 The Idea of Regionalism
 The idea of Regional Governance
 The idea of Regulatory Regional Governance
 The Practice of Regional Governance in East Asia
 Four Models of Regional Building: How do we evaluate
Asian regional governance?
 The Three Determinants of Regional Governance in
East Asia
 Concluding Remarks
East Asian Political Systems, 1200-1900
1200
China
Japan
Korea
Vietna
m
Thailand
Taiwan
Malaya
12791368:
Yuan
1160-1333:
Kamakura
918-1259:
Koryo
9391407:
Champa
and
Nam
Viet
1238-1350:
Sukhotha
i
Thai
dominat
ion
1222-1293:
Singosari
1333-1573:
Ashikiga
13921910:
Choson
1300
1400
13681644:
Ming
1350-1782:
Ayuthia
14071427:
Chinese
rule
14271787:
Le
Dynasty
Java
12931520:
Majapah
it
14021511:
Malacca
Majapah
it
influenc
e
Philip
pines
China
Japan
Korea
Vietna
m
Thaila
nd
Taiwan
1500
1600
1644-1911:
Qing
16031868:
Tokugaw
a
1662-68:
Dutch
1683-1895:
Chinese
1700
1800
1782:
Chakri
1868:
Meiji
18021955:
Nguyen
Dynasty
and
French
colony
Malaya
Java
Philippi
nes
1511-1641:
Portugue
se
Malacca
1571:
Spanish
colony
1641-1761:
Dutch
Malacca
District
1619:
Dutch
colony
1796:
British
colony
1895-1945:
Japanese
colony
1898:
U.S.
colony
What is 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.
The Idea of Regionalism
 It is “ism”, a new political ideology;
 Inspirational
 Innovative
 Conflictive
 It challenges the traditional conceptions of
government;
The Essence of Regionalism
 The essence of regionalism is a shared community
in the sense of at least three components: 1) social
networks that bridge national boundaries; 2)
strategic thinking that recognizes common
security interests; and 3) a regional identity
capable of overriding national identities on
matters of shared significance.
Four Events
 In 1968 the Association of Southeast Asian Nations
was born.
 In 1989 the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation
(APEC) meeting was institutionalized.
 In 1997 the ASEAN Plus Three (Japan, Korea, and
China) was instituted.
 In 2010 the East Asian Summit decided to add the
United States and Russia.
The idea of Pacific-centric
regionalism
 It was invented and promoted by the USA and
adopted by Australia. Originally the idea of
Pacific Rim was geological, then being used in
security context in the 1960s. It came into
being in the mid-1970s driven by American
capitalism and being adopted in Australia and
New Zealand in the later 1970s. It was
materialized in the form of Asian-Pacific
Economic Cooperation.
Pan-Asianism
 Spiritual Pan-Asianism in India: Togore
 Militarian Pan-Asianism in Japan
 Sun Yat-sen’s Pan-Asianism
Contemporary Asianism
 Mahathir’s East Asian Economic Caucus (EAEC)
 Hatoyama's proposal of East Asian community in 2009
 South Korea
 China
Clashing of two versions of
regionalism
“Asia-Pacific” and “East Asia” are the two core terms
around which different regional identities are
constructed. Conceptualized as “Pacifism” and
“Asianism”, they offer different ideas of regional order
and vary in scope, boundaries and directions.
Competing ideas of governing
regional structure
 One single governing structure versus multiple
structures (e.g., Rudd’s APC)
 see Baogang HE’s “The Awkwardness of Australian
Engagement with Asia: The Dilemmas of Australian
Idea of Regionalism”, Japanese Journal of Political
Science, 12(2):267-285, 2011.
Critical questions
 How does regionalism lead to the transformation of
state power: shift in the location of state power, shift in
the kinds of actors exercising state power? Could the
idea of a regional government signal the death of the
traditional forms of government? Has a regional
organization emerged? Has regional dispute
mechanism emerged? Has regional decision-making
procedure emerged? Has a regional norm or standard
emerged and become a part of national norm or
standard?
The Idea of Regional Governance
 Locate regional governance
 Why Regional governance (not regional government)?
 Features of regional governance in East Asia
Locating Regional Governance:
Four Multilevel Governance
 International Regulatory Agencies (WTO, IMF)
 Regional Governance (EU, APT)
 National Governance
 Subnational (local) Governance
 This lecture focuses on regional governance, and the
relationship between regional and national
governance.
Why Regional Governance?
 Compare regional government and regional
governance
 East Asia lacks an effective regional government
 E.g., ASEAN as a system of regional governance is still
in its embryonic form;
Regional Governance and
Cooperation
 the Comprehensive Plan of Action for Indochinese Refugees (CPA) in
1989 has had the most success in the Asia Pacific region.
 an effective means of issue linkage and burden-sharing centred on the
screening of refugee genuine status.
 Under the provision of asylum seeker processing ASEAN countries (as
well as Hong Kong) were not obliged to accommodate refugees longterm. As part of the three way agreement, mainly the US and Australia
resettled refugees after the host countries had processed them. The
countries of origin, Laos and Vietnam, agreed to take back those whose
status was determined not genuine. This went some ways to stem the
outflow. The 15 years prior to the CPA host nations had been resettling
refugees in ad hoc ways, even resorting to pushing back boats with the
mass exodus of peoples arriving from Vietnam after 1975.
The features of regional
governance in East Asia
 Relations between regional and national organizations
(“regional governance is not simply an agglomeration
of national territorial units at a higher regional level”.
P. 21)
 Public administration in regional affairs, the rotation
of chairman, co-chair mechanism
 Disputing mechanism and procedure
Two models of Regional
Governance
 EU: Supranational institutions and norms
 ASEAN: the development of regional governance
within nation-states, e.g., financial surveillance,
functional policy network, the growing role of Asian
bank in the area of energy and water management.
Two Different Theorizations
 The Stage Theory: Asia is in an early stage of
development; it will follow EU model eventually: it
must have a universal law, a supranational
organization to enforce the law. Consensus model was
operative in UK between 1950-1973.
 The Plural Theory: Asia with its different history and
diversity of culture and population has a different
path, form, process; it will not conform to an European
pattern. There are Asian, African and American ways
of regionalization. EU is exceptional.
The concept of regulatory regional
governance
 “this regulatory regional governance …encompasses the
regulation of a broad area of social and economic life with
issues ranging from infectious diseases to environmental
governance” (p. 21)
 E.g., ASEAN managed the statelessness problem.
Recognizing the importance of having a strong legal
framework, Thailand amended its Civil Registration Act in
2008. Under the revised law, all children born in the
country are entitled to birth registration even if their
parents are not Thai nationals – an important step to
prevent statelessness, for example amongst the children of
refugees. Cambodia said that over last 10 years it has been
using mobile registration in remote areas increasing
registration rates from 5% to 90%.
New Model of Regulatory Regional
Governance
 Regional governance within the national/subnational policy-
making apparatus, or in functionally specific policy regimes
(Hameiri&Jayasuriya, 2011: 21)
 “the increasing importance of meta-governance in contemporary
governance processes has been associated with a realignment of
power within bureaucracies, with meta-governance actors
gaining power at the expense of other parts of the state
apparatus.” (Hameiri and Jayasuriya 2011: 27).
 E.g., the Australian government’s decision to grant the
Australia Federal Police more power in making foreign
policy decisions relating to peacekeeping and capacitybuilding interventions which in turn reduces the power of
the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
Jayasuriya’s Idea of Regulatory
Regionalism
 Governance and administrative processes are no longer the
exclusive domain of the state. Regulatory regionalism is
being driven by the need for regional cooperation in
regards to risk management.
 regional risk management in regards to finance, health and
international crime by institutions operating separately
from state governance. For example the Executives’
Meeting of East Asian and Pacific Central Banks (EMEAP)
and the growing role of the Asian Development Bank
(ADB) in ensuring financial stability in the region.
 Production networks in the region are often operating
across multiple countries which has facilitated the
development of independent, regional regulators.
Hameiri and Jayasuriya
 Hameiri and Jayasuriya expand upon Jayasuriya’s earlier
work and propose that regulatory regionalism is a process
of ‘internal transformation of the state’. This internal
transformation occurs through shifts in the national and
sub-national policy-making framework as well as in
regional policy agreements spanning several governments.
 The main argument is that regional governance is formed
within the institutional spaces of the state rather than
prevailing top down view taken by most literature focusing
solely on state governments and regional institutions.
 They describe the way in which sub-national economic and
political actors are now actively seeking to influence
regional issues through influence and power gained at a
national level.
Meta-governance
 Meta-governance is essentially the ‘governance of governance’. It is the idea
about “procedures for the regulation of governance arrangements that
incorporate non-governmental actors, as well as providing the rules guiding the
establishment of complex networked and multi-level governance
arrangements” (H&J, p.27). It will allow independent actors to cooperate more
effectively at a regional level.
 The problem with a reduction in governmental power is that non-state actors
could pursue their given role with a narrow perspective and ignore what may or
may not be required in the more overarching needs of a national as a whole.
For example, the Asian Development Bank’s handling of the Mekong Project
has been questioned for the overbearing ways in which it has pushed so-called
fragile states into cooperating with its policies. This could be seen as effectively
governing a government.
 Other examples of meta-governance include the European Union’s open
method of coordination (OMC) and the African Peer Review Mechanism
(APRM) Ibid., 27.
Questioning Hameiri&Jayasuriya’s
idea of regulatory regionalism
 Is there meta-governance? Regional governance is
fragmental and lacks a unitary feature.
 Can the Bank been conceptualized as “private”?
 Is there only one new model of regulatory governance?
There are the variety and complexity of regional
governance in practice.
 Have regional organizations, regulations and norms
emerged above nation-state level (not within states as
H&J claim)?
Practice of Regional Governance
 ASEAN
 Chiang Mai Initiative
 ASEAN plus 3 Civilian Nuclear Energy
 Regional cooperation on the statelessness
 ADMM-Plus
 The Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia
Pacific
The Governance Mode of the APT
Financial Cooperation
 Two levels of decision-making body in the CMIM,
namely Ministerial Level Decision-Making Body
(MLDMB) and Executive Level Decision-Making Body
(ELDMB);
 the establishment of single contractual agreement in
managing regional pooling fund;
 the creation of regional surveillance unit as a part of
CMIM decision-making support arrangement;
 the involvement of non-state actors;
CMIM Contribution, Purchasing
Multiple and Voting Power
Financial Contribution
(billion USD)
Countries
Plus Three
China
192.00
China
(Exc.
Hong
Kong)
Share (%)
80.00
68.40
76.80
Hong
Kong
Purchasing
Multiple
Maximum
Swap
Amount
(billion
USD)
Basic
Votes
Total Voting
Power
Votes Based
on
Contribution
%
117.30
9.60
192.00
201.60
71.59
28.50
0.5
34.20
3.20
68.40
71.60
25.43
3.50
2.5
6.30
0.00
8.40
8.40
2.98
32.0
8.40
Japan
76.80
32.00
0.5
38.40
3.20
76.80
80.00
28.41
Korea
38.40
16.00
1
38.40
3.20
38.40
41.60
14.77
ASEAN
48.00
20.00
126.20
32.00
48.00
80.00
28.41
Indonesia
9.104
3.793
2.5
22.76
3.20
9.104
12.304
4.369
Thailand
9.104
3.793
2.5
22.76
3.20
9.104
12.304
4.369
Malaysia
9.104
3.793
2.5
22.76
3.20
9.104
12.304
4.369
Singapore
9.104
3.793
2.5
22.76
3.20
9.104
12.304
4.369
Philippines
9.104
3.793
2.5
22.76
3.20
9.104
12.304
4.369
Vietnam
2.00
0.833
5
10.00
3.20
2.00
5.20
1.847
Cambodia
0.24
0.100
5
1.20
3.20
0.24
3.44
1.222
Myanmar
0.12
0.050
5
0.60
3.20
0.12
3.32
1.179
Brunei
0.06
0.025
5
0.30
3.20
0.06
3.26
1.158
Lao PDR
0.06
0.025
5
0.30
3.20
0.06
3.26
1.158
Total
240.00
100.00
243.50
41.60
240.00
281.60
100.00
The Case of Indonesia
 To proceed the CMIM agreement into Indonesian
regulatory framework, the MOF coordinated with two
other relevant authorities, the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs (MoFA) and the Ministry of Law and Human
Right (MoLHR).
 the legal process in transforming the CMIM
agreement into Indonesian regulatory system
Ratification issue
 Ratification is a part of regulatory regionalism process. The
transformation of regional arrangement into national
system may utilize ratification as formal procedure.
 the Indonesian financial-monetary authorities signed the
agreement;
 different from Thailand that was through parliamentary
approval before joining the CMIM.
 Indonesian system will apply ratification if such
international agreement needs to do so (Article 9 Law
No.24/2000). In CMIM case, the agreement did not require
ratification.
Sovereignty question
 no particular financial institution in Indonesia asks
about the sovereignty issue regarding decision-making
process in CMIM.
 By joining the CMIM, Indonesia has to comply with
several conditions as stated in the CMIM agreement.
 the voting mechanism of CMIM potentially outstrips
the voice of the smaller contributor. With only 4.3 per
cent of total voting rights, Indonesia has very limited
power in CMIM.
IMF and Regional Governance
 the CMIM continues to adopt global governance in finance,
such as IMF governance on credit lines,
 the initiative indirectly transmits IMF governance into
domestic policy making.
 Benefits: IMF governance and activities gain negative
stigma from the public, the transformation of the IMF
governance through the CMIM helps the IMF to keep
promoting its programs to Indonesia. At the same time,
this mode of governance also eases Indonesian financial
authority to maintain alternative financial assistance from
international institution in the mid of domestic public
opposition toward IMF.
Independent Surveillance Unit
 ASEAN+3 Macroeconomic Research Office (AMRO) as
independent surveillance unit in 2011.
 Located in Singapore, AMRO was designed to monitor and
assess the macroeconomic condition and financial
robustness as well as assessing the possible occurrence of
macroeconomic and financial problems of the APT
member countries.
 Also to detect potential risks, provide effective responses,
and contributing to decision-making process of CMIM.
 Indonesia established a national surveillance unit, and a
potential to standardise or harmonize the operational
procedure for surveillance process.
Four Models of regional building: A Plural
Assessment of Regional Governance
Building
Model
Unitary
Federalism
Confederation
Consociational
State
building
process
France
USA, Canada,
Australia
Switzerland
Northern Ireland
Regional
building
process
The lack of a
unitary system of
regionalism
EU
Pan-European trade
union
ASEAN
Three Determinants of Existing regional
Governance Structure and Pattern
 The idea of regionalism: Asianism v.s. Pacificism
 Power Relations
 The idea and practice of sovereignty (In EU nationalism is
associated with war and is not regarded as a driving force
for regionalism. In Asia, nationalism is seen as a positive
force. see Baogang’s “East Asian Ideas of Regionalism: A
Normative Critique,” Australian Journal of International
Affairs, Vol. 58, No. 1, March 2004, pp. 105-125.
the power rivalry
 the rivalry between Japan and China: e.g., the director
of AMRO
 the rivalry between USA and China (see Baogang He’s
“A Concert of Asian Power and Hybrid Asian
Regionalism”, Australian Journal of Political Science,
Vol. 47, No. 4, pp. 677-690, 2012.
Clash between China and USA on
regionalism
 China was determined to pursue regionalism that
excluded the United States in 2003-05 in the
background of the backlash against the Bush
administration’s unilateralism and obsession with the
war against terror. It created an image as an supporter
of ASEAN-centered regionalism.
ASEAN-Led Regionalism
 Ideally both the US and China should take a step
back and make more space for ASEAN. Both
should give up the role of leadership over Asian
regionalism. Both must agree to let the ASEAN
countries play a leadership role. This is one aspect
of the democratization of Asian international
relations. It is the middle powers that have driven
regionalization in Asia.
The Centrality of ASEAN?
 The outgoing SG, Surin Pitsuwan, emphasized,
ASEAN must maintain its centrality because of
shifting power dynamics interest in region particularly
now that it is attracting greater interest from external
powers which could sabotage the spirit of ASEAN.
Summary
 The Idea of Regionalism: Regional citizenship
 The idea of Regional Governance: Effective Regional
Government
 The idea of Regulatory Regional Governance: the
Variety and Complexity Regional Governance in East
Asia
 Four Models of Regional Building: Asian Path toward
Regionalism
 The Three Determinants of Regional Governance in
East Asia: Ideas, Power and Sovereignty
Concluding Remark: Vision
 Great regionalism calls for a great vision of great
union. ASEAN will require a new economic
community vision beyond 2025 to address crossborder issues. ASEAN Political Security Community is
one of the pillars of ASEAN Community –ASEAN
Vision 2020 accelerated into 2015 (Cebu Declaration
2007). It is a rule-based community of shared values
and norms.
Concluding Remark: Leadership
 Currently regional leaders largely come from diplomacy
community, trade and economic elites.
 Regionalism demands a new set of leadership. Strong elite
who is committed to super national identity is minimal as
sustaining regionalism.
 While national heroes are still important, they lost the
privileged position in the status of hero. Regional leaders
are increasingly seen a new set of leaders in Europe.
 Asian regionalism requires co-leadership from Japan and
China (see Baogang He’s “Sun Yat-sen’s Idea of Regionalism
and His Legacy”, in Lee Lai To and Lee Hock Guan, eds.,
Sun Yat-sen: Nanyang and the 1911 Revolution, Singapore:
Institute of Southeast Studies, 2011, 44-60.)
Concluding remark: Great Hope
and Frustration
 We are excited with the new idea of regionalism, but
are frustrated by the ineffectiveness of regional
organization like ASEAN. We are anxious about how
regional governance will evolve and lead us to go. Will
a regional government body address the common
issues effectively?