The UK Relationship with the Asia-Pacific Region

This fourth seminar in the 2009 seminar series “Changing World Views: International Challenges for the UK and Japan” looked to some key dimensions of the UK’s present-day relationship with the Asia-Pacific region.

 

This broad theme offered British and Japanese perspectives on political, economic and security issues as well as a consideration of the institutional frameworks for contact and exchange. The specific dynamic between regional identity and bilateral relations as well as the legacy of the past was explored by our panel of speakers who drew upon a wealth of diplomatic and academic experience in the UK, Asia and Australia to address immediate global challenges against the backdrop of regional concerns.

Summary

 

The fourth seminar in the 2009 seminar series “Changing World Views: International Challenges for the UK and Japan” looked to some key dimensions of the UK’s present-day relationship with the Asia-Pacific region.

 

Mark Beeson, Professor of International Politics at the University of Birmingham began by looking at what is meant by the label ‘Asia-Pacific’ (often referred to as East Asia) and which of the organisations of the area are most relevant and significant. Giving an overview of the key institutions he highlighted the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) as being the oldest in the region; the idea of Southeast Asia came into usage as a way of describing the region through British activity there during the Second World War, for instance.

 

ASEAN is the longest standing organisation of its type in the developing world and arose as a result of geopolitical circumstances during the Cold War and a concern with inward stability and the grouping together of small countries.

 

There are not many maps of Asia-Pacific, which show it’s an artificial construct to an extent, whereas there are many of East Asia and South Asia. The membership of APEC is so wide and diverse it is difficult to come up with a coherent agenda for all, suggested Beeson, which goes to explaining why it has been primarily focused on a fairly narrow vision of economic liberalisation which has mainly suited Australia and the USA of its members. APEC will most likely continue a steady path of downward decline and increasing irrelevance unless the Obama administration, in contrast to Bush’s, finds that APEC really does have something to offer.

 

This leads to the potential rise of East Asia, which Beeson finds a more natural formulation and the most meaningful way of thinking of this region. It had been a region dominated by China for 2000 years and is now seeing a return to that order and longstanding pattern of relationships with the phenomenal rise of China. Europe engages in a formal way via the Asia-Europe Meeting which comprises the European Commission, the European Union, ASEAN plus three (China, Japan, India) and from 2008, India, Mongolia and Pakistan. Perhaps too much attentionis given ASEM given its actual influence. Its greatest significance is that it is the first organisation in East Asia to be represented as a coherent block with a common political purpose. Is the organisation which China wants to see succeed and is likely to be the most significant of the organisations.

 

It crystallised in the 1990s with the Asian economic crisis which alerted them to the need for a regional grouping to regulated against the effects of aggressive American monetary policies, globalisation and the International Monetary Fund.

 

In conclusion, the rise of China and its relation with the USA is the biggest issue in this area. The current economic global crisis with its origins in the USA and the neo-liberalist consensus which the USA has been trying to promote in East Asia has been undermined and the ‘Beijing consensus’ with its more pragmatic approach which doesn’t worry about human rights as much or state intervention seems to suggest it may work.

 

Professor Jenny Corbett, Executive Director of the Australia-Japan Research Centre at the Australia National University, Reader in the Economy of Japan at the Nissan Institute of Japanese Studies at the University of Oxford and Fellow of St Antony’s College, Oxford gave the second presentation, looking at what drives the region. …

 

Sir Graham Fry served as British Ambassador to Japan (2004-2008). He joined the Diplomatic Service in 1972 after graduating from Oxford University. He had postings at the British Embassy in Tokyo (1975-1978, 1989-1993) and Paris (1983-1987) and was British High Commissioner in Malaysia from 1998-2001.

 

 

Professor Glenn Hook (chair) is Professor of Japanese Politics and International Relations and Director of the Graduate School of East Asian Studies at the University of Sheffield. He is also Director of the National Institute of Japanese Studies. His recent books include “Japan’s International Relations: Politics, Economics, and Security”(co-author) and “Contested Governance in Japan: Sites and Issues” (editor).

 

About the contributors