Asia’s leadership gap

THIS week, 10 foreign ministers from the Association of South East Asian Nations (Asean) are meeting in Hanoi.
When their initial gathering ends, they will host their counterparts from across the region, including US secretary of state Hillary Clinton.
Asean meetings are sometimes criticised as “talking shops”, but this time dialogue and strategic leadership are needed immensely.
Ironically, the two leaders who most emphasised the need for leadership in Asia and across the Pacific recently left office.
Japan’s former prime minister Yukio Hatoyama and Australia’s former premier Kevin Rudd both championed regionalism from early in their short time in office.
Though they are gone, the issue of regional leadership remains. Indeed, it is growing more important by the day.
The security issues facing the region, from the Korean peninsula to the outcome of the upcoming elections in Myanmar, have grown more pressing – perhaps, all the more so in view of reports that North Korea is assisting Myanmar’s ruling generals to develop nuclear capabilities.
Moreover, the role and attitude of a rising China must be assessed on a regional basis, particularly given that the long-standing dispute over islets in the South China Sea may be entering a new phase.
Recent Chinese statements declare the islands a “core interest”, terms usually reserved for Taiwan and Tibet.
All of these issues test the region’s ability to manage peace and mitigate tensions between its main powers – and, thus, underscore the concern that Hatoyama and Rudd raised. Hatoyama called for an East Asian community, emphasising ties with China and South Korea while questioning the continuing presence of US military bases on the island of Okinawa, the issue that eventually triggered his resignation.
Rudd, by contrast, raised the idea of an Asia-Pacific community with strong ties to the US.
These leaders’departure from office reflected their countries’ internal politics and their successors will focus more on declining support at home than on regional ambitions.
However, the questions that Hatoyama and Rudd raised – who is in Asia and who gets to lead regional cooperation – await a satisfying answer.
As Australian and Japanese initiatives fade, attention now turns to Asean, which has put in place norms for peace that all major powers affirm.
The Asean Regional Forum (ARF) is a long-standing forum that brings together foreign ministers, and that is benefiting from renewed attention on the part of Clinton, who is making her second appearance – a perfect attendance record since coming into office, and a marked improvement on the record of her predecessor, Condoleezza Rice.
But more may be needed.
Asia’s major economies continue to growth and integrate, whereas the US economy remains soft, and its leaders’ attention is increasingly focused on its domestic challenges. A shift of relative strategic influence and strength is discernible, especially given the rise of India and China. But old and unresolved rivalries within Asia are finding new expression as political ambitions and military budgets expand.
A new forum will soon emerge.
Building on the Asean defence ministers’ meeting, a formal dialogue between the defence ministers of eight key countries – China, Japan, South Korea, India, Australia, New Zealand, Russia, and the US – will run in parallel with the ARF.
There is also talk about establishing a new strategic dialogue among leaders.
Two leaders who pushed for regionalism in Asia have departed because of domestic politics.
Those who remain obviously would be well served not to overlook exigencies at home. But they also must acknowledge and attend to the post-crisis challenges facing the region as a whole. – Project Syndicate

*Simon Tay, chairman of the Singapore Institute of International Affairs and co-chairman of the Asia Society Global Council, is the author of Asia Alone: The Dangerous Post-Crisis Divide from America.