SITTING in my little office in Kuala Lumpur 30 years ago, little did I imagine that the Southeast and Northeast Asian regions, so beset with insecurities and sensitivities, would come this far and fast, or move so close to each other.
Conditions in the early 1980s were very different then. The Northeast was still caught in the grips of the Cold War. Vietnam’s occupation of Cambodia was causing the region sleepless nights. China was just emerging out of its cocoon.
Today, paranoia about communism and falling dominoes has all but disappeared.
Countries are engaging with each other in peaceful economic partnerships and have officially renounced the use of force in the settlement of disputes.
In short, we fear much less for our lives today.
The sources of tension and rivalry still exists, but have largely evolved from the purely death-dealing militaristic to political, economic and technological.
East Asia, however, remains a work-in-progress. The use of power and threats of force are not infrequent enough, particularly in the South China Sea. Countries have divergent world views, national interests and power to pursue them.
While normalcy prevails, suspicions and mistrust are never really far from the surface. And nowhere is this more evident than in Northeast Asia, where economic interactions have intensified but warm friendships have not.
Geostrategic rivalries, compounded by bitter history, have prevented the kinds of creeping confidence and trust building that has occurred among members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean).
Asean began as an essentially timid, even insipid, experiment. Over time, however, members have grown accustomed to one another and, with pushing, pausing and jostling, are striving to build a community for themselves.
The operational word is striving. Asean’s tagline of “one vision, identity and community”, may seem a stretch of the imagination at the moment, except that every great undertaking probably started out this way.
Unless something utterly and terribly drastic occurs, it is difficult to see member states reversing their course. They have come to rely so much on Asean that doing without it is virtually unthinkable.
This communitarian philosophy is, to a large degree, driven by the fact that if members do not hang (or group) together, inadequacies, shortfalls and all, then they will literally hang separately.
And with the eyes of the world, not just their citizens on them, member states have to demonstrate not just their “oneness” but increasing relevance and responsiveness to its people.
The idea of a responsive communitarian future is alien to the Northeast.
China, Japan and South Korea are very keen on establishing a strong linkage to the non-threatening Asean, but among each other not so much.
This gives rise to the much talked about hub-and-spoke (or wheel-like) arrangement.
Each of the three countries is currently strengthening its relationship (or spoke) with Asean (the hub) and not so much with each other.
Throughout history, the rise of new powers has given rise to mistrust and for all its declarations, the same is true of China. Asean does not have anywhere near comparable power and is, therefore, neither potential rival nor threat.
The same does not hold true for other large powers, whether on the rise or in decline. The process of accommodating new entrants is fraught with difficulties and threat sensors and alarms often go into overdrive.
This suggests that the hub-and-spoke configuration will endure in East Asia for quite some time.
This is not optimal as each of the spokes may cause instability from time to time, but in the bigger scheme of things is not such a bad result.
As Asean gets its act as a community together, it can play more than the passive moderating role than it has been doing. It can exert greater influence by bringing the three parties into consultations and doing so more frequently.
The platform to do this is the Asean Plus Three, which is why its declining relevance over the past decade must be arrested.
Patient and constructive cooperation efforts could be the springboard for the East Asia Community.
If this seems difficult to envisage, remember the experiences of a young researcher 30 years ago in Kuala Lumpur who did not think that reaching this point was possible, and, as it turned out, it was.