Asian Regional Integration and the “Third-Mover Advantage”
The New York Times, blogging from the Davos World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2007, has an interesting note on what it calls Asia’s “third-mover advantage” in the global arena.
Anne-Marie Slaughter, dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, said Asian countries want the best of both worlds:
“They look to the United States for how to run the economy and to the European Union for how to promote regional integration,” said Ms. Slaughter, a Davos regular who commented by phone because she was unable to make it this year.
Asia’s economic growth, and China’s in particular, is always the first thing remarked upon. But don’t overlook the important of Asia’s success at integrating politically at the regional level.
Leaders of Association of Southeast Asian Nations, known as ASEAN, have quietly endorsed a proposal to replace unanimity with majority voting to streamline decision-making and introduce sanctions for countries that move too slowly to implement joint decisions.
The new framework could be ratified as early as this year, Haruhiko Kuroda, president of the Asian Development Bank, said Friday at the conference in Davos.
“ASEAN is making great strides in integration,” Mr. Kuroda said.
The European Union, by contrast, has been paralyzed by a cumbersome decicion-making process, and the European constitution, which contained major institutional reforms, was rejected by French and Dutch voters last year. Asia, meanwhile, has created new institutions at every turn, resulting in a series of concentric circles of integration, from ASEAN to ASEAN+3 to ASEAN+6.
“Institutional innovation today is definitely in Asia,” Ms. Slaughter said.
What does Asian regional integration mean for the rest of the world? The US has vacillated on the issue, in particular when Asian integration could be seen as leaving the US out of the club.
And what will China’s role be in a new Asian order?
