Comment made@AJA-2.

1．タイトル：Globalisation, Regionalisation and National Policy System

全体テーマをGlobalisation, Regionalisation and National Policy Systemと題したワーク・ショップ及び国際シンポジウムを英国で開催し、最終的には政治学分野に関する日英間・世代間の相互理解を推進することを目的とする。具体的には、ワーク・ショップにおいては、国際会議における英文ペーパーの作成や報告・交流を通して、グローバルな研究者として通用する若手研究者の養成と人的ネットワークの構築を目指す。また、日英のシニア研究者を中心とした国際シンポジウムを開催し、そこでの意見交換を通じて日英研究者の世代間交流を図る。
3．開催地：英国ウォーリック大学（The University of Warwick)


Thank you Professor Kan, and my thanks to the three panelists developing stimulating and interesting analyses; worldviews about politics in the age of big change, especially in this changing world, which is always a difficult task but also very challenging for the students of political science.

May be it is useful to introduce myself briefly, as Professor Kan told, I am specialized on French politics in comparative terms and focusing in the “interface” between the EU and Domestic Politics. So, I may not enough qualified to comments to the given speech.

But in order to complete, but not to confront the above statements, I would like to construct my own point of views, first, on the issue of comparison between Asia-Pacific regionalism and that in Europe. Taking Asian-community as analogy of Europe doesn’t always constitute a proper standpoint not only for its unique historical conditions, but also for normative or political reasons as I will suggest below.

First of all, it is indeed important to take the time-span into account in order to compare the two regional integration(s) in Europe and Asia. Peace prevailed in Europe at the time/during its regionalization process, but regionalism as a literature at least, was found in Asia goes hand in hand with economic interdependence since the late 1990’s. To make a classification, we could say that regionalism in Europe is an Economic-Regionalism, while Asia represents regionalization of its economies per-se. Because of these fundamentally different characteristics, we cannot take Europe and Asia in parallel. That is the 1st argument.

Second, and this point I will develop in a large part, I would like to stress the role of the territoriality of the regionalism, not in the physical or geographical sense, but as an element constituting the National Identity. Due to its different paths and stages of the nation–building, Japan is almost solely a nation where a strong territorial sense resides and its boundary is clear and fixed, comparing to other nations in Asia. Of course, not to mention Stein Rokkan’s work or recent Bartolini’s book, centres and peripheries also exist within Europe. But its costs of ‘exit’ are relatively high in European nations. By contrast, the outside Chinese (Huaqiao), as typical example, the territoriality and the sense of community are much more loose or fluid in Asia. This is just one of the arguments, giving the reason why we cannot imagine the Asian regional-community development as robust as the EU.

But the community’s fluidness could be transformed into something that can be used as an advantage. Under normal circumstances, most human beings can live happily with multiple identities and enjoy moving between them as the situation requires. In contrast, collective identities are pervasive and sometimes exclusive as well. Anthony Smith has remarkably pointed out that the shared European Identity could be dangerous only if it would define itself exclusively against other world actors. In this regard, the slogan made in the last East-Asia Summit as “One vision; One Identity, One Community” could lead to the boundless struggle of Identity and pushing costs to national politics. Regionalism only survives because it holds multiple visions, identities and sub-communities, as the European experience tells us.

So why not having the courage of leaving Asia as it is, namely, a vast area with diverse cultures and networks of FTA? This is where I am joining partly to what Prof. Hughes standpoint, I know that some older intellectual generation (generally of the left!) in Japan is still dreaming of what they have witnessed in 1955, the Bandung Conference of the Asia-African states. Talking democracies is also talking about it boundaries. ASEAN-plus-Three or whatever the form it will take, it seems to be important for its sustainability to let the economy drive the community, leaving the problem of identity aside.

Referring to Prof. Endo’s remark about the role of the US, I just like to point out that the US is just playing “divid-ing and rul-ing” games in Asia tactically, contrary to Europe, and the Asian leaves the room for it. But there is another important pillar playing for the stability in Asia except the US hegemonic role; this time pointed by Prof. Hughes, that is the continuing consolidation of Asian countries as modern nation-states, and the rapid growth through participation in the global economy which in turn contributes to its consolidation. And paradoxically, we need the US economic presence, since US dollar is the key currency, which undermines the Asian institutional settlement such as the Chiang-Mai swap-agreement. But for example, China’s investment to Taiwan already accounts for around 20 % of its total share, and vice-versa. It is clear here that economy, not politics is playing a larger role for Asian regionalism, and probably playing it better. Of course, we can argue that a common Asian identity could be an absorber of different nationalisms but the modernization that wealth and prosperity would make the region is much more stable and promising.

One thing, in my view, that we Asian should take Europe as a model, is the institution such as the Common Agricultural Policy, already pointed out by Prof. Gamble. Making a distributional institution as a stabilizer, in face of the global capitalism, could be an important political project to support the consolidation process of societies and nations; and needs to be established in the age of “Great Transformation” as Karl Polany’s work suggests

Talking about domestic politics, and the factor slightly disregarded in the presentations is the presence of China. It is the first time that Japan is going to witness the China leading ahead not only politically but economically in modern times. Facing its “Asian-ization” , not to talk of “Europeanization”, this will certainly affect domestic political configuration and public opinion in a serious manner. In this regard, enmeshing China by international norms and leading the country into a more prosperous trend will be crucial; this is also the point where opinions of liberalists and realists, whatever the intentions are, converge.

At last, it is no doubt that here the role of Japanese political entrepreneurship or leadership does matter a lot. I am joining here what Prof. Dobson pointed out, to name a few; Prime Minister Kishi in 1957 with his South-East Asia development Fund; or Ikeda in 1963 with his West Pacific Organization initiative, just to name a few. Of course, these were partly pushed by the American regional strategies, but left some room of maneuver for Japan’s political entrepreneurships also.

I think it’s worth recalling two books edited by Peter Katzenstein (the name should be familiar) in the same year 1997: one entitled “Network Power-Japan and Asia” and another called “Tamed Power-Germany in Europe”. Leaving aside the accuracy of the adjective, they symbolize quite well the difference of the region with its different configuration and the path it will make.

To conclude, my comments resides on the different historical path of Europe and Asia, and the effort of giving up taking Europe as a Model for Asian Integration; even I know that I can hardly escape the charge of intellectual laziness.

Thank you for your kind attention.
(My special thanks to K.Araki and N.Kodate)