ASEAN's ‘people-oriented’ aspirations: civil society influences on non-traditional security governance

Since the Asian financial crisis, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has sought to reorient itself towards becoming a ‘people-oriented’ association. Democratic transitions in the region and increased demands from civil society to be actively involved in regional governance have prompted ASEAN to develop forms of participatory regionalism. In practice, however, the rhetorical aspirations of ASEAN have not often matched the level of participation or support expected by civil society organisations. It has often been the case that ASEAN's decisions, especially those related to sensitive issues, have been influenced by external pressure as opposed to participatory mechanisms. The aim of this article is to determine to what extent participatory mechanisms impact ASEAN's approach to non-traditional security. By doing so, the authors combine two key elements central to a ‘people-oriented’ approach to regionalism: the incorporation of deliberative and participatory processes and the acknowledgement of transboundary security issues which require cooperation to move beyond state-centric approaches. This article explains that despite the rhetorical emphasis on participatory regionalism, it continues to be the case that regional civil society organisations and non-state actors have limited capacity to influence ASEAN. By providing a critical analysis of influences on ASEAN's non-traditional security policies, the authors offer a modest yet valuable contribution to the emerging literature on ASEAN's ‘people-oriented’ regionalism and advance a nuanced understanding of ASEAN's participatory mechanisms.     

古代江南地区圩田开发及其对生态环境的影响

江南地区的圩田大致滥觞于三国之际,迅速发展于两宋,全盛于明清,是我国江南人民在长期治田治水实践中创造的农田开发的一种独特形式。文章以大量历史文献资料为基础,全面考察了江南地区圩田开发的历程与特点,研究了江南圩田兴盛的历史因素和自然条件,并简要分析了圩田的作用。在此基础上,具体探讨了圩田开发对生态环境所造成的影响,认为因过渡围垦破坏了江南地区原有的湖泊河流水文环境,造成“水不得停蓄,旱不得流注”的严重局面,这便给圩田大大增加了防患水灾的压力;历代地方政府在圩田管理方面也是各自为政,各地圩田缺乏相互间的协作,使因破圩而形成的局部水灾年年有之;大量构筑圩田,使湖泊面积大为缩小,影响其调节水量的功能,破坏了本地区的生态条件,致使灾害频频发生。此外,围湖特别是废湖以后,使众多的水生资源也遭到了严重破坏。     

The disturbance and endurance of norms in ASEAN: peaceful but stressful

Since the Cold War, South-East Asia has been marked by a period of relative calm and stability. Yet this peace belies ongoing tensions, mistrust and stress in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and among its member states. Within the scholarship on ASEAN, not enough attention is devoted to these underlying currents. How and in what way do tensions stress the ASEAN norms? What are some of the coping mechanisms adopted by ASEAN and its member states? Engaging with the scholarship on norms, the author contends that changes wrought in this relationship are both extra- and intra-mural. These have accelerated as contentious issues—particularly the South China Sea disputes—gain more visibility. The author argues that ASEAN is put under pressure, firstly, through a more muscular Chinese foreign policy that disrupts but does not yet break the fundamental norms of ASEAN and, secondly, through internal contestation over ASEAN norms that challenges the meaning of these norms. Essentially, the article gives an account of how internal and external pressures are burdening ASEAN norms but yet remain durable because of resistance against duress by the bloc and member states. This is done through an examination of instances where the established order and practices in the region were disturbed, and the response to this disturbance.     

Great Britain's ‘Last Battle’ in the Middle East: Notes on Cabinet Planning during the Suez Crisis of 1956

The South China Sea has throughout history witnessed the primary economies of this littoral region exercising influence over smaller, outlying economies by binding the latter into co-dependent relationships, witnessed in such areas as the currency systems adopted by the smaller economies, which align them to the larger primary economies in the region, and in the ways in which products traded from one economy to another develop from being directionally exclusive and beneficial but non-crucial, to one where the economies are mutually dependant. This may be witnessed between China and the Malay region during the tenth to the fourteenth centuries. The period began with the Malay region's polities dispatching to China high-value commodities from the region and the Indian Ocean littoral, and receiving in return Chinese products that were largely re-exported to markets further afield. Within four centuries, the relationship became one comprising primarily of low-value products, characterised by a mutually dependent relationship in the provision of low-value commodities that were regularly consumed, and in high quantities. More importantly, a substantial degree of vertical economic integration between the two economies, with the Malay region supplying China with primary products, and China providing the former with manufactured goods, developed.     

Rock Art: A Potential Source of Information about Past Maritime Technology in the South-East Asia-Pacific Region

It is possible that most or all boats and rig-types used in prehistoric times in the South-East Asia-Pacific region have completely disappeared from the record, and that those recorded by Europeans in the 17th century may have been relatively recent innovations. The purpose of this paper is to introduce to the literature a new source of information on ancient boat and rig designs. This source is the information encoded in rock-art depictions of watercraft. This paper provides a technical appraisal of 18 images of watercraft from the Tutuala region of East Timor.
© 2007 The Authors     

Internationalisation of the Chinese subnational state and capital: the case of Yunnan and the Greater Mekong Subregion

This article examines the participation of China's Yunnan Province in the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) in order to understand the dynamics behind the regionalisation and internationalisation strategies adopted by a Chinese subnational state. It argues that the Yunnan case demonstrates the outflow of state capital—both national and provincially based—to have been instrumental in harnessing Beijing's and Kunming's political support for programs of subregional economic cooperation. This political support has led to a state capital alliance underpinning the economic expansion of provincial state capital into the GMS. It also argues that subregional governance arrangements, such as those featuring in the GMS, embed the competitive advantage of state capital through new forms of extra-territorial governance that ostensibly de-emphasises the political dimensions of state capital. The internationalisation of Yunnan subnational state is reflected in its political strategy of subregional governance. These changes point to complex rescaling of not just national state but also subnational states in Asia that find expression in variegated regional and subregional political projects.     

Rising Sino-Japanese competition: perspectives from South-East Asian elites

One of the biggest challenges for the East Asian region today is the Sino-Japanese relationship. Starting with the fishing trawler incident in September 2010, followed by Japan's nationalisation of the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands, this relationship is experiencing an escalation of tensions in most, if not all, areas of the bilateral relationship. In response to the intensifying competition, China and Japan have elevated the importance of South-East Asia and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in their foreign policy strategies. Focusing on how elites from five South-East Asian states—Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Vietnam—perceive the engagement of China and Japan with the region, this article poses two questions: (1) How do South-East Asian elites view the Sino-Japanese competition? and (2) How do South-East Asian elites view the role of ASEAN in managing the competition? The analysis here concludes that while some South-East Asian elites see opportunities in the Sino-Japanese competition, they nevertheless do not perceive it as an issue of critical significance. Instead, the concern lies generally with major-power dynamics, and particularly with Sino-US relations. ASEAN is viewed to lack the ability to manage the negative consequences of the Sino-Japanese competition, although its external balancing function has perceptibly helped to restrain any escalation of major-power tensions.     

Debunking the Myth of Localized Agglomerations: The Development of a Regionalized Service Economy in South-East England

The central argument of this paper is that localized clusters of economic activity, or 'agglomerations', have been overemphasized in economic geography since the mid-1980s. In particular, such analyses are too manufacturing-biased, and place too much weight on the importance of local supply, market and partnership linkages. We will re-emphasize the service-based nature of growth in the core region of the UK economy, and will explore how a broad band of producer service activity is emerging in the Western Arc, owing largely to common locational logics, including back-office decentralization and the new firm-formation process. Such growth is both stimulated and supported by the high demand levels of the regional economy, but evidence suggests that the linkages of such firms extend well beyond the 'local', to cover at least the 'Greater South-East'. Furthermore, the international element in service growth needs to be recognized, as highlighted by the concentration of US foreign direct investment in the software industry along the M4 corridor. When areas outside the South-East are considered (such as Edinburgh, Tyne and Wear, Cheshire), the evidence appears to support Allen's (1992) notion of a 'regionalized mode of service growth' in the South-East.     

From Commonwealth Responsibility to the National Interest: Australia and Post-war Decolonisation in South-East Asia

This article re-examines the drivers of post-war Australian foreign policy in South-East Asia. The central argument is that the motive of Commonwealth responsibility has not been given sufficient explanatory weight in interpreting Australia's post-war engagement with South-East Asia under both Australian Labor Party and Liberal-Country Party (Coalition) governments. The responsibility expressed by Australian policy-makers for the decolonisation of the Straits Settlements, Malayan Peninsula and British Borneo Territories cannot be adequately understood within a cold war ideological framework of anti-communism. Nor can it be explained by the instrumental logic of forward defence. The concept of responsibility is theorised as a motivation in foreign policy analysis and applied to Australian involvement with British decolonisation in South-East Asia between 1944 and 1971. The article finds that in its approach to decolonisation, Australia was driven as much by normative sentiments of responsibility to the Commonwealth as it was by instrumental calculations of cold war strategic interest. This diminished with the end of Indonesia's ‘Confrontation’ of Malaysia in 1966 and subsequent British commitment to withdraw from East of Suez. Australia's policy discourse becomes more narrowly interest-based after this, especially evident in Australia's negotiations with Malaysia and Singapore over the Five Power Defence Arrangements from 1968 to 1971.     

Japan’s strategic interests in the South China Sea: beyond the horizon?

Japan has a national interest in the South China Sea issue. Although its direct commitment is ultimately limited in a material sense due to a lack of military capabilities, as well as political and constitutional constraints on the Self-Defense Force, Japan has maintained its firm stance to uphold international maritime rules and norms, and nurtured strong diplomatic relations and conducted maritime capacity-building programs with the South-East Asian states, as well as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. These actions contribute to consolidating the rule of law at sea and provide those claimant states an opportunity to withstand pressures from China. Given the Trump administration’s unclear South China Sea policy and South-East Asia’s strategic uncertainty, Japan is becoming a key player in maintaining regional maritime stability in East Asia through diplomacy.