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June 2002Edition 34

[ Click here for May posting ]

About the Organization

Trilateral Commission was formed in 1973 by private citizens of Japan, Europe (European Union countries), and North America (United States and Canada) to foster closer cooperation among these core democratic industrialized areas of the world with shared leadership responsibilities in the wider international system. Originally established for three years, our work has been renewed for successive triennia (three-year periods), most recently for a triennium to be completed in 2003.

When the first triennium of the Trilateral Commission was launched in 1973, the most immediate purpose was to draw together—at a time of considerable friction among governments—the highest level unofficial group possible to look together at the key common problems facing our three areas. At a deeper level, there was a sense that the United States was no longer in such a singular leadership position as it had been in earlier post-World War II years, and that a more shared form of leadership—including Europe and Japan in particular—would be needed for the international system to navigate successfully the major challenges of the coming years.

Two strong convictions guide our thinking for the 2000-2003 triennium. First, the Trilateral Commission remains as important as ever in helping our countries fulfil their shared leadership responsibilities in the wider international system and, second, its framework needs to be widened to reflect broader changes in the world. Thus, the Japan Group has become a Pacific Asian Group, and Mexican members have been added to the North American Group. The European Group continues to widen in line with the enlargement of the EU. We are also continuing in this triennium our practice of inviting a number of participants from other key areas.

The “growing interdependence” that so impressed the founders of the Trilateral Commission in the early 1970s is deepening into “globalization.” The need for shared thinking and leadership by the Trilateral countries, who (along with the principal international organizations) remain the primary anchors of the wider international system, has not diminished but, if anything, intensified. At the same time, their leadership must change to take into account the dramatic transformation of the international system. As relations with other countries become more mature—and power more diffuse—the leadership tasks of the original Trilateral countries need to be carried out with others to an increasing extent.

The members of the Trilateral Commission are about 350 distinguished leaders in business, media, academia, public service (excluding current national Cabinet Ministers), labor unions, and other non-governmental organizations from the three regions. The regional Chairmen, Deputy Chairmen, and Directors constitute the leadership of the Trilateral Commission, along with an Executive Committee including about 40 other members.

The annual meeting of Trilateral Commission members rotates among the three regions. It was held in London in 2001, Tokyo in 2000, and in Washington, D.C. in 1999. It will be held in Washington D.C. again in 2002. The agendas for these meetings have addressed a wide range of issues, an indication of how broadly we see the partnership among our countries. A publication on the annual meeting (Trialogue) draws together each year’s presentations.

The project work of the Trilateral Commission generally involves teams of authors from our three regions working together for a year or so on draft reports which are discussed in draft form in the annual meeting and then published. The authors typically consult with many others in the course of their work. The task force reports (Triangle Papers) to the Trilateral Commission have covered a wide range of topics.

The regional groups within the Trilateral Commission carry on some activities of their own. The European Group, with its secretariat based in Paris, has an annual weekend meeting each fall. The North American Group, with its secretariat based in New York, occasionally gathers with a special speaker for a dinner or luncheon event. The new Pacific Asian Group, with its secretariat based in Tokyo, had an inaugural regional meeting in November 2000 in Seoul. Each region carries on its own fund-raising to provide the financial support needed for the Trilateral Commission’s work.

Membership

When the Trilateral Commission was first launched, the plan was for an equal number of members from each of the three regions. The numbers soon began to grow, and ceilings were imposed about 1980. These ceilings have been raised somewhat since then as new countries came to be represented in the groups. The European group, which includes members from Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Republic of Cyprus, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom, now has a ceiling of 150 members. The ceiling for the North American group is 107, including 15 Canadian members, 7 Mexican members and 85 U.S. members. In 2000, the Japanese group of 85 members expanded to become a Pacific Asian group of 117 members, and includes 75 members from Japan, 11 members from Korea, 7 from Australia and New Zealand, 15 from the original five ASEAN countries (Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand). The new Pacific Asian group also includes participants from the People’s Republic of China, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

To help preserve the Commission’s unofficial character, members who take up positions in their national administration give up Trilateral Commission membership. New members are chosen on a national basis. The procedures used for rotation off and for invitation of new members vary from national group to national group. Three Chairmen (one from each region), Deputy Chairmen, and Directors constitute the leadership of the Trilateral Commission, along with an Executive Committee including 36 other members. The full membership list is available from any of the regional offices.

Chairmen, Deputy Chairmen and Directors

North American Chairman: THOMAS S. FOLEY
Partner, Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld; former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives; former U.S. Ambassador to Japan

European Chairman: PETER SUTHERLAND
Chairman, BP Amoco, London; Chairman and Managing Director, Goldman Sachs International; former Director General, GATT/WTO, Geneva; former Member of the European Commission; former Attorney General of Ireland

Pacific Asian Chairman: YOTARO KOBAYASHI
Chairman of the Board, Fuji Xerox Co., Ltd.

North American Deputy Chairman: ALLAN E. GOTLIEB
Consultant, Stikeman Elliot; former Canadian Ambassador to the United States

North American Deputy Chairman: LORENZO ZAMBRANO
Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, CEMEX, Mexico

European Deputy Chairman: ANTONIO GARRIGUES WALKER
Chairman, Garrigues & Anderson, Madrid

Pacific Asian Deputy Chairman: HAN SUNG-JOO
Director, Ilmin International Relations Institute and Professor of Political Science, Korea University; former Minister for Foreign Affairs, Seoul

Pacific Asian Deputy Chairman: SHIJURO OGATA
Former Deputy Governor for International Relations, Bank of Japan; Former Deputy Governor, Japan Development Bank
 

North American Director: MICHAEL J. O’NEIL
European Director: PAUL RÉVAY
Pacific Asia Director: TADASHI YAMAMOTO

 Former North American Chairmen:
PAUL A. VOLCKER (1991-2001) Honorary North American Chairman
DAVID ROCKEFELLER (1977-91) Founder and Honorary North American Chairman
GERARD C. SMITH (1973-77)

Former European Chairmen:
COUNT OTTO GRAF LAMBSDORFF (1992-2001) Honorary European Chairman
GEORGES BERTHOIN (1976-92) Honorary European Chairman
MAX KOHNSTAMM (1973-76)

Former Japanese Chairmen:
KIICHI MIYAZAWA (1993-97)
AKIO MORITA (1992-93)
ISAMU YAMASHITA (1985-92)
TAKESHI WATANABE (1973-85)
 

Executive Committee

Stelios Argyros, Chairman and Managing Director, Preveza Mills, Athens; former Member of the European Parliament; Chairman of the Board, STET Hellas; former Vice President of UNICE, Brussels; former President and Chairman of the Board of the Federation of Greek Industries, Athens
Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala II, President, Ayala Corporation, Manila
Piero Bassetti, Chairman, Globus et Locus, Milan; Chairman, High School of Economics and International Relations (ASERI), Milan; Member of CNEL, Rome; former Chairman, Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Milan
C. Fred Bergsten, Director, Institute for International Economics; former U.S. Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for International Affairs
Georges Berthoin, International Honorary Chairman, European Movement; Honorary European Chairman, The Trilateral Commission
Jorge Braga de Macedo, President of the Development Centre, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Paris; Professor of Economics, Nova University at Lisbon; Chairman, Forum Portugal Global; former Minister of Finance
Zbigniew Brzezinski, Counselor, Center for Strategic and International Studies; Robert Osgood Professor of American Foreign Affairs, Paul Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University; former Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs
Hervé de Carmoy, Partner, Rhône Group, New York & Paris; Honorary Chairman, Banque Industrielle et Mobilière Privée, Paris; former Chief Executive, Société Générale de Belgique
Vladimir Dlouhy, Senior Advisor, ABB; International Advisor, Goldman Sachs; former Czechoslovak Minister of Economy; former Czech Minister of Industry & Trade, Prague
Jessica P. Einhorn, Consultant, Clark and Weinstock, Washington, D.C.; former Managing Director for Finance and Resource Mobilization, World Bank
Koichiro Ejiri, Counselor, Mitsui & Co., Ltd.
Bill Emmott, Editor, The Economist, London
Oscar Fanjul, Chairman, Hidroeléctrica del Cantabrico; Honorary Chairman, Repsol, Madrid
L. Yves Fortier, Senior Partner and Chairman, Ogilvy Renault, Barristers and Solicitors, Montréal; former Canadian Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations
Michael Fuchs, Managing Director, Impex Electronic, Koblenz; former President, National Federation of German Wholesale & Export Traders, Berlin
Toyoo Gyohten, President, The Institute for International Monetary Affairs; Senior Advisor, The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi, Ltd.
Robert D. Haas, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Levi Strauss & Co., San Francisco
Stuart Harris, Professor of International Relations, Research School of Pacific and AsianStudies, Australian National University; former Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs, Canberra
Carla A. Hills, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Hills & Company, Washington, DC; former U.S. Trade Representative; former U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development
Max Jakobson, Independent Consultant and Senior Columnist, Helsinki; former Finnish Ambassador to the United Nations; former Chairman of the Finnish Council of Economic Organizations
Baron Daniel Janssen, Chairman of the Board, Solvay, Brussels
Béla Kadar, Ambassador of Hungary to the O.E.C.D., Paris; former Hungarian Minister of International Economic Relations and Member of Parliament
Lee Hong-Koo, President, Seoul Forum for International Affairs; former Prime Minister of Korea; former Ambassador to the United Kingdom and the United States, Seoul
Minoru Makihara, Chairman, Mitsubishi Corporation
Deryck C. Maughan, Vice Chairman, Citigroup, New York; former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Salomon Brothers Inc.
William J. McDonough, President, Federal Reserve Bank of New York
Kiichi Miyazawa, former Finance Minister of Japan; Member of the House of Representatives; former Prime Minister of Japan
Thierry de Montbrial, Membre de l’Institut de France; Founder and Director, French Institute for International Relations (IFRI); Chairman, Foundation for Strategic Research; Professor of Economics, Ecole Polytechnique & Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers, Paris
Minoru Murofushi, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, ITOCHU Corporation
Joseph S. Nye, Jr., Dean, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University; former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs
Yoshio Okawara, President, Institute for International Policy Studies; former Ambassador to the United States
Andrzej Olechowski, Former Chairman, Bank Handlowy W Warszawie; former Minister of Foreign Affairs and of Finance, Warsaw
Guido Schmidt-Chiari, Chairman, Constantia Group; former Chairman, Creditanstalt Bankverein, Vienna
Myles Staunton, Former Member of Senate, Irish Republic
Thorvald Stoltenberg, Special Representative of the UN Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs in Iraq; President, Norwegian Red Cross, Oslo; former Co-Chairman (UN) of the Steering Committee of the International Conference on Former Yugoslavia; former Foreign Minister of Norway; former UN High Commissioner for Refugees
Björn Svedberg, Former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Ericsson, Stockholm; former President and Group Chief Executive, Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken
Niels Thygesen, Danske Bank Professor of International Economics, University of Copenhagen; Chairman, OECD Economic Development and Review Committee
Harry Tiido, Deputy Under-Secretary for Political & Public Affairs, Security Policy & NATO Accession, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Tallinn; former Editor-in-Chief, Radio KUKU
George Vassiliou, Member of Parliament and Leader of United Democrats; Head of the Negotiating Team for the Accession of Cyprus to the European Union; former President of the Republic of Cyprus, Nicosia
Marko Voljc, Chief Executive Officer, Nova Ljubljanska Banka, Slovenia
Jusuf Wanandi, Member of the Board of Directors, Centre for Strategic and International Studies, Jakarta
Norbert Wieczorek, Member of the German Bundestag; Deputy Chairman of the SPD Parliamentary Group, Berlin

A full listing of the Trilateral Commission membership is available by e-mail.

2001 Events:

Program of the 2001 Annual Meeting
London—March 9-12, 2001

Friday, March 9

17:00
Reception hosted by HSBC at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS)
Speaker: Robin Cook, Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, United Kingdom

19:15
Dinner hosted by the Corporation of London at Mansion House
Speaker: Chris Patten, Member of the European Commission

Saturday, March 10

9:00
Opening remarks by the three Chairmen

9:30-12:15
BRITAIN’S PROSPECTS
Session chaired by Robin Buchanan, Senior Partner, Bain & Co.
- TRENDS IN BRITISH POLITICS AND PUBLIC OPINION
Robert Worcester, Chairman of MORI
- THE ECONOMY
Bill Emmott, Editor, The Economist
- BUSINESS TRENDS
Sir Martin Sorrell, Chief Executive Officer, WPP
- SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
Sir Robert May, President of the Royal Society; Professor of Zoology, Oxford University and Imperial College, London

12:30-14:30
Luncheon session
GLOBALIZATION AND GOVERNANCE I: THE CHANGING ROLE OF STATES
Gordon Smith, Former Canadian Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs; Director, Centre for Global Studies, University of Victoria, British Columbia; Author (with Moisés Naím) of Altered States
Comment:
Ernesto Zedillo, Former President of Mexico

14:30
GLOBALIZATION AND GOVERNANCE II: ADDRESSING THOSE IN DANGER OF BEING LEFT BEHIND
Jusuf Wanandi, Member, Board of Directors, Centre for Strategic and International Studies, Jakarta
Nora Lustig, Senior Advisor and Chief, Poverty and Inequality Unit, Inter-American Development Bank, Washington, D.C.
Jay Mazur, President, Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE), AFL-CIO, New York; Vice President, AFL-CIO and Chairman, AFL-CIO International Affairs Committee
Otto Graf Lambsdorff, Chairman, Friedrich Naumann Foundation, Berlin; former Member of German Bundestag and Federal Economics Minister

19:00
Dinner hosted by BP in Duveen Gallery of British Museum

Sunday, March 11

9:00-12:15
GLOBALIZATION AND GOVERNANCE III: IMPROVING THE TRADING REGIME
Mike Moore, Director-General, World Trade Organization
Frits Bolkestein, Member of the European Commission
Toru Kusukawa, Senior Counselor, Fuji Research Institute Corporation, Tokyo; former Japanese Delegate to the APEC Business Advisory Council (1998-2000)
C. Fred Bergsten, Director, Institute for International Economics, Washington, D.C.

12:15
Luncheon session hosted by Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein
THE INTERNATIONAL ROLE OF THE UNITED STATES
Lt. Gen. Brent Scowcroft, USAF (ret.), Former Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs; President, Forum for International Policy, Washington, D.C.
Carla A. Hills, Former U.S. Trade Representative; Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Hills & Company, Washington, D.C.
Discussion opened by
Yoichi Funabashi, Columnist and Chief Diplomatic Correspondent, Asahi Shimbun
Georges Berthoin, Honorary European Chairman, Trilateral Commission

14:30
GLOBALIZATION AND GOVERNANCE IV: THE “DEMOCRACY DEFICIT” IN THE GLOBAL ECONOMY:
QUESTIONS ABOUT THE LEGITIMACY AND ACCOUNTABILITY OF KEY MULTILATERAL INSTITUTIONS
Joseph S. Nye, Jr., Dean, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University
Jessica P. Einhorn, Counselor, Clark & Weinstock; former Managing Director for Finance and Resource Mobilization, World Bank
Béla Kadar, Ambassador of Hungary to the OECD; former Minister of International Economic Relations
Hisashi Owada, President, Japan Institute of International Affairs; former Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs; former Ambassador to the United Nations
Luis Rubio, Director General, CIDAC (Center of Research for Development), Mexico City
Young Soogil, Guest Scholar, Institute for Global Economics, Seoul; former Korean Ambassador to the OECD

19:30
Dinner hosted by the Royal Dutch/Shell Group at Banqueting House in Whitehall
Frene Ginwala, Speaker of the National Assembly, Parliament of the Republic of South Africa

Monday, March 12

9:00
INTERNATIONAL SECURITY CHALLENGES
General Sir Charles Guthrie, Former Chief of Defence Staff, United Kingdom
Sergei Yastrzhembsky, Special Advisor to the President of the Russian Federation
Lee Hong-Koo, Former Prime Minister, Republic of Korea; former Ambassador to the United States and the United Kingdom
Richard Holbrooke, Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations; former Assistant Secretary of State for European and Canadian Affairs, and for East Asian and Pacific Affairs

12:00
Closing comments from the three Chairmen

2001 Reports:

East Asia and the International System

Task Force Report #55
The Trilateral Commission (2001)
Chair: Tadashi Yamamoto; Coordinator: Charles E. Morrison; Contributions by: Charles E. Morrison, Wendy Dobson, Michel Oksenberg, Hisashi Owada and Hadi Soesastro.
ISBN: 0-930503-80-5
88pp./paper/$9.00 plus S&H
To order (Brookings)

Table of Contents

I. Introduction

A. Differing Perceptions of the International System
B. Evolving East Asian Regionalism
C. East Asian Participation in the Trilateral Process

II. Deeper Integration in East Asia: Implications for the International Economic System
Wendy K. Dobson

A. Introduction
B. The Financial Crisis and Its Implications
C. How Is Deeper Integration Taking Place?
D. Questions About Effectiveness and Broader International Impact
E. Conclusion

III. East Asian Security and the International System
Michel Oksenberg and Charles E. Morrison

A. Introduction
B. The Grand Bargain
C. The Underlying Structure of Power
D. Challenges to the Grand Bargain in the 1990s
E. Conclusion: Strategic Choices and Policy Recommendations

IV. Rethinking the ASEAN Formula: The Way Forward for Southeast Asia
Hadi Soesastro and Charles E. Morrison

A. Origins and Elements of the ASEAN Formula
B. New Departures: ASEAN in the 1990s
C. The ASEAN Malaise
D. Rethinking the ASEAN Formula and Its Global and Regional Foundations

V. An East Asian Security Order for a Globalizing World
Hisashi Owada

A. The Changing Global Political Order
B. The New Security Landscape of East Asia
C. A Future Security Framework for the East Asia Region
D. The Place of the Japan-U.S. Security Alliance

Appendix: Trilateral Commission Special Study Group on East Asia and the International System

INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER

East Asia today is a core part of the international system. Stretching from Japan and China in the north to Myanmar and Indonesia in the south, it has about 40 percent of the world’s population and 25 percent of its gross product, about half the latter accounted for by Japan. Its economies possess almost half the world's gold and foreign exchange reserves. During the decade of the 1990s, East Asia accounted for more than 50 percent of new global petroleum demand despite the economic crisis at the end of the decade. It also accounts for about 40 percent of carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel consumption.

These statistics underscore a point stressed in the 1997 report to the Trilateral Commission entitled Community-Building with Pacific Asia—that there is virtually no global problem that can be managed, much less resolved, without the participation of the major East Asian countries. Despite this, the countries of the region have not been major actors in shaping the institutions and rules of the international system. They often lack the weight and status in international organizations they should have based on population or economic size. In some cases, such as China and Taiwan in the World Trade Organization, they have lacked representation. Where they have representation and status, they are rarely demandeurs or agenda-setters.

The Trilateral Commission Special Study Group on East Asia and the International System is based on the assumption that East Asia will continue to rise in global importance and that the international system will have to be adjusted accordingly. The project is intended both to underscore East Asia’s importance and to help establish a process through which leading thinkers from emerging East Asia and the traditional Trilateral countries jointly explore issues raised by East Asia’s greater role in the international system. This process should both facilitate Trilateral understanding of the interests, priorities, and sensitivities of emerging East Asia and strengthen East Asian input into thinking about global issues. It should lead to the full integration of East Asia beyond Japan into Trilateral activities.

One might question why the traditional Trilateral countries should encourage a transformation that promises to reduce their own global influence. The rise of East Asia is a phenomenon that, if it could be suppressed at all, would be at great cost for both the traditional Trilateral countries and East Asia. There are absolute benefits for both in East Asia’s rise as long as adjustments can be carried out smoothly in an evolving international system.

The Study Group held two workshops in Seoul (November 1998) and Beijing (October 1999). These workshops involved a considerable number of participants from non-Trilateral countries of East Asia together with individuals from traditional Trilateral countries (see Appendix). At the Trilateral Commission annual meetings in Berlin (March 1998) and Washington (March 1999), one session was devoted to Study Group-related issues and Study Group participants met for discussion among themselves on the side of these larger meetings. Draft papers from Study Group participants came before the Trilateral Commission annual meeting in Tokyo in April 2000, and many Study Group participants served as panelists in the related discussions.

A number of papers were prepared in the course of the Study Group’s work. Four of them have been drawn together in this publication. Charles E. Morrison, Coordinator of the Study Group, worked with each of the authors and also prepared this brief introduction.

The first essay following this introduction focuses on deeper economic integration in East Asia and its implications for the international economic system. In the wake of the financial crisis of 1997-98, while the Study Group was operating, a sea change took place in East Asian perceptions of the international economic system that is causing a determined thrust toward deeper East Asian integration. This first essay analyzes how deeper integration is taking place and raises key questions about its effectiveness and broader international impact. The conclusion of this essay is basically optimistic. No crisis economy in East Asia turned inward despite the painful adjustments required in the wake of the financial crisis, and this commitment to openness should be embedded in any new regional institutions.

The unprecedented tranquility and prosperity which East Asia has enjoyed since 1975 is largely attributable, the second essay argues, to an implicit “Grand Bargain” struck between Tokyo, Beijing, and Washington during the 1970s and 1980s, through a process of extensive dialogue and mutual accommodation. The bargain covered Taiwan, the security architecture of East Asia, third-country issues, economic relations, and human rights and governance. The 1990s saw increasing pressure on this Grand Bargain, for various important reasons. Has the Grand Bargain now outlived its usefulness? This essay concludes that it is far too early to jettison arrangements that have brought unprecedented stability to the region. By expanding the earlier accommodations to address an altered set of issues, the leaders of the region can build on the Grand Bargain and go beyond it.

Another key part of the East Asian success story, the third essay argues, was the “ASEAN Formula,” the approach to regional relations and economic engagement of the founding members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations-Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand. While their regional cooperation was based on a minimalist approach which respected sovereignty and privileged non-interference, ASEAN helped maintain international order in Southeast Asia. The other dimension of the ASEAN Formula was economic engagement with the world. The essay argues that, in light of the malaise created by internal changes and the fall-out of the Asian economic crisis, the ASEAN Formula needs to be reworked to be made relevant to the Southeast Asian realities of the twenty-first century.

In the brief fourth essay one of the most distinguished participants in the Study Group discusses the building of a viable East Asian security order in a globalizing, post-Cold War world. Elements of a new regional security framework for East Asia are beginning to take shape. Like the Cold War order in East Asia, this new framework continues to feature the deep involvement of the United States, enabled by its alliance relationship with Japan. However, indigenous actors are playing a much larger role and East Asia has a distinctive pattern of regional relations in a more decentralized global security framework. Given the great diversity in the region, the “integration” model embodied by NATO and the European Union is not workable in East Asia; nor is the outdated balance-of-power model. This essay argues for an eclectic “multi-layered network model.” The first layer consists of a series of bilateral arrangements to take care of concrete security needs. The second layer is a regional framework for consultations on issues affecting common security interests.

The remainder of this introduction focuses on two important matters that highlight the importance of the East Asia and the International System project: the perception gap between Trilateral and East Asian understanding of the international system and the recent growth of East Asian regionalism.

It should be noted that Japan plays a dual role as both a traditional Trilateral country and an East Asian country. In general, through the rest of this introduction, East Asia refers to the developing countries of the region, excluding Japan. However, many of the perceptions described here for East Asia’s emerging economies have significant force also in Japan or did in the recent past. Japan’s dual role is not an easy one, particularly in recent years as Japanese are rediscovering their East Asian identity. Of all the traditional Trilateral countries, Japan has the greatest stake in the comfortable integration of East Asia into an international system perceived to be of mutual benefit to Trilateral and East Asian countries.

A. DIFFERING PERCEPTIONS OF THE INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM

Underlying many of the issues associated with East Asia-Trilateral relations are differences in prevailing perceptions of the nature and legitimacy of “the international system.” Despite the frequency with which this term is used in the Trilateral world, it is rarely defined or given careful thought. Generally it is used as a synonym for the institutions and patterns already governing the relations among the major Western powers and is regarded as fair and of universal validity. The authoritative voice for determining righteousness in the international system is the “international community.”

For emerging East Asian countries, however, the same system is basically a Western system, originally created by and for the transatlantic powers with the recent, but perhaps not fully integrated, addition of Japan. At the apex of this system as the main global agenda-setters are the Group of Seven and the Permanent Five of the UN Security Council, each with only one Asian member. Although much modified over the decades, the historical roots of the present system lie in the same state system responsible for colonial conquests, unequal treaties, and other forms of humiliation that remain potent memories in much of East Asia. As such, the international system is rarely endowed with the same legitimacy and moral authority as in the Trilateral world, particularly as interpreted by the “international community,” a term that in East Asia often appears to refer mainly to dominant Western public and political opinion.

As a practical matter, emerging East Asian countries usually find it in their interests to accommodate themselves to the dominant international norms and rules. However, while seeking benefit and legitimacy from participating in the system, there is also strong suspicion that the system operates to the relative benefit of its creators and constrains the ability of late-comers to assume equal status. Similarly the changes in the system, which typically flow from changing needs and norms in the traditional Trilateral world, are frequently viewed with suspicion as efforts to move the goal posts.

This can divert debate away from the merits of participation in terms of the contemporary international scene and national interests. For example, it is often pointed out in developing East Asia that the Western powers expect East Asian countries to abide by standards that they did not impose on themselves during their own earlier periods of economic growth and political development. This is true, but it also focuses on a historical equity argument at the expense of analysis of whether the standards themselves would be beneficial or not for East Asian countries in the contemporary context.

Differing perceptions can be illustrated by popular East Asian and Trilateral reactions to two events that occurred during the work of the Study Group: the Asian economic crisis and the Kosovo intervention.

In the case of the economic crisis, Western public commentary, particularly in the early stages of the crisis, tended to treat it as if the affected countries and their economic circumstances were homogenous, and to look for causes in such common features of the East Asian systems as corruption, cronyism, and institutional lacunae. Familiar with the effective operation of the international financial system in the Trilateral world, explanations in the popular media focused on what was wrong with East Asia. The Asian model or models of development were suddenly regarded as fatally flawed. More attention was given to risky borrowing than to risky lending. Unfettered capital flows were generally accepted as inevitable and beneficial rather than as part of the cause of the catastrophe.

In contrast, East Asians knew that these features of Asian systems had been there all along during the many years of high growth. It seemed incongruent that the very systems that had been so much praised in the Trilateral world as paragons of growth up to 1997 were now the target of such criticism. In seeking answers to what had gone wrong, East Asians looked to features in the external environment that had so quickly exposed the weaknesses in their domestic systems, particularly the huge and panicky capital movements. Some sinister explanations of the crisis—including the notion that the United States had orchestrated it to cut rising East Asian economies down to size or that hedge fund executives had engineered the crisis for their own profits—enjoyed significant popularity. For some East Asians, such explanations took the Asian models off-the-hook as the culprit of this drama.

Debate surrounding a premature proposal emanating from Japan for an Asian monetary fund was affected by the differences in perception. The proposal was opposed by the United States, where there was concern that it would undermine international disciplines and delay needed reforms in the affected Asian economies. In contrast there was considerable support in the affected Asian economies, which viewed the prospect of access to additional Japanese capital as highly desirable to help counter capital flight.

In the case of Kosovo, Trilateral debate gave little opportunity for thought about any possible reactions from East Asia. In this region, however, there was a notable mistrust of and discomfort with the humanitarian rationale behind the NATO intervention, although individual country reactions varied with religious affinities. The norms of sovereignty and non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries are widely appreciated in a region where many countries have been subjected to foreign military interventions. Aside from the general attachment to this norm, the Kosovo intervention demonstrated the unequal structure of global power and influence in the international system. East Asian countries tended to see the intervention as almost entirely an American-driven and executed affair, discounting allied pressures and presence. The U.S. bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade reinforced this perception.

China makes clear its strong preference for a more multipolar system. While many smaller East Asian countries have U.S. links and welcome the continued presence of U.S. forward forces in the region to balance the larger local powers and compensate for their own weaknesses, they strongly prefer the U.S. presence to be a passive one in the absence of a threat of international aggression. To them Kosovo suggested that the Americans might play a more active role in backing human rights concerns with sophisticated military muscle. The later reluctance of the United States to become militarily involved on the ground in the 1999 East Timor crisis helped to counterbalance this impression of an interventionist-minded superpower. The East Timor crisis generally reaffirmed the non-interventionist norms of the East Asian states. The pressure for intervention largely came from outside the region, and the Asian states were reluctant to send forces despite the Indonesian desire for non-Western peacekeepers once outside intervention was inevitable.

B. EVOLVING EAST ASIAN REGIONALISM

A lasting effect of the Asian economic crisis and the Western triumphalism associated with it was to help bring East Asian countries, including Japan, closer together. The lack of a regional mechanism for intergovernmental dialogue and cooperation has been a distinctive feature of East Asian international relations. During the Cold War years, regional cooperation mechanisms were found only in parts of Southeast Asia or for quite specific functional tasks (such as the provision of development capital through the Asian Development Bank). With the end of the Cold War, Asia-Pacific regionalism (including the Americas and Oceania) emerged with the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) process, established in late 1989. The subsequent Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) established an interregional dialogue joining East Asia with the European Union. By the year 2000, however, East Asian attention had shifted toward the development of an institutional expression of East Asia's own identity. This potentially has important implications for the dialogues with other regions and the global system.

APEC and ASEM owe their existence to a combination of political and economic drivers. Despite their promise, both have struggled in recent years to maintain the momentum of their earlier years. A string of annual APEC meetings from 1993 to 1996 focused on vision, principles, and action plans that increasingly focused on trade. This process produced a bubble of expectations that were difficult to sustain when concrete, “WTO Plus” results were needed. Efforts to accelerate trade liberalization and facilitation on the basis of concerted, voluntary unilateral and collective actions (such as “early voluntary sectoral liberalization”) met resistance from special interest groups, encountered disputes about burden-sharing, and were hampered by a growing mood of skepticism about the benefits of globalization. APEC’s inability to respond effectively to the financial crisis added to the disappointment. The continual widening of the organization (from the initial twelve members in 1989 to twenty-one a decade later) reduced internal “like-mindedness” and tended to blur the focus. APEC recovered some momentum in 1999 and 2000 by reducing expectations to the level of more realistic consensus-building in the area of trade and emphasizing areas more amenable to cooperation. The political value of APEC was reinforced by the important bilateral “side meetings” among leaders at its September 1999 Auckland ministerial and leader meetings, and a special informal session there on East Timor. Indeed the fortuitous coincidence of the APEC meetings in Auckland with the East Timor crisis helped produce a degree of international and regional consensus and cooperation that would otherwise have taken much longer to achieve.

ASEM, which held its inaugural leaders meeting in 1996 and has had subsequent leaders meetings in 1998 and 2000, has also had difficulty sustaining interest and momentum in the wake of the economic crisis. However, since ASEM is an inter-regional dialogue, it required its East Asian side to organize and coordinate, and thus became an incubator for broader East Asian regional cooperation. ASEAN reinforced this by establishing a regular ASEAN Plus Three (China, Japan, South Korea) dialogue as a part of its summits. An East Asian vision group, consisting of two individuals from each country and analogous to APEC’s former Eminent Persons Group and ASEM’s Vision Group, was commissioned by the ASEAN Plus Three countries at the November 1998 Hanoi summit. This group reports to the leaders at the 2001 summit. Like APEC, it appears that some form of freer trade arrangement is likely to be a centerpiece of the East Asian movement. At the same time, smaller East Asian groupings and bilateral schemes are proliferating. The leaders of the three Northeast Asian countries held an unprecedented joint breakfast meeting alongside the ASEAN Plus Three Summit in Manila in November 1999 and agreed to joint research on economic cooperation. There are also numerous proposals for bilateral free trade agreements both within East Asia and between East Asian countries and outsiders.

These steps have not yet found concrete expression in an East Asian institutional identity, but this is only a matter of time. Meanwhile, the emerging movement toward East Asian regionalism has received relatively little attention in the Trilateral world outside Japan despite the important issues it raises. What should be its underlying vision and the scope and nature of its activities? How can the East Asia group avoid falling into the same institutional traps that have afflicted APEC and ASEM? Should its efforts be conducted on the same basis of informal consultation and cooperation that was pioneered in the “ASEAN Way,” or is such an approach under-institutionalized and ineffective in addressing concrete issues? How will East Asian regionalism relate to subregional efforts, such as ASEAN, as well as to the larger regional and inter-regional institutions such as APEC and ASEM? Will East Asian regionalism be compatible with and supportive of global institution-building?

This last question relates directly to the theme of the Study Group. East Asian and Asia-Pacific regionalism has evolved thus far within the context of global norms and institutions. In fact, a claim can be made that compared to European or North American regionalism, the regional cooperation institutions of East Asia and the Pacific have done no violence to global norms and rules. This is likely to remain the case at least in the near-term future since East Asia is diverse and thus there is little common ground beyond the minimal global norms to serve as a basis for intensified cooperation within the region. In this sense, it is unlikely that an East Asian institutional process would establish a new set of norms in competition with those prevailing in the world at large.

However, the establishment of an East Asian or Northeast Asian institution might affect the international system in several ways. First, for the same reason that East Asia is unlikely to move beyond the universal, minimal norms of order, it could well be a conservative voice in the evolving international system. The influence of a conservative approach would be strengthened through East Asian coordination and organization. There is also a possibility that the East Asian countries more likely to support more intrusive forms of international norms and institution-building (these include the Philippines and Thailand) would moderate their support in the interest of group unity. Japan’s policies on such issues could also be powerfully affected. Thus there is a potential for increased divergence and tension between East Asia and the West over the appropriate norms and rules for the international system.

Second, East Asian regional cooperation could serve important regional order-keeping functions. Many global regimes are weak and require reinforcement at the regional level. Even in the internet age, geography is meaningful, and neighboring countries are most likely to perceive a direct stake in each other’s well-being. This sense was reinforced in the East Asian region by a perceived lack of concern by the United States and Europe about the impact of the financial crisis on the region, as contrasted with the significant regional contributions to the international financial support packages.

Rooting regional security more in indigenous institutions and depending less on outside powers (notably the United States) is probably much further in the future. The key security relationships are currently found in the Japan-China-U.S. triangle. China’s rapid rise is occurring in a region that lacks firmly established, integrating institutions like the European Union that help build trust. Asia has no security community in the transatlantic sense of a zone of peace in which resort to violence has become virtually unimaginable. The building of such a community could be the outcome of the now nascent forms of regional cooperation. This would be a truly historic contribution to regional and global order, but since it involves shifts in basic attitudes and political institutions, it is clearly a long-term task. In the meantime, there is a need to establish a more politically viable set of understandings among the large powers as to how to manage their own relations and build cooperation in the handling of regional order problems.

Finally, the growth of East Asian regionalism underscores the continuing need for reinforcing connections across the Pacific to the Americas and across the Eurasian landmass to the European Union to prevent misunderstanding and maintain inter-regional links. East Asians are understandably concerned about the potential reaction of the United States to exclusive forms of East Asian regionalism since the United States opposed both Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir’s East Asian Economic Caucus proposal of the early 1990s and the 1998 version of the Asian monetary fund. While American officials have said that U.S. concern has declined with the firmer establishment of Asia-Pacific processes, the Asian monetary fund proposal illustrated the continuing potential for misunderstanding in the absence of consultations. European-East Asian dialogues can help reinforce the notions of open regionalism in both areas.

C. EAST ASIAN PARTICIPATION IN THE TRILATERAL PROCESS

The work of the Special Study Group reinforces the sense that as the linkages of East Asian countries with the international system have intensified so too have the linkages within the East Asian regional system. There is no natural leader in this regional system. Japan remains by far the largest and most technologically advanced economy, but it has either been constrained or constrains itself from seeking a strong leadership position. China is by far the region’s largest nation, but it has many domestic priorities and is still only partially integrated into the international system. The ASEAN group has taken much of intellectual leadership for establishing institutional processes and has historically the longest and most intimate contacts with the Western powers. Because of its geopolitical position, South Korea may play a leadership role in developing forms of Northeast Asian cooperation.

These observations underline the importance of reaching beyond Japan in connecting East Asia to Trilateral dialogue and research. East Asia is an essential partner in a continuing effort to build international cooperation in the management of global problems.

Publications

Trialogue/Annual Meeting Publications
The Trilateral Commission publishes a report on the annual meeting each year. This publication, along with a few other reports in a similar many-authored format, appears in the Trialogue series.

Task Force Reports/Project Work
Usually one to two Task Force Reports are published each year in a series also known as the Triangle Papers. The most recent report published is East Asia and the International System, the 2001 report of a special study group coordinated by Charles E. Morrison. Current project work is focused on addressing the challenges of globalization.

A Trilateral Commission Task Force project typically involves a team of authors from our three regions working together for a year or so on a report which is discussed in draft form in the annual meeting and then published. Such a report permits more intensive consideration of a particular set of issues (more intensive than a single session at an annual meeting). It allows us to draw many other persons into our work, including persons from non-Trilateral countries—sometimes as authors or commentators in an annual meeting, more often as consultants along the way as the authors prepare their reports. These reports allow the careful preparation of joint policy recommendations by a Trilateral team, and the published reports are circulated widely.

Over the years these projects have covered a wide range of topics, a reflection of the broad purposes we see for the partnership among the Trilateral countries. Some reports have focused on a particular country or region—such as the 1994 report on An Emerging China in a World of Interdependence, the 1995 report on Engaging Russia, the 1997 report on Community-Building with Pacific Asia, the 1998 report on Advancing Common Purposes in the Broad Middle East, and the 2000 report on The New Central Asia: In Search of Stability. Some projects have concentrated on common problems of modern democratic societies, such as the 1994-95 project on Revitalizing Trilateral Democracies. Other reports have focused on aspects of managing the international economy or political/security challenges. The 1996 report on Maintaining Energy Security in a Global Context blends issues of international economic management with crucial security and broad political challenges. The 1996 report on Globalization and Trilateral Labor Markets: Evidence and Implications cuts across domestic and international concerns. The Commission’s need to re-examine its basic framework and approach to the broad international system led to the 1997 set of essays entitled Managing the International System Over the Next Ten Years and a 1999 report was 21st Century Strategies of the Trilateral Countries: In Concert or Conflict?.

The topics for projects are chosen by the Chairmen, Deputy Chairmen, and Directors, with the advice of the Executive Committee and others. Authors are then invited, sometimes from the Commission membership. The authors do not relocate to the offices of the Commission while preparing their report. They remain in their existing institutional settings, and the Commission enables them to meet with each other and various consultants along the way. The reports are to the Trilateral Commission, not of the Commission. The membership of the Commission is too diverse to achieve detailed agreement quickly on a controversial set of issues; and on a few occasions a summary of discussion in the annual meeting has been added to a report to detail the controversy it created.

Trilateral publications are available by clicking this link.
For more information on publications appearing in the future, please see Upcoming Publications.

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