Special Seminar by Paul Close (2008/10/10)
Date: October 10(Fri.)，2008 10:30-12:00
Venue:Room 207 on the 2nd floor of CSEAS East building
Topic: "Towards an East Asian Community (with thanks to Charles Darwin and Karl Marx)"
Speaker: Dr. Paul Close, CSEAS Visiting Researcher
Abstract:
The processes of regionalisation and regional integration in Southeast
Asia and East Asia towards the construction of the ASEAN Community and,
more inclusively, what has come to be widely referred to as the East
Asian Community (EAC) is attracting growing political and academic
attention, with the topic of the comparison and relationship – as
conducted through the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM), for instance - between
a) East Asian integration around ASEAN and its extensions and b)
European integration around the European Community (EC) and Union (EU)
being of major interest. The attention being given to East Asian
integration reflects a largely supportive stance on the prospect of an
EAC, albeit mixed positions on the possibility and desirability of the
EAC resembling the EC and EU, especially in its institutional makeup.
Still, the differences over detail aside, there appears to be a clear
drift in political and academic circles in East Asia towards
regionalism, that doctrine, ideology or set of principles which favours
and facilitates regional integration, the process whereby an
identifiable region – such as Europe, Southeast Asia or East Asia -
becomes more and more socially (economically, politically, culturally)
unified and cohesive.
As with European integration, while historical, cultural and related
considerations will play a part in conditioning the process of East
Asian integration, and so in shaping the resulting East Asian regional
social formation (the EAC) – around the ASEAN-China-
Japan triptych - they will play only a secondary and largely contingent,
rather than a decisive, part. What will matter above all in determining
both European and East Asian integration are the agendas, interests and
power that are rooted in the prevailing political economy sphere of
social life; in that sphere which is being gradually elevated from the
nation-state level to the regional and global levels in accordance with
the processes of de facto regional integration, on the one hand, and
globalisation, on the other.
Coodinator: Kosume Mizuno (CSEAS)