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Hastening slowly

The East Asia Summit (EAS), an exclusive multilateral entity of regional players, is portrayed by its protagonists as “a leaders-driven” strategic forum. Not bound by rigorous agenda-oriented diplomacy, the leaders of the two-year-old group — consisting of the 10-member Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) as the functional nucleus, China, Japan, the Republic of Korea, India, Australia, and New Zealand — meet to discuss new ideas in a vir tual brainstorming format. This gives the EAS a unique, if undefined, identity, more so as the United States, long entrenched in East Asia through a ‘forward military presence,’ is not a member. Washington has registered “concerns” over its exclusion and there is no indication whether the EAS will invite the U.S. For one thing, membership is frozen for now.

As a slowly emerging force on the Asiatic side of the Pacific, the EAS held its third annual summit in Singapore on November 21 and issued a ‘Declaration on Climate Change, Energy, and the Environment.’ The EAS Chairman and Singapore Prime Minister, Lee Hsien Loong, described the document as “a declaration of intent, not a negotiated treaty.” It contains no numerical targets for reducing emissions of greenhouse gases. It is therefore not even on a par with the recent statement by the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, which outlined “aspirational goals” in this domain. China, the world’s fastest-growing major economy, was party to the APEC declaration along with the U.S. and Japan; but India is not an APEC member. At the EAS summit, it offered to place a “cap” on “per person” greenhouse gas emissions at a level equivalent only to a “cap” that the developed bloc might be willing to agree upon. At the other end of the green spectrum, Japan presented to the EAS a proposal for “a sustainable East Asia.” In tune with Tokyo’s “Cool Earth 50” — the worldwide reduction of greenhouse-gases by half by 2050 — the new initiative is an offer of Japanese aid to the other EAS countries. However, both China and India, according to Mr. Lee, made “eloquent presentations” on why economic growth was for them “a priority” over greenhouse gas issues. So the EAS witnessed, without resolving, a contradiction between a green-guru like Japan and growth protagonists like India and China.

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