Regionalism in East Asia is in fact a vast subject on a vast area. In dealing with this topic, some would start from the ASEAN and the so-called ASEAN+3 (Japan, China, South Korea) around which, traditionally, the regional organisations in East Asia have been structured. Yet, the ASEAN is, if you will, like the Benelux. One would need bigger powers in constructing a region. In this light, instead of describing the general stuff on those traditional organisations, we may rather be allowed to start from a specific diplomatic initiative by Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama in recent months for the East Asian Community (EAC).

As is well known, Japanese politics has – finally – renovated itself with the change of government after the last August general elections. The new premier Hatoyama can be seen as a peculiar person, and barring a financial misconduct he is likely to be in power for some time to come, and may deserve some attention.

He proposed the creation of the EAC as part of the electoral manifesto, and a goal now shared by Chinese and Korean leaders, albeit as a long-term one. On the domestic front, too, he presented local and regional sovereignty as one of his priorities, with which he intends to increase autonomy at those levels. Thus, he is a man of some sort of multi-level governance.

His peculiarity is visible in his opinion to give electoral rights to long-term foreign residents in Japan, not only for local and regional elections but also for national and general ones. Hatoyama was criticised (by right-wingers) for his remark that the soil of Japan does not only belong to the Japanese people, but also to long-term resident foreigners. For the moment, even the local and regional electoral rights for foreigners are stuck in the legislative process, which means no possibility to give those rights for national elections, yet that is the measure of his peculiarity.

He bases his political stance on the vague philosophy of fraternity, an idea which apparently came from his grand-father, Ichiro Hatoyama, also a Prime Minister, who was influenced by Comte Richard Coudenhof-Kalergi. As some may know, Coudenhof-Kalergi was the leading ‘Pan-Europa’ proponent and Austrian aristocrat, whose mother, Mitsuko, was Japanese. This Prime Minister Hatoyama reads and knows on the construction of Europe, and explicitly refers to that experience when proposing the EAC.

Is this just a dream of a strange man, influenced by an obscure ‘founder’ of Europe?

While, quite clearly, the Prime Minister’s talks on EAC are still at a quite early stage of concrete policy formulation, it should not be dismissed too lightly, as it is founded on a few factors accumulated over the past several years.

Economically speaking, intra-regional trade interdependence in East Asia has risen rapidly: in 1980, the trade figure in East Asia (ASEAN, NIES, China, Japan) represented 33.6%, as opposed to the EC’s 52.6%. In 2003 (before the EU’s Eastern enlargement), EA with the figure of 54.5% approached quite closely the EU’s 58.1%. Also the figures of regional GDP are more or less balanced: NAFTA has 14.3 trillion dollars, the EU 13.3 and EA 10 (with the most rapidly growing economies).

Politically, too, the East Asia Summit has been instituted since 2005, amongst the ASEAN 10 countries plus Japan, China, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, and India.

Of course, there is a number of differences between Europe and East Asia: the latter has no unified currency, no solid legal institution, a huge gap between the rich and the poor. Yet, something is going on. After pointless confrontations between Japan and its Asian partners under the previous LDP governments, Japan is heading for a pro-Asian diplomacy.

If East Asia is to build a common space, with reference to the European experience, it should do so with a number of cautions.

First, East Asia should maintain good diplomatic relations with the US. Historically, Europe was built in parallel with some military-security arrangements, notably the NATO. European integration was promoted by the US, with which it aimed to run counter to the Communists, inside and outside.

Second, while keeping good relations with the US, East Asia should jointly enhance its own three P’s: Peace, Prosperity, and Power, just like Europe did. It is not just about reconciliation between Germany and France, but about power and influence.

Finally, this East Asian common space should be equipped with a sort of human-rights umbrella, à la CSCE, so that the peoples under oppression by their own government could have recourse to an alternative channel to defend their human rights. Here too, the European experience may well have a referential power. ‘Europe’ is not only about the European Union. Just as it was long supported militarily by the NATO during the Cold War, it was also sustained by the Council of Europe where human rights and other concerns (such as minority rights) could be jointly discussed. Within such a framework, there has been the European Court of Human Rights, whose role is to safeguard peoples’ rights if unprotected by their own national governments. It is hoped here that the vertical division of powers will have something to do with the expansion of human rights, precisely as it pluralises the channels of protecting rights.

It is far from sure that such a regional construction will take place in East Asia in the foreseeable future. The Hatoyama government badly handled its relations with the US, a cornerstone of prosperity and peace in the region. Yet, suppose, for a moment, that a region is in the process to be formed.

Then, we would immediately see that this is not an end in itself, as we might well have to face the possibility of excessive rivalries between the regions. Healthy competitions are fine but, historically, we have witnessed too many examples of territorially-organised units, whether nation-states or ethnic entities, fighting with each other.

Though at the risk of historical over-simplification, Europe can be seen to have once exported the political model of the nation-state to the entire world. It may be that now it is exporting the model of regionalism. We need to ensure that this sort of parallel regionalism will not lead to excessive rivalry.

The doctrine of federalism is still valid here. The federalist project is incomplete, as far as it serves only to strengthen a region, i.e. Europe. It should be kept in mind that Europe is considered as a ‘regulatory empire’ – a sort of powerful international actor setting global standards and imposing regulations all over the world, often unilaterally, without properly consulting other regions and nations.

Compared to ‘integral federalism’ à la Proudhon (or Alexandre Marc), the Spinellian type of federalism, influenced by Hamilton, looks more prepared to extend the logic of federalism to other regions and to project it to the global stage.

Europe is already an influential entity. Influence means responsibility. As exporter of regionalism, Europe bears a special responsibility.

In this light Europe must use its influence in a constructive manner, to promote region-to-region cooperation, not fierce rivalries. Without a sensitivity for truly mutual, inter-regional and global cooperation, the construction of Europe may end up replacing the exclusivity of the Nation-States with the same exclusivity of the regions. And for that matter, the Spinellian federalism, a current of federalism open to others, has much to contribute to a certain type of Europe, in favour of global cooperation.