It is unrealistic to directly apply the European model of integration to East Asia in the near future, panelists attending an international forum on regional integration said in Taipei yesterday.
Ohn Dae-won, associate dean of the Graduate School of International and Area Studies at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies in South Korea, said there would be “enormous obstacles and shortcomings” if East Asian countries directly adopted the European model.
The first and primary obstacle, he said, was the differences in their political systems, levels of economic development, legal and institutional apparatus and overall social and cultural standards.
There were also the problems of divided nations such as Korea and China, he said. The region is now undergoing a dramatic transformation due primarily to the rapid rise of Chinese power, he added, saying that the rise of China began to raise a serious challenge to the existing pattern of international politics in East Asia and beyond.
Yesterday’s forum, titled “Regional Integration in East Asia: With the European Historical Experience as a Reference Point,” was organized by the Taiwan Brain Trust and Hokkaido University. It was held to discuss the possibility of building an East Asian Community (EAC), a concept proposed by Japan last year although its details remained unclear.
Wu Chih-chung (吳志中), secretary-general of the European Union Study Association, said the EU model was not an option for Taiwan and China at the moment, but if the two sides wished to integrate in the future, they should negotiate the matter as two independent sovereignties.
The EU model was successful because of various reasons, he said. It was not only an economic bloc, but also a political organization. Furthermore, EU countries shared common political and social values such as democracy, human rights, freedom and justice, Wu said, adding that the EU showed that cooperation could lead to peace among old rivals.
EU countries were also diverse in languages and traditions, but shared common values and it also embodied values of its smaller-sized members, Wu said.
Ken Endo, an international politics professor at Hokkaido University, said it would be either impossible or probably harmful to directly transplant the EU’s institutional model onto East Asia.
Regional integration in Europe was built on the three pillars of military security, politico-economy and socio-culture, Endo said.
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