Asia Pacific Fusion: Japan's Role in APEC, and: APEC: Challenges and Opportunities (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Asia Pacific Fusion: Japan’s Role in APEC,, and: APEC: Challenges and Opportunities Kiyohiko Fukushima Asia Pacific Fusion: Japan’s Role in APEC, by Yoichi Funabashi. Washington, DC: Institute for International Economics, 1995. xvi, 284 p. APEC: Challenges and Opportunities, edited by Chia Siow Yue. Singapore: Institute for Southeast Asian Studies, 1994. xii, 195 p. The countries of East and Southeast Asia are growing fast and gaining confidence. The leaders of that region now meet in the fall each year to confirm their commitment to peace and prosperity in the region through closer cooperation and freer flow of trade and investment. Though the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) started as an informal meeting of trade ministers in 1989, President Clinton substantially upgraded its role by convening the first summit meeting of the APEC countries in Seattle in 1993. The summit meetings of the Pacific rim countries have since become an annual routine. The members of APEC are now eighteen: the United States, Japan, China, Canada, Mexico, South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, Brunei, Indonesia, Thailand, Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Malaysia, and Chile. Added together, APEC member countries now constitute 53% of the world economy, 42% of world trade, and 38% of the world population. APEC is by far the most important regional economic organization in the world, having in its members the two largest economies in the world, the US and Japan, the most populous country, China, and the world’s fastest growing countries, the Newly Industrializing Economies (NIEs) and the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) members. Through concerted action, the APEC member countries can set the agenda for and decide the future course of the world economy. What is agreed upon in APEC meetings is of vital importance for the United States and the whole world. In Asia Pacific Fusion: Japan’s Role in the APEC, Yoichi Funabashi, Washington bureau chief of Asahi Shimbun, one of the largest newspapers in Japan, provides a thorough analysis of APEC from its inception, adding insight into its potential role in the future. Funabashi interviewed 12 heads of state and 14 ministers of Asia and the US concerning their opinions of APEC. Examining cultural, economic, and [End Page 205] political trends, he points to the cross-fertilization of ideas and cultures in the Asia-Pacific region, and entertains the readers with breathtakingly up-close illustrations of leaders, diplomats, and intellectuals. Published just one month before the November 1995 APEC meeting in Osaka, this was the first comprehensive book on this important international conference. Funabashi’s forecasts and analysis cover not only the Osaka meeting but also the upcoming meeting in Manila in 1996. Funabashi concludes with recommendations for Japan and the APEC member countries. The strength of this book comes from Funabashi’s perspective of the APEC process as an experiment in the fusion of different cultures across the diverse Asia-Pacific region. In order to build a long-term strategy for economic cooperation, member countries must have an interest in and understanding of each other. The early phase of this confidence-building process and efforts at mutual understanding has already begun. In order to further enhance the sense of community, Funabashi proposes, among other things, that historians of the 18 APEC member countries write a common history of the 18 countries by the year 2020, learning from the example of Europe, where historians from 12 European countries produced a secondary school textbook, The Illustrated History of Europe. This proposal is a good idea; it could end the Japanese cabinet members’ occasional shameful mistatements on history and subsequent resignations once and for all by promoting an Asian consensus on the past. This would allow the region to move ahead in its efforts to cooperate for the future. Regrettably, Asia-Pacific Fusion does not provide much analysis of the economic changes in Asia except for a general introduction of figures on trade and economic growth. The most important economic change in Asia is that the economic influence of the US is declining. Increasingly, Asia is growing though its own demand in the region, created by rising incomes and the vast population. Asian self-reliance is bolstered by...