Economic Cooperation Forum Research Articles

APEC: A tool for US regional domination?

Abstract This paper examines the possibility that the United States could ‘capture’ the Asia‐Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum and use it to impose America's economic agenda on the region. It discusses Washington's ability to shape the choices of APEC's East Asian members at APEC negotiations to reflect US interests through employing its military, economic, cultural, and ideological resources as instruments of leverage and influence. While interdependence constrains Washington's use of military and/or economic leverage to influence the choices of APEC's East Asian members, the complex bargaining and consensual decision‐making features of APEC further prevent Washington from imposing its agenda on APEC. On the other hand, Washington's capture of APEC could be facilitated if East Asian policy‐making elites were socialized through the APEC process to accept American norms. This would tend to lead to preference convergence since the values of both the US and East Asia would coincide. The analysis sugg...

An Asia‐Pacific community as a regional order: Possibilities and limitations of APEC

Expectations for the Asia‐Pacific Economic Cooperation forum have been numerous and varied, leading some observers to predict that APEC will gradually take on a security dimension in addition to the economic role it plays today. In this paper, Professor Susumu Yamakage of the University of Tokyo examines the evolution — and the limitations of — APEC and, taking into consideration the variety of issues and problems in the region, concludes that it is premature to expect APEC to become a multifaceted cooperative framework. Rather, he points out, it is likely to continue its current function of encouraging trade liberalization and defending the world trade system.

Clinton and China: Beyond human rights

0 ne of the major uncertainties facing the Asia-Pacific, indeed, the entire international system, is the future role of China, a country in the throes of generational political succession. How that role is defmed-whether the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is integrated into the world system as a responsible global power accepting international norms or play largely by its own rules-will be greatly influenced by the character of Sino-American relations. President BiU Clinton has gone from the poetry of campaigning (for example, “coddling the dictators of Beijing”) to the more nettlesome prose of governing. Part of that tortuous process has been a transformation of US. policy towards China from a nadir that almost unraveled the volatile relationship. However successful Clinton is in redefining the relationship, China poses imminent challenges and looming medium-term dangers. Clinton’s November 19, 1993, meeting with Chinese president Jiang Zen-tin during the Seattle summit of leaders from the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum symbolized the beginning of a new stage in Sine-American relations, one characterized by adequate, if still fragile, bipartisan support for a China policy of expansive engagement, in which human rights (barring any future egregious Tiananmen-type developments) is no longer the singular benchmark. The annual drama over Most Favored Nation (MFN) treatment of Chinese imports has defined a post-Tiananmen policy lacking in national consensus and priorities. Not only have the MFN renewal debates raised the risk of miscalculation and confrontation on both sides but they have been out of touch with Chinese reality and have fostered a political climate that made rational dialogue with Beijing on vital global issues-from its nuclear modernization to its environmental policies-extremely difhcult. Before a new equilibrium in Sino-American relations can even be achieved, the administration must gain congressional acceptance of a positive presidential determination that China has met absolute conditions regarding