Crisis lends credence to Asian Union idea
Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's proposal in June to create an economic and security institution for Asia, along the lines of the European Union model, came in for some severe criticism. But the global financial meltdown has given Mr Rudd's idea some legs.
Perhaps that is why, in a wide-ranging speech delivered last week in Canberra, China's ambassador to Australia, Zhang Junsai, did not dismiss the idea out of hand.
Mr Rudd raised eyebrows, to say the least, by announcing on June 4 - without consulting his counterparts in the region - that 'an Asia-Pacific Community' should exist by 2020.
It would be 'a regional institution which spans the entire Asia-Pacific region - including the US, Japan, China, India, Indonesia and the other states of the region,' he said.
'A regional institution which is able to engage in the full spectrum of dialogue, co-operation and action on economic and political matters, and future challenges related to security.'
At the time, Mr Rudd struggled to gain endorsements for his proposal from key players like China and the US.
But times have changed. The tumultuous events of the past few months have demonstrated more than ever the need for strong regional and global architecture to ensure that crises can be avoided, or at least that their worst effects can be mitigated, and that economic and financial turbulence does not become the source of military tension between nations and regions.
What this global economic crisis is also demonstrating is the inexorable shift of power from Europe and the US to Asia.
Europe's divisions in the 19th century led to economic, social and political distress of an unprecedented kind, which ensnared just about every other country in the world as those rivalries were played out in proxy conflicts.
Perhaps if the EU had been created a century earlier, much of the history of the world over the past 100 years would have been radically different.
It appears that the time has come - or is fast approaching - for the Asia-Pacific community to ensure that the architecture is in place for a high degree of co-operation between countries, irrespective of their political or strategic outlook.
It is a point that Richard Woolcott, the man Mr Rudd has put in charge of selling his Asia-Pacific Community idea to leaders and governments in the region, has been emphasising.
Mr Woolcott, a highly experienced former ambassador to Indonesia and head of the Foreign Affairs bureaucracy in Australia, said recently that this global economic crisis was confirming the shift in power towards the Asia-Pacific region away from Europe and the US.
Therefore, he said, there was an even greater need for a strong regional player that straddled all countries, from India to the United States.
Greg Barns is a political commentator in Australia and a former Australian government adviser
