Global financial dislocation and the economic slump are putting regional co-operation to the test. They also appear to be shaping somewhat different responses in Northeast and Southeast Asia. The latter, which formed the Association of Southeast Asian Nations way back in 1967, has a big head start in institutionalising collaboration. This week it signed a charter that makes the group a legal entity for the first time. Northeast Asia has no equivalent organisation.
But that may change if relations among China, Japan and South Korea continue to improve and the wider, six-nation talks, chaired by Beijing, succeed in persuading North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons programme and focus instead on economic development and poverty alleviation. Of course, these are big 'ifs' given the historical and territorial conflicts that bedevil ties among Northeast Asian economies.
However, the big three took a significant step forward when they held their first three-way summit in Japan last weekend and agreed to make it an annual event. Leaders have been getting together fairly regularly since 1999, but only on the fringes of other meetings, usually the annual Asean summit.
In this tenuous situation of barely veiled rivalry, it has suited the Northeast Asian trio to let Asean take the initiative in wider regional community-building. That is how ARF, the Asean Regional Forum on security, and the East Asia Summit - 13 East Asian states plus Australia, India and New Zealand - came about.
Asean's scope for leadership in regional initiatives may be constrained if the three-way co-operation in Northeast Asia continues to improve. The potential clout of China, Japan and South Korea far outweighs that of Southeast Asia. Together, the trio accounts for 75 per cent of East Asian economic output and nearly 17 per cent of global gross domestic product. Pulling together, instead of apart, would give them enormous influence in shaping the regional landscape.
This has already started. But the initial sinews of Northeast Asian regional co-operation are financial. When Asean was formed, the emphasis was on political dialogue and foreign policy co-ordination, to pacify the region and increase its heft in dealing with outsiders. Perhaps because the times are different now, Beijing, Tokyo and Seoul have decided to use an alternative building block - one that enables them to put underlying tensions to one side and deal with practical problems of common concern - stabilising currencies and stimulating economic growth in the region.
Shortly before their summit began, Tokyo and Beijing expanded bilateral currency swap arrangements with Seoul. This gave South Korea the equivalent of up to US$48 billion in extra funds to draw on, if necessary, to defend its currency. The heads of the three countries' central banks are to meet regularly to discuss monetary policy and co-ordinate efforts when it is in their interest to do so.