Governments and analysts in both Europe and Asia have launched studies and discussion of the stakes and their possible roles in the forthcoming East Asian Summit meeting called for Kuala Lumpur in December.

Many experts are convinced that even if the Kuala Lumpur meeting leads to any follow-up structure or grouping, this would be unlikely in their views to include any significant level of sovereignty sharing or binding legal constraints which many Asia Governments oppose.

As with many such international gatherings, it is said that even the participants who have decided to be involved do not know or have policies on where it is going in the short or longer term. One East Asian participant has indicated that the process would be “open and not exclusive.”

In the months leading up to the Summit, a number of countries beyond the core East Asia group, such as Australia, New Zealand, Russia, India, Pakistan, the US and the EU have all taken steps to participate in some way or to display their interests. Australia and New Zealand have decided to sign the ASEAN Treaty of Amity and Cooperation as required to participate. Others, including the EU, have said they might be interested in attending as observers, only to be told that there are no provisions for such a status. Another approach would be for separate summits with major neighbours such as India or Russia, according to one senior Asian diplomat.

The series of meetings will, according to organisers, involve the ASEAN Summit, the ASEAN Plus Three Summit, a series of ASEAN bilateral summits with other East Asian and Asian countries and the actual East Asian Summit.

Other than official EU soundings at the recent ASEM Meeting in Japan for observer status, the EU is still trying to define its position and participation. One European expert remarked recently that “It will preoccupy us for four or five months, but it is also possible that in five years it will be forgotten.” Another Asian scholar indicated recently that “It is too early to be the harbinger of an East Asian Community.”

It is still apparently unsettled whether security or economic or a combination of these important consideration would be the driving force for the meeting and any follow up. There has been some speculation that there might be some interest and support in the region to use the Kuala Lumpur summit to initiate a new undertaking in the field of maritime security in the region that excludes the US. In recent months and years concern has arisen over the level of maritime piracy in the Straits of Malacca and in the longer term the broader threat of terrorist and other risk to freedom of navigation and security to the crucial flow of oil and other merchandise through the Straits to East Asia. While the US has indicated a willingness and even a need for its presence and involvement in any security mechanism and capability in the Straits, some regional governments, including Indonesia and Malaysia, have been hesitant or opposed to a major US role. It has been suggested that an eventual and significant EU presence in such activities could provide the countries of the region some room for manoeuvre from the US.

Should such an outcome arise, it could provoke a related decision on what role the EU should play. In the past it has had a limited, even insignificant role, which some say has largely been driven by necessity or even crises rather than prior agreements or a defined strategy based on its perceived interests. But it has been pointed out that the EU has previously assumed “soft” security tasks including in the Cambodian peace follow-up and more recently in the process leading to a peace settlement in Indonesia’s Aceh province.

In the economics sector, while there is an agreement to erect an East Asian free trade area it remains unfulfilled. Post 1997-1998 economic crisis agreements on financial and monetary cooperation have been generally limited, but could be expanded. And the East Asian region has been increasingly integrating economically and industrially if not in a structured and legal fashion, it has been pointed out.

One potential complicating factor in the decision whether to attend or otherwise participate has been the three conditions set for such involvement, which includes the signing of the ASEAN Treaty of Amity and Cooperation.

Decisions have already been made by the two main regional powers, China and India, to sign the ASEAN treaty and to attend and take a full part in the meeting process. Australia, Japan and New Zealand have also issued similar signals. The issue of signing the accord has been particularly sensitive for Australian and Japanese Governments, which have been strong US allies and they have sought assurances that some of the Treaty provisions and separate nuclear free zone will not damage relations with Washington.

While some have questioned its value in view of the already existing summit process of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and its three Northeast Asian neighbours, known as the ASEAN +3, others have suggested that it would be vital for all interested parties to show up at least. The EU also has an established dialogue process with all the same countries of East Asia in the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) which meets at the summit level every two years and has an extensive system of other Ministerial and other meetings.

Non-official European strategists have indicated that these questions could become divisive within the EU itself. It has also been suggested that this new East Asian process could become another element in the rivalry between China on the one hand and Japan and the US on the other.

At one end of the scale, it has been extensively rumoured and reported that the US is quietly opposed to the event which in principle excludes it and has been said to have exerted behind-the-scenes diplomatic pressure against it. Part of the apparent US reasoning behind such a position is said to be that a separate East Asia summit and grouping that excludes the US could undermine the existing Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) process also underway for a decade, which includes a number of other states in the American hemisphere and Australasia.

But other experts have also expressed the opinion that all post-war US Administrations have sought to avoid such a regional grouping, including the previous Malaysian effort or Japan’s post-crisis monetary initiative and have even manoeuvred repeatedly to play Japan and China off against each other. Some analysts in the US have pictured the East Asia Summit as a Chinese-inspired effort to create new structures that alienate the US.

The question of whether the US should or will participate has been said to have become a major and divisive issue for many of the other countries involved.

It has been reported that the EU Council of Ministers has conducted a study of the questions and indicated that legally the EU could sign the ASEAN amity treaty without the EU member states being required to ratify it as well.

There is a current of European opinion said to exist that it would be important for the EU to signal its interest in the region and the process whether or not it leads to anything more permanent or concrete. It would also be important for the EU itself to assume at least a presence and perhaps a role to affect the possibility that the region will continue to be so influenced by American policies and presence regardless of whether the US participates in the Kuala Lumpur meeting. The opposite decision, for the EU not to be involved in some way in the Kuala Lumpur process would be seen as a negative signal to send to the EU’s partners and for the EU image in the region.

Should the Kuala Lumpur gathering lead to some more concrete follow-up that includes security issues, it is still in question whether these would go beyond or in different directions than the existing ASEAN Regional Forum and whether the EU, which has had a marginal and hesitant role in the ARF, could or should be involved.

These touch on whether EU member countries see any added value in such EU participation and what relation it would have to their own limited presence in the region. Some Europeans have remarked that Asians believe the EU has been absent and is largely irrelevant in policy or security issues of interest to the region. Europe has significantly been absent, whether exclude or through a conscious EU decision is still unclear, from the high-level process on the nuclear crisis on the Korean Peninsula although it was a member of the Korean Energy Development Organisation (KEDO).

Still others have indicated that the question of lifting the EU arms embargo on China had thrust the EU into perhaps the most difficult security issue affecting the region and added that the question of maritime safety could be a more appropriate undertaking for the EU that might even be more welcomed by some of the parties there.

At the pace and general indecision in the EU regarding Asian policy issues it may appear unlikely that a consensus will be reached in sufficient time for it to play an active part in this East Asia process.