The Foreign Service Journal, May 2005

+ 3 (ASEAN, China, Japan and South Korea), the Asian Regional Forum, the ASEAN Vision Group, the ASEAN Senior Officials Meeting, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the Pacific Basin Economic Council. Despite being limited to East Asian and Pacific Rim states, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation group is the only truly regional intergovernmental organization, while the Asia-Europe Meeting has emerged as some- thing of a counterpart to APEC linking Asia and Europe, and the Forum for East Asia Latin America Cooperation does the same for these two regions. A host of non- governmental “Track Two” groups are also active in the region, most notably the Council on Security Cooperation in the Asia-Pacific, the Northeast Asia Security Cooperation Dialogue and the Shangri-La Dialogue (con- vened annually by the International Institute of Strategic Studies in Singapore). China is active in all of these forums and has even launched a regional dialogue composed of business lead- ers and government officials, the Boao Forum, whose par- ticipants meet annually on Hainan Island. Numerous heads of state and more than 1,000 delegates from around the region attended its 2003 and 2004 sessions. China’s increased involvement in these regional orga- nizations and dialogues reflects many factors, particularly China’s evolving recognition that these institutions are neither intrinsically hostile to China nor set on constrain- ing it. To the contrary, China has come to realize that these groupings are open to Chinese perspectives and influence, and may have some utility in constraining the United States in the region. China’s increased multilater- al involvement also represents the convergence of views about the norms that should govern interstate relations among China, ASEAN and the SCO states. The “ASEAN Way” of consensus building and group decision-making is amenable to China. Engaging Regional Institutions Of all the regional organizations mentioned above, China is most deeply involved with ASEAN and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (which it was instru- mental in establishing). As Fu Ying, the former director general of the Department of Asian Affairs in China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs noted, “Taking ASEAN + 3 cooperation and SCO as two focal points, China will make pioneering efforts to set up regional cooperation and push for the establishment of a ... framework conforming to the characteristic of regional diversity.” The SCO, established in June 2001, grew out of the “Shanghai Five” group created by China in 1994. Today the SCO comprises China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Reflecting China’s instrumental role and influence, a permanent secretariat headquarters has been created in Beijing (largely paid for by China). The organization also has an office, located in Bishkek ... to coordinate its counterterrorism efforts. From its inception, the SCO, like its predecessor, has focused primarily on nontraditional security threats, par- ticularly terrorism. The Shanghai Five also did much dur- ing the mid-1990s to institute military confidence-build- ing and security measures among its member states, such as force reductions and prenotification of exercises, in their border regions. More recently, the SCO has begun to evolve into a broader and more comprehensive organi- zation, reflecting Beijing’s goal of building strategic part- nerships. At its 2003 annual meeting, the SCO expanded its focus to include economic cooperation. At the meet- ing, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao proposed setting up a free-trade zone among member states and reducing non- tariff barriers in a variety of areas. The political interac- tion among SCO members is also intensive. In addition to the annual summits and frequent bilateral state visits, SCO ministerial-level officials meet and consult on a reg- F O C U S M A Y 2 0 0 5 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 31 David Shambaugh is director of the China Policy Program in the Elliott School of International Affairs and professor of political science and international affairs at The George Washington University. He is also a nonres- ident senior fellow in the Foreign Policy Studies Program and Center for Northeast Asian Policy at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. This article is excerpted with permission from “China Engages Asia: Reshaping the Regional Order,” Inter- national Security , Vol. 29, No. 3 (Winter 2004/05), pp. 64- 99. © 2005 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Footnotes have been omitted. In his comprehensive piece, the author also examines the antecedents to China’s new diplomacy, the implications of China’s regional rise for the United States, alternative conceptual models for understanding the new regional dynamics and the impli- cations for the regional order. The article can be read in full at http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp? tid=17534&ttype=6.