The Effects Of ASEAN Norms On East Asia Regionalism

ASEAN norms have played an important role in the emerging and developing process of East Asia regionalism. At the same time, as the principal norms of East Asia regionalism, the limitations of ASEAN norms have more to do with the dilemma that East Asia regionalism has been facing for years since the Global financial crisis of 2008.The first chapter of this article has mainly discussed about the definition of norms and regionalism, and analyzed the relationship between the norms and regionalism. Norms are the appropriate standards of behavior that are accepted and practiced by a community of people, it has three characteristics, the first one is sociality, the second is informality, and then is regulatory quality. Regionalism is a definition that is used to describe a movement of regionalization, it has two aspects, one aspect is its ideational part, another is its practical part, and it is supported by the governments of a particular region. The development of regionalism needs norms to coordinate the relations between main powers in that region, to shape the regional identity, to prompt the mutual trust in that region, and to enhance the cooperation in that region. Then the practice of regionalism also has effects on the norms’ development.The second chapter of this article has mainly discussed the connotation of ASEAN norms, and explained the positive effects that ASEAN norms have on the East Asia regionalism. In detail, the ASEAN norms in the East Asia regionalism have contributed to the consensus of regional cooperation, the shaping of regional identity, the orderly interaction between the great powers, the progression of economic cooperation, and the maintenance of the cooperation process. But there still exist some limitations of ASEAN norms, the function of ASEAN norms should match with the benign regional environment, if the environment has changed, the limitations might come.The third chapter of this article has mainly discussed about the limitations of ASEAN norms, and their negative influences on the East Asia regionalism, and then envisaged the future of ASEAN norms and East Asia regionalism. The limitations of ASEAN norms are, soft institutionalism leads to fragile cooperation process, process-oriented pattern leads to the loss of dynamic in regional cooperation, and elite learning dominated socialization leads to superficial socialization. These limitations have been exaggerated following the turn of geopolitical situation in East Asia, and caused the failure of ASEAN norms in prompting East Asia regionalism. The symptoms of failure of ASEAN norms in East Asia regionalism process are the follows, disorder of interaction between great powers in the region, splitting of the cooperation process in the region, weakening of regional identity, and lack of dynamic in regional cooperation. In regard of the future of ASEAN norms and East Asia Regionalism, ASEAN norms will continue to function in East Asia regionalism, but their effects might be largely reduced. And there will be a place for ASEAN norms to coordinate the outside norms from great powers, to achieve localization of both the ASEAN norms and outside norms in East Asia. Considering the relationship between China and The US, the future of East Asia regionalism might be inserted into an Asia-pacific regional cooperation, and will perform more openness with East Asia characteristics.The final chapter of this thesis mainly discussed the inspirations from the effects of ASEAN Norms on East Asia regionalism, and tried to get some useful information from these inspirations for China to prompt the process of East Asia Regionalism. The inspirations come from the effects of ASEAN Norms on East Asia Regionalism are detailed as follows, the nature of East Asia regionalism is open regionalism, it’s necessary to initiate multi-field cooperation in East Asia to maintain the process of East Asia regionalism, self-restraint of great powers can be useful to enhance the effects of socialization, process-oriented regional cooperation has its advantages in East Asia, efforts should be made to make the competing initiatives in East Asia regional cooperation mutually complementary, etc. Then the policy suggestions of this thesis for China to prompt the process of East Asia regionalism are, China should support the ASEAN Norms as the basic models for the shaping of East Asia regional Norms; China should support the building of ASEAN-centered regional governance regime; China should act some effective measures to make China-Japan relationship better than present, build effective regimes of crisis management for both side; there is a need of a new negotiation regime of East Asia issues for the building of new model of China-US relationship.