The ``first'' East Asian summit will take place in Kuala Lumpur this year among leaders from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Japan, China and South Korea. East Asia includes the 10 nations in Southeast Asia and the three nations in Northeast Asia. The East Asian summit, unlike the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), excludes so-called Anglo-Saxon countries, such as the United States, Australia and New Zealand.

The exclusion from the East Asian ``community'' of such countries, Russia and others on the eastern side of the Pacific Rim appears to have stirred a certain degree of anxiety, especially in the United States. At the root of such anxieties are fears of China's dominance on the western side of the Pacific Rim and a disregard of the interests of the excluded countries. Such anxieties, however, may be quite misplaced.

China's `hegemonic' power

Historically, the political order of East Asia has been characterized by the ebb and flow of China's ``hegemonic'' power in the region. When strong unifying power emerged in China, surrounding nations and tribes used to be subjugated to the ruler of the Middle Kingdom. When it collapsed, the power vacuum in the Middle Kingdom used to raise the relative strength of its peripheral powers. Quite often, those peripheral powers took over the Middle Kingdom. In fact, for the past millennium alone, non-Chinese tribes ruled China for nearly half the period.

Fears of China's emerging power are based on its neighbors' historical experience: The unification of China itself has been attained through raw military means and China's expansion beyond its historical borders have also been carried out through brutal military might. To the annoyance of its neighbors, what China's historical borders mean is very much ambiguous.

In traditional hegemonic Chinese thinking, there appeared to be no such thing as a national border; there were only nations and tribes that were civilized after the Chinese mode and those that were not.

What was implicit in such a way of thinking is that China felt superior to its neighbors culturally and economically, if not always militarily. And everything under the sun was considered a subject of the Middle Kingdom ruler.

Historical realities, however, point to something else: China's regional hegemony had its limits. Geographically, the Great Wall in the north, Vietnam in the south, the Central Asian desert in the west, and the East and South China Seas in the east bound China's traditional territories.

Only the inheritance of the non-Chinese Qing Dynasty left China with areas such as Manchuria, Inner Mongolia, Tibet and Xinjiang that are beyond the traditional territories. Those areas have also left China with ethnic strife. The overextension of the border has usually led to the collapse of the unifying power of the Middle Kingdom.

Inherent in the limit of China's hegemonic power is the long-term stability in national identities in Northeast Asia. Japan, Korea and China have been roughly in the same geographical areas since the seventh century, when the Korean Peninsula was unified. Only invasions by European and American powers have led to temporary instability in Northeast Asia since the Opium War. Northeast Asia is back to the historically stable state of international relations, except the divided Korea, a legacy of the Cold War.

In a very broad context, even the North Korean problem is a minor issue unless the outside powers interfere. What the current North Korean regime fears most must be that it will simply be left alone.

Also, the Taiwan issue does not necessarily require a hasty solution if Beijing and Taipei remain cool-headed. In fact, China has already obtained everything except name that it needs from Taiwan: money, technology, trade and human resources.

The geopolitical balance in Southeast Asia has been also intrinsically very stable since direct military interferences of American and European powers ceased.

In other words, there is no major territorial issue that can be settled through military might alone in East Asia. Accordingly, there is a realistic basis for the 13 nations comprising the East Asian Community to declare it a nonaggression zone.

In the above-mentioned geopolitical context, there are sufficient preconditions for the East Asian nations to fully occupy themselves for economic development in the foreseeable future.

Prolonged economic development in the region has already produced the following results in the 13 East Asian nations:

*Intra-regional trade has already accounted for more than half of the international trade of East Asia. This fact alone naturally calls for the need and creation of at least an ``official forum,'' if not ``a binding community,'' for the 13 East Asian nations to discuss ``their own businesses'' on a regular basis.

*Prolonged economic development has nurtured the substantial expansion of the middle class that is and will be the basis of healthy representative government in the region. Quite ironically, East Asia is likely to be an antithesis of what the United States is trying to do in the Middle East. Democracy is not something outside powers can simply impose.

*Most importantly, the size of the educated population that can support advanced industrial structure will be much larger in East Asia than in the United States or in the European Union in the foreseeable future.

This implies that output from modern industry will be much larger in East Asia than in the United States or in the European Union. Japan, South Korea and Taiwan alone, which have already obtained the status of advanced economies, have a population of about 200 million in total. In a decade or so, another 200 million from the rest of East Asia are quite likely to join the ranks. Currently, the population of the European Union is about 452 million while the United States has about 294 million.

Mass of the emerging middle class

Even with a population of 400 million or so as a basis of modern industry in East Asia, China will still be a poor country on a per-capita basis.

But a substantially large mass of the emerging middle class in China's urban areas is quite likely to change the authoritarian nature of the Beijing regime and its external policy.

In other words, not confrontation but continued economic development and the ensuing expansion of the middle class in China is and will be best for Japan and the rest of East Asia from both an economic and national security point of view.

It should be noted that China's internal economic conditions will not prompt the Beijing government to adopt militarily and diplomatically adventurous external policies in the foreseeable future.

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The author is director of Trilateral Institute Inc. (Sankyoku Keizai Kenkyusho), a private think tank based in Tokyo.(IHT/Asahi: January 4,2005)