East Asia, the Pacific and New Zealand: A New Political Complex on the Horizon?

Regionalism in East Asia and the Pacific has gained momentum in the last few years. The region is changing from a set of countries that rapidly integrated with the world to one that is forcefully exploiting the dynamism that lies within Asia. The institutionalization of the pan-Asian idea, a community of nations that stretches beyond what was originally seen as East Asia, is rapidly gaining ground. Interestingly, Australia and New Zealand have become members of the so-called East Asian Summit since 2005. Questions related to national and regional identity have preceded this process and still dominate discussions in East Asia as well as in the South Pacific newcomers. Whereas Japan tried to integrate Australia and New Zealand for a long time, China continuously excluded these extra-regional powers from its ideas. Remarkably, a clear line was drawn between East Asia and states in the periphery of the region throughout the 1990s. The discourse in the region continuously affirmed that Northeast and Southeast Asia are integral members of a broader concept, while it is debated whether Australia and New Zealand are part of the region. The paper tries to understand the reasons for the inclusion of New Zealand and Australia into an East Asian political complex by looking at identity concepts in the two South Pacific countries as well as in major East Asian countries, particularly China and Japan. Collective identity will not be understood as actual sameness or connectedness but will refer to the self-conscious conception of a community. Hence, it serves the task of orientation for self-reference and action, and is perceived in relation to other identities, each self-constructed and articulated with each other, e.g. Australian, New Zealand, Japanese, Chinese or Asian identity. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]