The foreign ministers of China, Japan and
South-Korea met this weekend in China to discuss mechanisms to foster regional
cooperation and trust.
The
newly inaugurated Trilateral Cooperation Secretariat (TCS) aims to expand
commercial and cultural intercourse. The forum also wants to provide a platform
for debating maritime conflicts, Korean reunification as well as ASEAN
integration.
Closely
preceding the China-Japan-Korea meeting was the lackluster ASEAN summit earlier
this month.
Under
the tutelage of Washington DC, ASEAN members deliberated on chronic disputes
with China on maritime boundaries in China Sea, but the elephant in the room
was the snail like pace of ASEAN integration.
The
single greatest problem impeding ASEAN integration is its population explosion.
Population
explosion has inflicted an unacceptable premium on the birth of an integrated
labor market, common currency and a unified political system governing ASEAN
and eventually all East Asia.
Yet,
this ominous hydra invited scant attention from policy-makers and powerbrokers
guiding ASEAN.
Is TCS,
especially China, cognizant of this gathering tsunami of births and the grave
implications on natural resource access and regional security in East-Asia and
Pacific?
As per
capita access to water, food, fuel, housing and healthcare faces enormous
extractive stress, comprehensive institutional measures to rapidly curb birth
rates are urgently required but sorely missing from TCS and ASEAN summits.
Whereas
Korea-Japan have transitioned towards advanced fertility of 1.2-1.3
births/woman, China towards intermediate fertility of 1.6-births/woman, ASEAN
is proliferating unsustainably at 2.4-births/woman.
With 12
million annual births, ASEAN might serve as a temporary low cost production
base for overseas manufacturing giants clamoring for limitless dirt cheap
labor. This might also bring great joy and satisfaction to the ruling class in
ASEAN.
But
eventually, ASEAN will face the low-middle income trap that Malaysia is grappling
with for last 10 years.
Endemic
corruption, unwise policies, lackluster governance are certainly contributing
factors, but population explosion perpetuates all of the above as part of a
vicious cycle of stagnation and hopelessness.
Population
explosion in ASEAN will also put enormous pressures on its natural resources
for domestic consumption and exports to resource scarce China will further
accelerate resource depletion.
Another
grave danger is the unwarranted influence of explosively bulging States such as
Indonesia, Philippines and Malaysia on advanced fertility countries such as
Singapore and Thailand.
Singapore,
Brunei and Thailand will veto any progress towards a free labor market and an
integrated political system with a common parliament and Capital. They will resist the flooding of their labor
markets by a tsunami of poorer, less educated and burdensome masses.
It is
undeniable that if ASEAN converges towards intermediate fertility like
Thailand, or even advanced fertility like Taiwan, in time, the vehement
objections of richer members like Singapore and Brunei will be propitiated.
However,
fertility convergence will require universal access to basic healthcare and
long-term contraception including IUDs and implants; primary education, and
sustained mass media campaigns as its three vital ingredients.
If
ASEAN’s annual births are rapidly arrested within 6-6.5 million range by 2020,
there will be incalculable benefits for its citizens. These include much higher
living standards and incomes, dramatically lower investment costs, and a
competitive labor market.
China-Japan-Korea
trilateral commission should present a clear vision and large investments for
rapid fertility transition inside ASEAN. These measures will elevate East
Asia’s security and prosperity exponentially, and a genuine and lasting
integration might be possible.
A
rapidly declining America saddled deeply in debt also ought to encourage this
transformative development.
Andy
Maheshwari
examiner.com
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