동아시아 정상들의 만남은 동아시아공동체 출현에 긍정적인 신호를 만들고 있다. 또 동아시아공동체는 어느 정도 유럽의 EU나 1960년대의 ‘공동시장’과 비슷해 보인다. 동아시아공동체가 출현한다면 아마 손쉽게 주요한 산업 중심지로 떠오르게 될 것이고, 이는 유럽과 미국을 합한 것보다 큰 규모가 될 가능성이 크다.
그럼에도 불구하고 필자는 동아시아공동체 출현에 비관적인 입장이다. 동아시아는 유럽과 두 가지 측면에서 명백히 다르다. 첫째는 다중심주의가 아니라는 것이고, 둘째는 이들에게 현실적으로 혹은 감지되는 공통의 외부위협 요소가 없다는 것이다.
유럽연합은 냉전시대 이후 극심한 지정학적 권력투쟁과정에서 탄생했다는 것을 잊지 말아야 한다. 유럽은 수세기 전에도 이 지역에서 독보적으로 우세한 힘이 나타나는 것을 성공적으로 막아왔다.
이들에게는 강력한 동맹과 연합의 전통이 있다. 서로마제국 이후, 서유럽을 영향력 안에 두려던 대담한 정복자는 셋 정도이지만 이들의 시도 역시 실패로 돌아갔다. 샤를마뉴, 나폴레옹 그리고 히틀러가 범유럽 최고 권력자에 가까웠지만 이들 중 누구도 성공하지 못했고 유럽에서 한 세기 이상 결정적인 영향력을 지속적으로 행사하지 못했다.
유럽은 다중심주의 질서를 갖고 있으며 여전히 4~5명의 주요 선수들이 상호간에 공동으로 영향력을 행사한다. EU 안에서 독일이 가장 큰 경제규모와 인구를 갖고 있다해도 이는 EU 전체로 봤을 때 인구의 16.3%, GDP의 20.2%를 차지할 뿐이다.
▲ 서울 이하 사진 www.en.wikipedia.org
하지만 동아시아의 경우 매우 다른 상황이라는 것을 알 수 있다. 이 지역은 다중심주의가 아닌 단일중심주의이며 이러한 전통은 2000여 년간 지속돼 온 것이다. 中華(중화)권이 하나로 통합됐을 때 이 인구와 경제, 군사적 규모는 다른 모든 동아시아국가들을 합친 것보다 클 것이다.
이는 동아시아지역의 전통적 외교의례를 보아도 우연이 아니라는 것을 알 수 있다. 동아시아국가들은 서로 동등하다고 받아들이지 않는다. 유교적 관점에서 국가들 간의 관계라는 것은 위와 아래, 계층이 항상 존재한다.
▲ 상하이
우리가 동아시아공동체를 상상해 본다면, 중국인들이 인구의 90% 이상을 차지하게 게 될 것이며 중국 중심의 질서가 새롭게 형성될 가능성이 높아 보인다. 이러한 중국 중심의 경제 질서는 중국과 비교적 우호적인 관계를 갖고 있는 한국과 같은 다른 잠재적인 선수들에게도 그다지 기쁜 일만은 아닐 것이다. 일본에게는 완전히 저주가 될 수 있다. 특히, 중국의 정치적 지배권과 싸워 국가적 정체성을 세워 온 베트남의 경우에도 그렇다.
물론 이것이 동아시아 경제에 있어서 상당한 진보를 막지는 않을 것이다. 이러한 진보는 환영 받아야 한다. 하지만 이는 약한 동료의 이익을 더 보호해 줄 수 있는 상호간의 타협을 통해 이뤄져야 한다. 필자는 현재 40대 후반이만 필자가 살아있는 동안 그리고 심지어 더 많이 오래 살게 된다고 해도 동아시아 공동체가 출현하게 될 것이라고 기대하지는 않는다.
글 : 안드레이 란코프(Andrei Lankov)
국민대 교수, 전 호주국립대 한국사 교수, 레닌그라드대 한국사 박사, 김일성종합대·레닌그라드 동양학부 졸업
▲ 도쿄
East Asian community won’t be easy to come
From time to time, another meeting of East Asian leaders produces waves of optimism about the eventual emergence of an East Asian community, somewhat akin to Europe’s EU or, at the very least, a ‘common market’ of the 1960s. The economic and political advantages of such a scenario are seemingly obvious. If an East Asian common market is to emerge, it will easily become a major industrial powerhouse, equal to or even exceeding the EU and United States combined.
Believers in this idea are usually not persuaded by naysayers who point to the unusually high level of nationalism that has resulted in many irredentist and territorial claims and a great amount of mutual distrust in the region. Optimists say that there are good reasons to believe that East Asia can and will eventually overcome such problems, like Europe – once a hot bed of nationalism as well – did after the Second World War.
The present author, though, is a determined pessimist. East Asia is different from Europe in at least two decisive ways. First, it is not polycentric, and second, it does not face a real/perceived common external threat.
▲ 타이페이
We should not forget that European unity was forged in the intense geopolitical power struggle of the Cold War era. For centuries before that, Europe had a powerful tradition of alliances and coalitions which were remarkably successful in preventing any single European power from dominating the entire region for any length of time. Since the fall of the Western Roman Empire, there have been only three cases where a bold and successful conqueror came close to uniting the whole of Western Europe under his control. However, even those attempts ended in naught. Charlemagne, Napoleon and Hitler might have come close to becoming Pan-European dictators, but none of them would succeed and none of them even managed to remain the decisive force in Europe for more than a decade.
Europe had a number of great powers (in modern times, usually, between four and seven) and a number of minor states who could increase their power by becoming junior partners to one of these great powers. The excessive increase in influence of any one great power would lead to the other powers immediately creating a coalition to check this geopolitical shift. Spies conduct espionage at dusk, diplomats danced, smiled and lied, ships of the line were launched and beggars were pressed into military service – and all the while, European dominance remained beyond the reach of any single power.
This long tradition of pragmatic alliances against perceived common threats made possible the emergence of post-1945 united Western Europe. After the Second World War, the continent faced a massive external threat – perhaps, the first such threat since the long-forgotten invasions of the Mongols and Arabs many centuries ago.
The emergence of the Soviet Union threatened the entire way of life of West European countries and, perhaps, even their survival as sovereign states. They reacted to the emergence of the inspiring external hegemon pretty much in the way they have for centuries – by making an alliance against the external threat and also looking for the protection of a rival hegemon, who happened to be located on the other side of the Atlantic. Needless to say, Washington was not unhappy about the rise of the Soviet Union, so European position found much understanding in the US.
▲ 카오슝
The polycentric order in Europe also made sure that European Union would not become merely a cover for domination by just one, single power. Europe still has the same four to five major players whose influence are mutually overlap and cancel out. Germany may have the largest economy and population in the EU, but its population is only 16.3% of the EU total and its GDP is only 20.2% of the EU total. This is impressive, to be sure, but one should keep in mind the fact that France has 15.8%, Britain 13.9%, and Italy 12.7% of the EU’s total GDP (and, respectively, 12.9%, 12.4% and 12.1% of unified Europe’s total population). Germany is the largest economy in the EU, but it still well below the level which would make its domination unchallengeable.
If we look at East Asia, a very different picture emerges. This region is monocentric and, as a matter of fact, this has been the case for some 2000 years. When China was unified state, its population, economic and military potential significantly exceeded that of all other East Asian countries combined.
It is not incidental that the traditional diplomatic protocol of East Asia did not accept states as equals: all inter-state relations in the Confucian world were conceptualized as hierarchical, with a junior and senior partner always present.
At present, there is no common threat for the countries of East Asia, and there is unlikely to be such a threat in the future either. To be blunt, and forgetting niceties for a while (as a humble academic, the author can afford to do so from time to time), one can say that for China, the major rival is the United States. For Japan, it is China. For South Korea, it is, first of all, North Korea, but also Japan and to some extent China. For Vietnam, it is China as well (and we did not even mention such explosive and controversial issues as Taiwan or Korea’s division). In other words, if there is a country which comes sort of close to filling the void of the major threat in East Asia, it is China which is also a natural core of the entire East Asian system. This is unsurprising. A monocentric structure of the region ensures that minor countries are bound to be suspicious (if not hostile) towards the large elephant in the room.
Optimists may argue that in our supposedly post-war, post-ideological age, the economic rationale for such a new regional order will surely overcome those outdated geopolitical considerations. Well, this might turn out to be the case, but a hypothetical East Asian common market will face a multitude of problems brought about by its unbalanced economic and demographic dimensions. To put things simply, China is way too large and powerful to fit into the system as an equal.
If we consider this putative East Asian community, we discover that some 90% of its total population will be Chinese. If such a community were to emerge now, China will also produce whooping 65% of its GDP, while Japan, a distant second, will produce less than half, merely 24.4%. Taking into consideration the remarkable speed of China’s growth, this share is likely to increase dramatically in the next two decades (it also does not help that Japan is still mired in economic stagnation).
In other words, if such a community were to emerge, in one crucial regard it would look very much like COMECON and the Warsaw Pact, the now half-forgotten ‘multi-lateral’ structures of the Soviet-controlled East Europe. It will have one absolute massive hegemon surrounded by much weaker players.
▲ 홍콩
If an East Asian community is ever to emerge, it is highly likely to become a new embodiment of Sino-centric order. Such an arrangement is likely to unacceptable to other hypothetical players. Even Koreans will not be happy to switch effective control over their economy and finances to Beijing, and Koreans, if compared to other ‘minor’ regional players, have relatively good relations with and quite positive attitudes towards China. Such an arrangement will be complete anathema to Japan and, especially, Vietnam, whose national identity has been forged struggling against Sinitic hegemony.
Of course this does not preclude a significant improvement in economic cooperation in East Asia. Such improvements should be welcomed, but one can be certain that this will be achieved through bilateral arrangements which can usually provide better protection to the interests of the weaker partners. Some confidence-building measure could potentially emerge as well. Nonetheless, the present author, being in his late forties, does not expect to see the emergence of an East Asian community in his lifetime, even if he is to live a very long life.
by Andrei Nikolaevich Lankov
Russia, Attended Kim Il-sung University, PhD in Korean History, Leningrad State University, Professor at Australian National University(1996), Professor at Kookmin University, Contributor for The AsiaN
<THEAsiaN(www.theasian.asia) 제공>
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