by Sam Roggeveen
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21 December 2009 9:32AM
Joel Rathus, a PhD candidate at the University of Adelaide who blogs here, responds to Malcolm Cook:
Until ASEAN members actually start to take a sense of ownership and even perhaps fund the Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA) its influence as a research body for regionalism will be zero.
Unfortunately, the body looks like an extension of Japan that just happens to be in Jarkarta, Indonesia. Perhaps that is because the executive director is Japanese, the idea to establish it was Japanese, and the initial funding was Japanese. And most of their research is recycled from Japan External Trade Organisation (JETRO), and thus the agenda is running parralel to that JETRO, at least about the need for a 16-member trade bloc (CEPEA).
If Australia could convince Indonesia to contribute something that might count, but as long as the money is coming from East Asia's odd men out (Japan, Australia and New Zealand) then it will be viewed as non-regional and will not be significant.
