ASEAN called on to widen zone of peace community

ASEAN called on to widen zone of peace community

JAKARTA (JP): Indonesia and its Southeast Asian neighbors,
having successfully forged a zone of peace in the region, should
now expand that community of peace to encompass the whole of East
Asia, scholars in international affairs said yesterday.

The experts, from Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines,
said in a seminar that the concepts of "national resilience" and
"regional resilience" that have been developed by the Association
of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), could be used as the basis on
which to build a new community of East Asians.

Dato' Noordin Sopiee of Malaysia said that to realize the
idea, each of the seven members of the Association of Southeast
Asian Nations should in the first place improve each member's
national resilience and nurture the association's unity.

Founded in 1967, ASEAN groups Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore,
Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei and the Philippines.

Sopiee, the director general of Malaysia's Institute of
Strategic and International Studies, said ASEAN should strive to
embrace the three other Southeast Asian countries: Myanmar,
Cambodia and Laos.

"We must do it and do it right," he said in the seminar
entitled Indonesia and the World at the Beginning of the 21st
Century jointly organized by the Centre for Strategic and
International Studies and The Jakarta Post.

Sopiee discussed the challenges of regional community building
together with political analysts A. Hasnan Habib and Jusuf
Wanandi of Indonesia, and Carolina G. Hernandez of the
Philippines in a session led by Sabam Siagian, a former
Indonesian ambassador to Australia.

The area of "community of peace" could be expanded to cover
East Asia and eventually the whole Asia-Pacific, Sopiee said.

Sopiee proposed what he termed "ASEAN's five circle agenda for
peace and defense": strengthen national resilience, fortify
ASEAN's resilience, construct a Southeast Asian zone or community
of peace, build an East Asian zone or community of peace and
build an Asia-Pacific community of friends.

In the future, Indonesia will need to provide leadership in
the building of the Southeast and East Asian communities of peace
and Asia-Pacific community of friends, he said.

The speakers cautioned that China may prove to be a stumbling
block in developing the Asia-Pacific zone of peace.

They pointed out that many countries have long believed that
China, which has become one of the world's superpowers, poses a
military threat in the region.

China is pitted in a territorial dispute over the potentially
oil-rich Spratly Islands in the South China Sea with Taiwan, the
Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia and Vietnam.

Carolina G. Hernandez, president of the Manila-based Institute
for Strategic and Development Studies, said the countries
involved in the South China Sea conflict should have more
frequent political discussions to diffuse tension.

She praised China for refraining from using force, allowing
peaceful talks on the disputes with its neighbors. "China is
doing its best to live in peace with its neighbors," she said.

A. Hasnan Habib, a former ambassador to the U.S., warned that
with an average annual growth of 10 percent, China continues
building arms and is perceived as a potential threat by its
neighbors.

"China is increasingly powerful...its potential threat cannot
be ignored," said the retired army lieutenant general. He pointed
out that China continues to carry out nuclear tests and has
raised its military spending.

Jusuf Wanandi of the Centre for Strategic and International
Studies pointed out that China, whose population increases by 14
million to 16 million a year, is not only a regional military
giant but has become one of the world's superpowers.

In his keynote address earlier, State Minister of Environment
Sarwono Kusumaatmadja highlighted the challenges that Indonesia
faces in the 21st century.

Despite statistics indicating that Indonesia has economically
progressed rapidly, the country's development gains are not yet
evenly distributed among citizens or regions, Sarwono said.

Indonesia is yet to address discrepancies such as unequal
economic opportunities, but it has also to solve problems like
monopoly, he said.

The country is also to tackle the delicate issue of
maintaining harmony between people of different religions and
accommodate the growing demand for democracy, he added. (pan)