ASEAN not eager for united strategy

ASEAN not eager for united strategy

MANILA (AFP): ASEAN countries have displayed a united front in
the face of Chinese incursions in the South China Sea, but the
regional body is unlikely to create a formal regional defense
strategy, analysts say.

"ASEAN heads of state are not keen about formal defense and
security arrangements," Philippine Defense Secretary Renato De
Villa said after an Association of Southeast Asian Nations
security conference here last week.

Defense experts at the first conference of the ASEAN Defense
Technology Exchange (ADTEX), a Philippine-based think-tank,
agreed that the regional group faced major security concerns
despite the end of the Cold War.

The situation in the Korean peninsula, continuing tensions
between China and Taiwan and the conflicting claims to the
Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, were all identified as
potential "hot spots" affecting ASEAN members.

The discovery in February of Chinese-built structures on a
reef in the Spratlys claimed by the Philippines set off alarm
bells within ASEAN, which groups Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the
Philippines, Singapore and Thailand.

In addition to China, Taiwan and Vietnam, three ASEAN members
-- Brunei, Malaysia and the Philippines -- lay total or partial
claim to the archipelago, but have pledged to resolve the issue
peacefully.

Despite Chinese efforts to force the other claimants to
discuss the Spratlys bilaterally, ASEAN presented a united front
in talks with China on the issue in the Chinese city of Hangzhou
earlier this month.

Carolina Hernandez, president of the Philippines' Institute
for Strategic and Development Studies, called the unity "an
amazing achievement on the part of ASEAN."

But while ASEAN members closed ranks on the Spratlys issue,
defense experts at the conference said it was unlikely such unity
could be translated into a formal security arrangement between
countries in the grouping.

"The smaller and weaker nations may continue to face a
possible threat of external interference," Soedjati Djiwandono,
director of Indonesia's Centre for Strategic and International
Studies (CSIS) said.

But, he added: "A common perception of threat of external
nature has never been, and most probably will never be developed"
in ASEAN, unlike in military alliances such as the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization, formed to counter the threat of the Soviet
bloc.

Djiwandono also said that security cooperation among ASEAN
members tended to be bilateral or trilateral in nature and often
involved non-ASEAN members -- such as the U.S.-Thai and U.S.-
Philippine defense agreements.

Djiwandono also raised the possibility of a "multilateral
security cooperation within the framework of ASEAN" that would
not be directed at any sole external threat.

But he said this would not be a formal military pact but would
be in the form of confidence-building measures, such as
information and intelligence exchanges -- as well as possible
coordination in procuring and manufacturing weapons.