ASEAN Regional Forum told to focus on security

By Oei Eng Goan and Meidyatama Suryodiningrat

SINGAPORE (JP): "The ARF must address common security concerns, otherwise ARF will in time be proved irrelevant," Singapore foreign minister S. Jayakumar ominously described the state of the region's only security consultation forum.

Ironically, on the eve of the sixth meeting of the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), the issue of its own self-preservation needs to be delineated as much as the security issues it was set up to tackle.

Two pressing regional security issues are expected to top the agenda of Monday's meeting.

The first is cross-straits tension between China and Taiwan. The second is the over-lapping claims in the South China Sea, which remains a flash point for Southeast Asian states.

However, the future of the Forum itself will be as much at stake as resolutions to either of the above.

After six years, the Forum has failed to progress beyond the stage of Confidence Building Measures (CBM) and an annual media hunting ground.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) -- grouping Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam -- established the ARF as a regional and political consultation forum.

Through the years membership quickly grew and now includes dialog partners -- Australia, Canada, China, the European Union, Japan, New Zealand, Russia, South Korea and the United States -- along with ASEAN special observer Papua New Guinea.

In five annual meetings, the Forum has spurred confidence- building activities as wide ranging as disaster relief and exchange of defense information.

To the increasing dismay of some members, it has failed to make inroads in resolving or at least tempering flare-ups in the region.

ASEAN has also been criticized for maintaining its preponderance over the Forum. ASEAN claims to be the Forum's driving engine and monopolizes its leadership.

ASEAN foreign ministers, in a two-day meeting that preceded the forum, began to recognize that some changes were required.

"It's all very well stating that we wish to safeguard our core position as leaders of our own initiatives like the ARF, (but) can we offer more than a claim on historical rights?" Brunei foreign minister Mohamad Bolkiah remarked.

"Can we produce the outstanding ideas and well-researched proposals which mean we are leading by the virtue of quality of performance?"

Guidelines

One problem with the Forum is that ASEAN may have tried to model it too much around the regional grouping's deliberative, evolutionary process of not tackling problems head-on, but rather working on areas of convergence.

This may work very well for ASEAN, but not in a Forum with members as divergent as China, Russia and the United States.

An overly sluggish pace could see non-ASEAN foreign ministers lose patience with the forum.

"The central dilemma really is the pace of the development as it evolves from one stage to another," Jayakumar said.

On Friday, ASEAN ministers signaled their desire to progress with the Forum from CBMs to preventive diplomacy before eventually entering the stage of conflict resolution.

However, on Sunday it was revealed that actual implementation may be some time away.

"There's a group working on the definition of CBMs and preventive diplomacy," said Filipino foreign minister Domingo Siazon.

An ASEAN delegate who asked not to be named pointed out that the establishment of guidelines and procedures for preventive diplomacy involves a complex web of principles.

Guidelines for the peaceful settlement of disputes would have to be established taking account of the United Nations Charter and ASEAN's own Treaty of Amity and Cooperation.

Since the South China Sea is ASEAN's most immediate flash point, the grouping will be keen on having non-ASEAN members of ARF endorse ASEAN's Declaration on the South China Sea.

A multitude of issues are likely to come up in Monday's ARF meeting on Monday, as the setup allows anything to be introduced.

Records show that last year no less then 20 different subjects were officially brought up during the meeting, ranging from the Korean Peninsula, Cambodia, anti-personnel mines, nuclear non- proliferation, Myanmar, East Timor and the South China Sea.

U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said on Sunday that she intends to bring numerous issues to the discussion.

Among other things, "the United States will be stressing on the need to stop the trafficking of women and girls", she told journalists.

The unidentified ASEAN delegate remarked that despite the criticism and sluggish pace of the ARF, it had one undeniable quality in that it allowed foreign ministers with regional interests to interact directly.

"Either in the forum or bilaterally on the sidelines, they get to go face to face. There's less misunderstanding if you're talking directly to each other than shouting through the telephone or through stern official government statements," the delegate said.