Asia-Pacific strategic development

Asia-Pacific strategic development

By Jusuf Wanandi

The following article is based on a paper presented at a
seminar on "One Southeast Asia in a New Regional and
International Setting" on Sept. 18 in connection with the silver
anniversary of the Center for Strategic and International
Studies.

JAKARTA: The challenge for the Asia-Pacific in the future is
how to create a regional order with its supporting institutions.
This will enable the region not only to continue with its
remarkable economic development, but more so to ensure that peace
and stability, which have a dialectical relationship with the
region's economic dynamism, can also be maintained.

The economic growth in the region has been a vital factor
for giving the region its optimism, self-confidence and a certain
sense of common destiny, which are important factors in the
development of regionalism in the Asia-Pacific. Besides that, the
legitimacy of all the regimes in the region depends to a certain
extent on their economic achievements. That is why the economic
factor is very important to support regionalism in the Asia-
Pacific. Peace and stability, on the other hand, are an important
prerequisite for the maintenance of economic growth and dynamism
in the region, but also depend on how fast economic growth will
be in the region. Thus, economic growth and peace-stability are
mutually reinforcing.

On future politico-security architecture of the region,
there are several ideas being put forward. A system of bilateral
confrontation as has been known during the Cold War is thought to
have passed, but the one in which a single superpower will be
able to organize the world or become a global policeman is also
not in the offing.

One new idea is that of a new type of modified concert of
power among the great powers -- namely China, Japan, Russia, the
U.S. and ASEAN -- who have the right and obligation to keep peace
and stability in the region. This idea is based on the argument
that a balance of power based on the European model a la the end
of the 19th century and early 20th century is not stable. It is
also argued that the relationship among and leadership of a few
is a better proposition for stability than a "promiscuous"
balance of power as has been known.

But what was possible in the beginning of the 19th century
in Europe is definitely not possible at the end of the 20th
century. This is mainly due to the idea of democratization among
the nations. If even maintenance of veto power of permanent
members of the UN Security Council is being opposed, it can be
expected that the idea that nations and states are not equal will
also be opposed.

It is impossible to expect that the great powers mentioned
above can agree on how to organize the region and are willing to
cooperate to do so.

Another new idea is that of building a community in the Asia-
Pacific. It has been aired by several leaders, including
President Clinton, although not all might have the same idea
about the type of community to be in the region. The idea is not
the same as that developed in Europe, with the European Union
(EU) as its central point. It will be a much more looser
cooperation because of the regions' diversity and heterogeneity.

But a new sense of regionalism, mainly but not only based on
economic integration and dynamism, will give the idea a real
impetus. For the foreseeable future, the idea is going to be
based on APEC-PECC and ARF-CSCAP institutions as the central
point of cooperation. It will be a process which is going to be
pragmatic, a step by step approach, where institutions will
result from the process. For practical reasons, the economic and
the politico-security parts of its activities are separated. But
since the main organizations which form the center point are
mainly the same in both institutions, some coordination is
expected among the two parts. The building of an Asia-Pacific
Community is a more realistic goal for the region, because this
will allow all parts of the region to participate fully in its
activities.

The region is still in a transition period from a bipolar
Cold War situation into a more multipolar cooperative security
arrangement. This change can take some time to develop, and there
is no guarantee that one system of security arrangement is going
to be established soon to replace the previous bipolar strategic
situation. What could be expected is that there will be an
overlapping and hopefully coordinated system of several security
arrangements.

First, there is the system of bilateral alliances, based on
the presence of the U.S. Of all these bilateral alliances, the
Japan-U.S. Security Treaty is certainly the most important and
vital to the region. And it is imperative that this is
maintained. The adjustments in this relationship that are now
taking place are a very important part of the efforts of both
sides to make them relevant to public opinion in their respective
countries. Here, regional support and burden sharing are an
important part in the effort to find a new rationale for the
alliance.

Even China accepts the alliance as needed temporarily in
order to keep Japan in a security arrangement. Indonesia, which
is very much in the non-aligned mode of thinking, has come to
realize that efforts to establish a cooperative security
arrangement in the region will take some time, and that
maintaining the alliance during the transitional period is vital
to the stability and peace of the region. That is why Indonesia
has helped share the burden, with the other ASEAN countries,
following the termination of the U.S. bases agreement with the
Philippines.

The U.S. military forward deployment will have to be
adjusted, due to strategic circumstances (especially if a
peaceful reunification of Korea should be concluded), and
technological developments. But the U.S., being a Pacific power
in its own right, is likely to maintain some military presence in
the region for the foreseeable future, in order to exert its
influence.

In the end, a cooperative security arrangement is only
possible if there is a certain balance of power present in the
region. This is not in the old European balance of power concept
of the end of the 19th Century and beginning of the 20th Century,
which is confrontational and "promiscuous", but will involve a
low-key presence of the four or five great powers in the region
to prevent a real hegemony or only one superpower from developing
and dominating without mercy. In this context, the U.S., which is
accepted as a benign great power by the region, is vital to the
region in the envisaged future balance of power.

The second element of the current security system in the
region is the effort to establish a cooperative security
arrangement. This is what the ARF is trying to do. The ARF is now
at a stage of creating confidence- building measures and
preventive diplomacy activities, trying to prevent tensions and
potential conflicts from becoming military conflicts. Over the
medium term, the intent is for the ARF also to become a mechanism
for conflict resolution.

Crucial to this effort is the acceptance and participation of
all the great powers, especially China, in ASEAN's ARF
initiative. China's participation is especially critical because
China is the emerging great power that has previously been
isolated and that still has to prove to be willing and able to
become a responsible great power in the region. So far, China has
done very well and is now participating actively in all CBM
efforts agreed upon at the ARF meeting in Brunei, including
producing a "defense white paper". China's Taiwan policy could be
arguable in this respect, depending on whether one considers it a
special case or not, meaning whether or not it is accepted as an
internal problem to be solved by both sides across the strait.

For the time being, ASEAN thinks that it should continue to
manage the ARF, because ASEAN has relevant ideas and has been an
example of such a multilateral institution. The region has also
just started to think about how to establish a multilateral
cooperative security arrangement. And none of the great powers is
both in the position to take the lead and be acceptable to the
whole region.

How the ARF's structure evolves over the longer term is
another question. In part, this will depend on how comfortable
ASEAN, as the representative of small and medium powers in the
region, feels about how this process develops. Another factor
will be the extent to which the great powers really want to
participate.

The third element of the present Asia-Pacific security
structure is the implementation of the collective security
principles under the UN system in the region. This is set out in
Chapter VIII of the UN Charter, and has been stressed by the
secretary-general in his Agenda for Peace. It has been obvious
for the last few years that even an invigorated UN is not
adequately equipped to deal with so many new problems, which are
mostly regional in nature. A global security arrangement under
the UN simply can no longer do the whole job alone.

That is why the UN needs regional institutions and
arrangements to assist and complement its collective security
principles and policies. This is already being done by NATO, OSCE
and the EU in the Balkans. The ARF should aim to be able to
perform the same functions in the Asia-Pacific in the longer
term. It is encouraging in this regard that one of ARF's current
intersessional workshops is looking at peacekeeping for the Asia-
Pacific region.

But collective security is a part of a cooperative security
arrangement, and cooperative security which has no collective
security, in the last resort, is toothless. Each has to
complement the other.

The challenge for the future is how to make all these
existing arrangements -- bilateral, regional and global -- relate
to and reinforce each other. As the so-called "alphabet soup" of
regional institutions in Europe has faced the same problems, it
should be wise for the Asia-Pacific region to begin to think
about the interconnections even before all the arrangements have
taken off.

Jusuf Wanandi is chairman of the Supervisory Board and Member
of the Board of Directors, CSIS.