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.