Asian crisis threatens stability

Asian crisis threatens stability

CANBERRA (Reuters): Asia's financial crisis could undermine
regional stability by affecting the military strength of Asia's
middle and smaller powers, Australian Foreign Minister Alexander
Downer said on Tuesday.

Downer said Australia did not see any immediate threat of
military conflict in the region because of the crisis, but the
full implications would not be seen for some time.

"We don't think it will have a significant impact on strategic
relativities between the major regional powers of the United
States, China and Japan," Downer told a foreign investor
conference in Canberra.

"But there may be some impact on the relative power of middle
and smaller powers and changed economic relativities might
undermine the cohesiveness the region had been able to achieve."

His comments come at a time of heightened tension in parts of
the region. Japan said it had identified two rogue ships which
fled after violating its territorial waters last week as North
Korean spy ships. North Korea on Monday accused Japan of faking
the incident.

Diplomatic ties between China and the United States have been
strained after Washington decided to sponsor a United Nations
resolution to censure Beijing over human rights abuses.

Relations were already sour over several disputes, including
the alleged theft by China of U.S. nuclear technology.

"The implications of the economic crisis for regional security
will take some time to become fully apparent, and will in any
case depend on how long the crisis lasts and how heavy an impact
it has on different countries," Downer said.

"The least we can say is that our strategic environment is now
less certain and much more complex," he said.