Balancing power in and outside the ARF
Balancing power in and outside the ARF
The recent progress made by the ASEAN Regional Forum might well
be reversed by a combination of factors, institutional and
geopolitical. Amitav Acharya examines the subject
The second meeting of the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), held in
Brunei on Aug. 1, may well be remembered as a landmark event in
the evolution of Asia-Pacific security cooperation. This is not
so much because of the list of security measures adopted by the
ARF in Brunei. In fact, the ARF ministers selected only a handful
of items from the elaborate list of proposals contained in a
Concept Paper prepared by ASEAN following year-long consultations
among ARF members.
The Brunei agenda called for exchanging information on annual
defense postures on a voluntary basis, increasing dialogs on
security issues on bilateral, sub-regional and regional bases,
maintaining senior-level contacts and exchanges among military
institutions, and encouraging participation of the ARF members in
the UN Conventional Arms Register.
But the Brunei meeting might be remembered for two other and
arguably more significant events, both of which preceded the ARF
meeting. The first was Vietnam's formal entry into ASEAN.
Although a mixed blessing, this considerably strengthens the
grouping's clout and bargaining power, especially in dealing with
the larger powers within the ARF, including China. The
potentially more important development was what some ASEAN
ministers saw as a notable shift in China's position on the South
China Sea dispute. In Brunei, Chinese Foreign Minister Qian
Qichen hinted that Beijing was now willing to discuss the dispute
multilaterally with ASEAN. He also seemed to accept the Law of
the Sea as a basis for negotiations to resolve the dispute.
Whether these statements, described by Philippine Foreign
Secretary Domingo Siazon as "good signals" from China, will
become official Chinese policy is far from certain. The signs are
that the so-called shift in China's position on territorial
issues may be more apparent than real. While the Chinese Foreign
Minister was trying to appear conciliatory, his spokesman Shen
Guofeng reasserted an old position affirming China's
"indisputable sovereignty over the islands and their adjacent
waters". In his view, the ARF was "not an appropriate place" for
discussions on the issue since, in his words, "the most effective
way to handle this dispute is through bilateral negotiations".
The episode reflects the dilemmas of Chinese policy towards
multilateral security cooperation in the Asia-Pacific. While
unwilling to sacrifice national interests and pride, China is
clearly feeling the pressure from ARF members to compromise more
on this sensitive issue. By making an effort to sound
conciliatory, China clearly seeks to avoid being isolated within
the ARF. For China, the political costs of defection from a
multilateral security forum like the ARF have begun to outweigh
the strategic benefits accruing from an uncompromising
territorial posture.
Apart from the South China Sea issue, the Brunei meeting did
provide some insight into the ARF's long-term plans. The latter
envisages three phases of security cooperation: confidence-
building, preventive diplomacy and "elaboration of approaches to
conflicts". The original draft of the ASEAN concept paper listed
the third stage as one of "conflict resolution", but the change
was made as a concession to China which had warned against rapid
institutionalization of the ARF.
The meeting also decided to set up three working groups, one
dealing with confidence-building measures (to be chaired by
Indonesia and Japan), another dealing with peacekeeping
operations (co-chaired by Malaysia and Canada) and a third one on
search-and-rescue cooperation (led by Singapore and the U.S.).
These groups are expected to play an important role in developing
concrete steps towards greater security cooperation beyond what
was already adopted in Brunei.
The Brunei meeting underscored the close linkage between
bilateralism and multilateralism in Asia-Pacific security
cooperation. A multilateral setting can both encourage and
provide a useful venue for serious efforts at bilateral problem-
solving. Although the meeting between Qian Qichen and Warren
Christopher produced no breakthrough in dealing with the fallout
of Taiwanese President Lee Teng-hui's visit to the U.S., the very
fact that it was held underscores the usefulness of the ARF and
the ASEAN ministerial consultations in providing a conducive
institutional setting. Similarly, the meeting between the Foreign
Ministers of China and the Philippines was an important step
towards avoiding further tensions over the Spratly Islands.
The Brunei meeting confirmed that ASEAN remains cautious about
deepening the scope and pace of security cooperation in the Asia-
Pacific region. The adoption of more intrusive measures of
confidence-building remains a distant prospect. At the same time,
however, the Brunei meeting signaled a significant widening of
ASEAN's (and the ARF's) security horizons. Malaysia's strong
voicing of concern over the Bosnian situation and the intense
criticism directed against French nuclear testing in the South
Pacific by most ARF members are indicative of the development of
the ARF as a debating venue for global security issues.
But ultimately, a larger membership and wider security agenda
might also pose serious challenges for ASEAN, the self-proclaimed
"primary driving force" behind the ARF. The advent of the ARF
represents a significant broadening of ASEAN hitherto inward-
looking and sub-regional political and security agenda. An
expanded ASEAN makes it more difficult for the group to achieve
consensus on key issues, as the Foreign Minister of Singapore
noted in Brunei.
More ominously, Malaysia's Foreign Minister spoke of growing
disunity within ASEAN over developments in the wider Asia-Pacific
region. His reference to a lack of "resolve" on the part of ASEAN
to "stay united in the face of certain pushes and pulls exerted
upon it by the dynamics of international politics and diplomacy",
was an implicit criticism of fellow ASEAN members who had failed
to back Malaysia's own regional and international initiatives,
particularly the East Asian Economic Caucus proposal.
Apart from questions of unity, ASEAN may have reason to fear
losing control of the ARF to the grouping's larger and more
powerful actors. The ARF is an oddity in one important respect.
It is the only regional security forum in which all the major
powers of the contemporary international system are represented
(if one accepts the representation of Britain, France and Germany
through the EU).
It is also a rare case where leadership in institution-
building has been provided by a collection of weaker states.
ASEAN facilitated the creation of the ARF by providing it with a
suitable institutional setting and anchoring it on its own long-
standing code of inter-state behavior.
While as a collective ASEAN carries significant diplomatic and
political clout within the ARF, its ability to prevail over the
major powers such as China and the U.S. on hard strategic issues
might be limited. The fate of the ARF might well be decided by
the shifting balance of structural strength among the major
powers in the region, rather than by ASEAN's painstaking and
sincere efforts at providing normative and entrepreneurial
leadership.
This danger is especially apparent when one looks at ASEAN's
approach to the all important question of how to deal with
resurgent Chinese power. Under present circumstances, ASEAN's
preferred policy of "engaging" China is perhaps better than the
alternative of "containing" it. But this policy assumes that
China is willing to be engaged on terms set out by ASEAN. If
China is not, then an engagement policy could become an excuse
for inaction and mask a lack of resolve in dealing with the
realities such as China's displacement of the regional balance of
power. An ASEAN-led ARF can be good for debate and discussions,
but might ultimately have a limited ability to influence the
balance among the major powers, a key determinant of regional
stability.
Dr. Amitav Acharya is an Associate Professor of Political Science
at York University, Canada.