Habibie's dream: Rivalry a problem

Habibie's dream: Rivalry a problem

By Michael Perry

SYDNEY (Reuter): A senior Indonesian minister's dream of an Asia-Pacific defense industry is likely to be shattered because of historical rivalry and a disparity of industrial development in the region, defense analysts said.

But bilateral joint ventures, making Asia-specific weaponry and systems, are likely to emerge as the region develops a sense of community through bodies like the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Regional Security Forum and Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum.

Indonesian Research and Technology Minister B.J. Habibie last week raised the idea of an Asia-Pacific defense industry in the next century, with countries like Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore jointly producing a regional fighter.

"I think it is an imaginative idea but there are a lot of obstacles," said Michael O'Connor, executive director of the Australian Defense Association, a private research body.

Asia's history of conflicts, from Japan's invasion of China to World War II and the Vietnam War, has left Asian nations suspicious of close military ties, analysts said.

Tensions over the Spratly islands continue to paint China as a regional threat, they added.

Major differences in industrial development and the absence of regional standards for military production, like the North Atlantic Treaty Organization standard in Europe, also pose problems for joint ventures.

"I would have thought there was too great a divergence of technologies and national aims," said a Jakarta analyst.

A regional industry is seen as being unwieldy. "If the Europeans, with vastly more sophisticated industries, cannot coordinate a much smaller geographical area, how can Asia do it?" the Jakarta analyst said.

Analysts said the modernization of Asian defense forces, notably by China, Taiwan and South Korea, is a short-term event, a product of surplus military equipment after the Cold War era and not reflective of a growing defense market.

North Asian nations are the largest weapons-makers in the region, but often for domestic consumption, analysts said.

South Korea launched its fifth submarine last month and plans to spend about US$735 million on four more by 2000, to be built by South Korea's Daewoo Heavy Industries Co. with technical help from Germany's Howaldtwerke Deutsche Werft.

South Korea has imported 12 F-16 Falcon fighters made by Lockheed Corp and plans local assembly of 36 more by Samsung Aerospace Industries Ltd. and 72 others by another local firm.

South Asia traditionally focuses on small arms, vessels and aircraft, but is now working on hi-tech systems. Yet the urgency of modernization has South Asia looking at beefing up arsenals rather than long-term projects, analysts said.

"You have to find a project, sit down and work out the details. That takes time and there is little of that available for many countries at the moment," said a Philippine analyst.

Some analysts said defense industries are becoming less important as Asian nations embrace security cooperation.

"What you will tend to see is, instead of the implementation of some grandiose plan, the development of a large number of relatively small projects in the region," O'Connor said.

A Philippines company has a joint venture to build British Simba armored personnel carriers, initially for local use but also to be exported to other countries in region.

Taiwan is to open military aircraft maintenance business to the private sector to develop its aerospace industry.

Singapore's state-linked Ordnance Development and Engineering is to build a new long-range 155mm field gun and plans to take part in regional arms shows.

Australia is bidding to construct naval patrol boats for Malaysia, which would be built in both countries, and hopes to sell its Collins-class submarines into the region.

"I think Habibie has got a vision there, but it is not going to be packaged into a single defined plan," O'Connor said. "It is an attempt to build up another Europe in this part of the world, but less formalized, one that befits the Asian consensus way of doing things," he added.