IISS brings West closer to East

By Jusuf Wanandi

SINGAPORE (JP): The 39th annual conference of the International Institute for Strategic Studies held here from Sept. 11 to 14 was indeed a feast of intellectual discourse and exchange.

It was an IISS annual meeting at its best for several reasons.

With the event being held in Singapore, only the third such meeting in the Asia Pacific after Japan and Korea, and another one either in Manila or in Jakarta in the year 2000, the IISS has come full circle and indeed has become a truly global institution.

Furthermore, 40 percent of its membership comes from the Asia Pacific, about one-third of its research work is on the region and one-third of its publications also covered the Asia Pacific region.

Five of the ten newspapers that publish IISS original articles are also in the Asia Pacific. These include The Jakarta Post and The Straits Times.

The image of an IISS that only covers the strategic balance between East and West and is considered of relevance only to the Atlantic alliance has become passe. It now participates actively in CSCAP and CAEC.

CSCAP, the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific, is a "second track" institution supporting the ASEAN Regional Forum, while CAEC is the Council for Asia Europe Cooperation, which avails itself to be of relevance to the Asia- Europe Meeting (ASEM) process through its policy oriented studies. Its involvement in both institutions shows how much attention the IISS is paying to the Asia Pacific region.

This annual conference has given a real opportunity for members from Europe and the U.S. to appreciate and understand strategic developments in the region. They also start to understand that the region, while being peaceful and stable in the short term, might face mighty challenges in the longer term.

In facing these challenges, not only the region but the U.S. and Europe also have a role to play. The main challenge to the region is China's rising power and how the region and the world will cope with it in the future.

In this respect the relations between the U.S. and China are of paramount importance, and have become the overriding issue discussed and analyzed in the plenary as well as in committees' sessions.

This problem is important, because a rising power of the magnitude of China will pose the challenge of how it can be absorbed into the regional and international systems. This is all the more so, because China has been isolated for so long, and only during the last 15 years it is trying very hard to be open and to be cooperative in the region as well as in the world in every field possible.

The way the discussions have been held in the plenary, especially between the U.S. and Chinese representative, on the future of China has been quite encouraging for the region. Not only was it frank and open, but also well-reasoned on both sides and very measured and civilized. If only the elites of both countries could do half of the exchanges at the conference, the relations will have been much improved.

But of course, there are other factors that give additional hope for the future: the dynamic economic growth of the region, although with some hiccups at present, but is likely to continue and stay as a very important pillar for community building in the Asia Pacific in the longer future.

ASEAN also has started a forum for dialogues and cooperation in the political security field called the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) to complement cooperation in the economic field.

It was based on the assumption that while so far security, stability and peace of the region have been based on bilateral alliances, especially the U.S.-Japan Alliance, this may no longer be adequate for the longer future.

Therefore it should be complemented by a cooperative security approach in the form of a multilateral regional institution for confidence building measures (CBMs) and preventive diplomacy, while in the medium term it could develop some conflict resolution mechanism for the region.

Questions have been raised whether those two instruments, namely bilateral alliances and ARF as a multilateral instrument, could be compatible and are not contradictory. Relations between the two instruments should be considered in a dialectical way, and it should balance each other until in the longer term a certain synthesis will arise from the two. Even theoretically it could be argued that the two are not contradictory.

The Chinese speaker in the conference explained that, while China in principle does not agree with alliances it has accepted the U.S.-Japan alliance in East Asia as a fact and condoned it so long as it is for the defense of the countries concerned. But if it is directed against another country, as the review of the alliance could come up with, such as in a conflict on the Taiwan Strait against China, then China has to react and will take counter actions.

Therefore, the U.S. and Japan should do more to alleviate the ambiguities caused by the review, among others to reaffirm a one China policy, to strengthen the strategic relations between U.S. and China and between China and Japan, to introduce greater transparency in the implementation of Japan's role, and to provide more support for multilateral efforts such as the ARF to create CBMs and cooperation in order to overcome the concerns of China and some other countries in East Asia as well.

On the ARF, China is now comfortable and it supports ASEAN's effort for multilateralism. At this stage of its development, the ARF is intended mainly to create CBMs and preventive diplomacy, to be able to create an environment in the region where tensions could be alleviated and conflicts be prevented or solved through bilateral or other ad hoc measures and instruments, which later could be supported or sanctioned by the ARF.

It will only be in the medium term, after more confidence has been created among its members and transparencies have been accepted as a normal activity, that the ARF could really become a mechanism to solve conflicts in the Asia Pacific.

In conclusion, it seems that the strategic trend in the Asia Pacific after the Cold War is a combination of a balance of power through alliances with the U.S., combined with certain elements of a "concert of power" because the three great powers (U.S., China and Japan).

And, also ASEAN, India and Russia in the future could have a decisive influence on strategic developments of the region, plus the building an Asian Pacific community, which will be much looser than the EU, due to the region's diversity.

Other issues including the role of the United States in the region, Japanese domestic politics and foreign policy, Korean politics and North East Asian security, India and its Asian role, plus China/Taiwan/Hong Kong relations and one China policy are also being discussed in depth. These countries and territories have a major impact on the region's future strategic developments.

All countries in the region, especially developing countries, face domestic problems and transformations, such as succession and opening up of the political system, that also can have an impact on the security of the region. That is why this topic was also discussed at length. Specific security issues were also taken up; these include Asia's energy needs and their security implications, and the revolution in military affairs and Asian security.

This conference has also been the first IISS conference where more East Asian specialists on security have been introduced and given the opportunity to let their views be known to their colleagues from Europe and the U.S.

It also has given them the opportunity to listen to and appreciate the views from Europe and the U.S. that have been expressed in a frank and sometimes skeptical way. This should be considered a necessity for Asian views to mature and to become more relevant in the future.

The IISS has done a most remarkable job in assembling such a talent in the conference. It also has given them an agenda which is up to date, wholesome, and of critical importance to the future of the Asia Pacific.

The writer is Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.