IISS brings West closer to East

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.