Preventive diplomacy in Aisa-Pacific

By Hasjim Djalal

This is the second of two articles based on a paper presented at the International Symposium on Preventive Diplomacy in the Asia-Pacific region, jointly organized in Beijing from July 20 to July 21, 1998, by the Japan Forum on International Relations and the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations. The views expressed in this article are personal.

JAKARTA (JP): Implementing programs and projects has become a major problem at both the South China Sea Workshops (SCSW) and the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), even though they have been agreed upon.

For some years, there was difficulty in the SCSW in the implementation of programs and projects not only due to financial reasons but also due to political and legal considerations.

Some participants felt that implementation of specific projects by governments or authorities may involve territorial disputes, despite the fact that the SCSW had long agreed that the implementation should not prejudice any territorial or jurisdictional claims.

Fortunately, the eighth meeting of the SCSW in Puncak, West Java, in December 1997 agreed to concentrate and to begin the process of implementation. The participants also agreed to ask their respective authorities to specify and quantify their contribution to the implementation of the projects, either in terms of expertise, facilities or finance.

In addition, already since its fourth workshop in Surabaya, East Java, in August 1993, the SCSW had agreed that "non-South China Sea states and other regional or global organizations would be invited, if necessary, to be involved and to participate in the realization of specific projects of cooperation".

The ARF would be able to cooperate and help the SCSW in this process of implementation because by so-doing, the ARF would be helping itself.

It is, therefore, clear that most, if not all, of the process of Confidence Building Measures and Preventive Diplomacy, as envisaged by the ARF, have already been carried out or are being discussed in SCSW.

It should be clear that some cooperation and coordination would have to be undertaken between the SCSW as an informal mechanism and the ARF as a formal mechanism. Indonesia's Minister of Foreign Affairs Ali Alatas already recognized this issue when he opened the eighth workshop in Puncak in December 1997.

In fact, ARF had also recognized this when it repeatedly "noted the positive contribution made by the workshop on Managing Potential Conflict in the South China Sea", and expressed the need to be apprised of the activities of the SCSW through the current chairman of the Tract One activities, who will be the main link between Tract One and Tract Two activities. It is time now that the ARF should also involve the work of the SCSW in its activities and, if possible, to mutually support each other and avoid duplication of activities.

The traditional ARF wisdom now is that the development of Conflict Resolution Mechanism is not something for the immediate future, although it is the "eventual goals" of the ARF. The ARF is stuck with the principles of "graduality", "evolutionary" and at "a phase comfortable to all participants".

This is a cautious attitude and may be a wise one up to this point. However, history is full of examples that being too wise and too cautious may, in the end, be too late to avert any potential conflict from worsening and erupting into unmanageable proportion.

While the mood in the Asia-Pacific region is good and the atmosphere for cooperation is conducive, and while time is "plenty", the ARF should begin to work more seriously into the development of Conflict Resolution Mechanism, namely to find out and devise a mechanism that would be suitable to the Asia-Pacific region for now and for the future.

The future situation in the Asia-Pacific region in some accounts is still very fluid. Only in July, 1997, the fourth ARF in Subang Jaya, Malaysia, applauded that "the spread of prosperity (in the Asia-Pacific region) has laid a solid foundation for political stability in the region ".

Now, just one year later, many countries in the region are in financial and economic turmoil, while their political and security implications to the Asia-Pacific region as a whole have not yet been fully comprehended. It is still to be observed whether the financial and economic crisis now in the West Pacific would strengthen or weaken the Asia-Pacific fabric of cooperation and cohesion.

After more than eight years attempting to informally manage potential conflicts in the South China Sea through the promotion of cooperation within the context of promoting Confidence Building Measures and Preventive Diplomacy as generally understood, a few lessons can be drawn as follows.

* Bigger countries in the region should be mindful of the views of their neighbors, especially the smaller ones. The bigger countries should be careful so that they are not perceived to be dominating or bullying their smaller neighbors.

* Attempts should be made to broaden the participants in cooperative programs and deepen the areas of cooperation, while at the same time, promote growth of the regional states. The more the cooperative effort develop economic contents for mutual benefits, the more likely the effort to be more successful. The approach should be inclusive rather than exclusive.

* There should be more emphasis on regional and common interests. The countries of the region should learn how to pursue their national interests within their regional harmony. In fact, they should perceive the pursuit of regional interests as parts of their national interests.

* There should be a gradual progression of the concept of national resilience to the promotion of the concept of regional resilience and regional cohesion. The ASEAN's positive experiences in this regard have been very instructive.

* The countries in the region should be less sensitive to the concept of national sovereignty, since more and more issues which in the past might arguably be of a national character, now they are becoming more and more regional and having more regional implications -- such as environmental issues, some domestic political stability issues and even some monetary and financial issues, as shown recently in Southeast Asia.

* Within the true sense of oriental good neighbor, the countries in the region should be able to be helpful to the neighbors in need if required.

* The countries in the region should avoid an arms race among themselves. In fact, they should be able to coordinate their defense need, thus bolstering regional harmony and transparency.

* Major external powers, wherever possible and practicable, should support the development of a constructive atmosphere in the region for peace, stability and progress.

* Countries in the region should exercise preventive diplomacy by preventing disputes from becoming open-armed conflicts or by preventing a conflict from spreading or aggravating.

* Countries in the region should develop cooperative efforts so that potential conflicts could be managed by converting them to actual cooperation, since any potential conflict also contains in itself elements for cooperation.

* Countries in the region should develop various fora for dialog, either bilateral or multilateral, formal or informal. The various fora for dialog should hopefully, in the end, be able to produce a set of agreed codes of conduct for the region.

* Countries should pursue various avenues of peaceful settlement of disputes through negotiation, either bilateral if the disputes are bilateral, or multilateral if the disputes are multilateral.

* Third-party mechanism for disputes settlement should also be explored and utilized, such as good offices, mediation, arbitration and even, if necessary, adjudication through the international court of justice or law of the sea tribunal. The ASEAN Treaty of Amity and Cooperation had already formulated certain mechanism for dispute settlement among ASEAN countries. A new mechanism for the Asia-Pacific region as a whole should be considered, either by drawing from the treaty or from other models.

* The countries in the region should attempt to settle their land, maritime and jurisdictional boundaries as soon as possible and respect the agreed boundaries. They should not settle boundary problems through unilateral enactment of national legislation because enacting legislation tends to harden a position rather than enabling the parties to seek a solution.

* In some disputed areas, the application of he Joint Development concept might be useful as long as the zone of the dispute is or can be identified.

* While encouraging Tract One activities in the Asia-Pacific region to be more responsive and imaginative to deal with the potential conflict, more discussion by the Tract Two, including by academics and think tanks could also be helpful.

* The interests of nonregional countries should be taken into account, and their potential contribution to avoid conflict or potential conflict in the region should not be discarded altogether.

Dr. Hasjim Djalal is an Ambassador at Large for the Law of the Sea and Maritime affairs and also the initiator of the South China Sea Workshop.