Two strategic developments will affect peace, stability in the region

Jusuf Wanandi, Jakarta

For the East Asia/Asia-Pacific regions two main strategic trends will influence the future peace and stability -- the key requirements for maintaining the areas' economic growth.

The first trend is the strategic presence of the U.S. in East Asia and the future adjustments that are made imperative by the revolution of military affairs and the restructuring of the department of defense operations.

Since World War II, the U.S. has been the dominant power in the Asia Pacific region. Its presence has provided the underpinning for the region's peace and stability both during and after the Cold War. As the only superpower, U.S. "hegemony" is very real and is strongly felt in the region, where the U.S. has become the arbiter of maintaining peace and stability. Every country in the region, including China, recognizes the US' presence and its role in encouraging peace and stability.

After the Cold War was over, there was a debate in the U.S. body politic about the peace dividend and the future strategic role of the U.S. in the world and in regions including East Asia. More recently, to prevent instabilities the Nye program under president Bill Clinton proposed the 100,000 U.S. troops in the region be maintained.

Due to changes of strategy, structure and operations of the U.S. military and in dealing with new threats and security issues, namely global terrorism and weapons of mass destruction (WMD), the U.S. is now more than ever militarily present in the region, although operational deployments are being adjusted. Consultations on these adjustments are ongoing and are needed to prevent misunderstandings on the part of U.S. allies and friends.

The second strategic development in East Asia is regional community building. This has been driven mainly by the economic integration of the region that began with the second wave of Japanese investments in the mid-1980s. For the time being, community building will rest on economic cooperation, which has become the region's main agenda since the financial crisis in East Asia in 1997.

One major development is in the financial field, based on the Chiang Mai Agreement, to create self-help facilities that can help prevent and overcome financial crises in the region in the future. The free trade agreements being negotiated between ASEAN and China and between ASEAN and Japan should be seen as a part of these efforts. In addition, several areas of functional cooperation, such as coping with SARS and the avian flu, have enhanced the region's sense of solidarity.

The vision of an East Asian Community is first and foremost about achieving peace, stability and progress in East Asia. It has three main strategic objectives.

First, to create a regional institution that can accommodate a rising China as a constructive member of the region and to enable China to develop into a full status-quo power.

Second, to assist in the normalization between China and Japan, the two major powers in the region and the two potential leaders of the East Asian Community.

Third, to assist in alleviating the possibility of future confrontation between the U.S. and China when China becomes an economic-military superpower in its own right during the next few decades.

For this to happen a lot of effort is needed for East Asians to convince the U.S. this new regional entity is not against its interests or plans to limit the U.S. presence in the region. Being the closest ally of the U.S., Japan has a pivotal role to play to make the East Asian Community acceptable to the U.S.

The principle of open regionalism should be adhered to by this new regional entity. This is in the region's own interest, given its dependence on the global economy. East Asia should support efforts to revitalize the APEC process, the primary Asia Pacific regional institution where the U.S. is playing an important role. It should also convince others outside the region, especially the U.S., that East Asian regionalism is part of an effort to support a global regime for peace and prosperity. East Asia will cooperate with Europe and the Western Hemisphere to build such a global regime.

In fact, the two main strategic trends in East Asian should not confront each other, but they should complement each other in creating peace, stability and progress in East Asia and the wider Asia Pacific region. But for that to become a reality, relations between the two major regional powers, namely China and Japan, should be normalized and the U.S. should be convinced that this new East Asian regional institution is not against its interests.

This will take time, and therefore, the idea of an East Asian Community will move forward only step by step, first in the economic field, and later in the political-security field. ASEAN can support the process by a readiness to transform the ASEAN + 3 (China, Japan and South Korea) cooperation into a more full- fledged East Asian cooperation and community building, which should involve institutionalization as well.

ASEAN can support this process by getting its own house in order. In so doing ASEAN, in cooperation with South Korea, could again play an important role as the catalyst to accelerate the process of cooperating, since the two big powers are at present not in the position to do so. Accelerated cooperation could assist in assuring the three strategic objectives mentioned above, which are so critically important to the region, can be achieved within a reasonable time frame.

The implementation in the near future of the first step towards an ASEAN community sharing common economic, security and socio-political goals as decided upon by the Bali Concord II is critical for ASEAN credibility.

The writer is co-founder and a member of the board of trustees of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).