Asia Times: Long on security headaches, short on solutions



	July 28, 1999	atimes.com

Southeast Asia

Long on security headaches, short on solutions
By Isagani de Castro

SINGAPORE - Everybody agrees that security headaches are intensifying in Asia, but an agreement on how to deal with flashpoints and prevent and settle future conflicts is proving much harder to come by.

The list of security worries across the region - still recovering from a crippling financial crisis - range from tense ties between China and Taiwan, the India-Pakistan row over Kashmir, maneuvers in the disputed waters of the South China Sea and threats of a missile test launch by North Korea.

These worries are of no small import because, as Thai Foreign Minister Surin Pitsuwan says, the region needs to focus on recovering from Asia's crisis and "cannot afford" any major instability at this point.

The wide range of Asia's security concerns form the backdrop of the meetings in Singapore this week and last, among Southeast Asian foreign ministers and counterparts from East and South Asia and the West.

To ease the tension in the Taiwan Strait caused by Taiwanese President Lee Teng-hui's remarks on a reversal of the "one-China" policy, U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright chided Taipei and said Washington would stick to the one-China policy.

Foreign ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) reiterated the same in their communique over the weekend, expressing concern that cross-strait tensions were worrying the entire region.

The U.S. recently intervened in the clashes between India and Pakistan in the mountains of disputed Kashmir, a conflict that raised fears of a nuclear confrontation between the two rivals.

China's building of structures in the Spratly Islands and Malaysia's similar actions prompted Southeast Asian governments this week to agree to work on a code of conduct to prevent misunderstandings in the area.

On Tuesday, the U.S., South Korea and Japan met and called on North Korea not to test-launch a new missile it is reportedly developing. "They urged [North Korea] rather to choose to build a positive relation with its neighbors by foregoing such testing," said a statement issued after the meeting between Albright, South Korean Foreign Minister Hong Soon-young and Japanese Foreign Minister Koumura Masahiko.

Said Hong: "In case of another missile firing, there should be penalties. North Korea will find that they have to pay the price for this act of provocation."

For many diplomats, the answer in defusing these pockets of tension lies in having the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Regional Forum - assume a greater role in conflict prevention. Thus far, the 22-member ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) has been more of a talking club where countries talk frankly behind closed doors about security problems - but do little beyond that.

ARF is the only region-wide security forum in the Asia-Pacific. Members include China, the U.S., Japan, Russia, and India as well as ASEAN members Singapore, Thailand, Burma, Cambodia, Laos, the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, Brunei and Malaysia.

But the recent heightening of security concerns appears to have pushed ARF officials to say the forum is prepared to "manage" conflicts not just through the traditional means of "confidence-building measures" but also by utilizing "preventive diplomacy."

In the statement of the ARF chairman at the end of Monday's meeting, ministers from 22 countries endorsed proposals to "discuss the concept and principles of preventive diplomacy."

A Thai working paper suggests that parties to a dispute would, with their consent, be assisted in dispute resolution by other countries, especially if the row affects other ARF members.

The debate about where ARF should eventually go - and whether it should even go beyond discussion and into dispute resolution - has dogged ASEAN, its creator, since the forum's birth. A decision to "discuss" preventative diplomacy would appear to be a step forward. Yet on Tuesday, Singapore Foreign Minister and current ARF chairman S. Jayakumar noted there remains no consensus in the forum on the "pace" of this shift from confidence-building measures to preventive diplomacy.

"There are some who feel that we should move from confidence-building measures at a faster pace toward the state of preventive diplomacy," Jayakumar said. "There are others who are more cautious and would take an approach where they are clear about preventive diplomacy."

China, wary of anything that interferes with sovereignty issues, fears that a shift to preventive diplomacy would mean U.S. intervention in the Asian region on security problems. It has firmly refused to discuss the Spratlys dispute, for instance, as a multilateral issue.

Chinese Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan, in a statement submitted to the ARF chairman, said that while the regional economic situation has improved, "some destabilizing factors have developed further." Tang encouraged ARF to continue focusing on confidence-building measures.

"The Cold War mentality has by no means died out in the regional political and security arena. The tendencies of military alliances and resorting to intervention against the historical trend are growing. And the arms race has also shown the tendency of coming back," Tang said. He believed that the ARF "should continue to focus on the building of confidence."

Jayakumar said the problem is "different people have different conceptions and ideas as to what preventive diplomacy is." He added: "This might have given rise to apprehension that preventive diplomacy could be imposed against the will of a country which is party to a dispute."

Thus, ARF ministers endorsed proposals to further work out the concept of preventive diplomacy. "This is important because once ARF has clarified the concept and principles, then we'll know what it is we're talking about, what this creature 'preventive diplomacy' is," Jayakumar said. "Having defined it, and if possible, having gotten a consensus on what preventive diplomacy is for purposes of the ARF, then we can decide how fast we want to advance to that stage," he added.

In the quest for a more active ARF, many countries in the last few days also endorsed the idea of setting up a "good offices" role for the ARF chairman. ARF members involved in a dispute would call on the ARF chairman for assistance.

Albright said this "would be done on a strictly voluntary basis, and would be similar to the role played by the ASEAN Troika in Cambodia." The ASEAN Troika, composed of Indonesia, Thailand, and the Philippines, helped restore political stability in Cambodia after the 1996 ouster by Hun Sen of his co-premier, Prince Ranarridh.

ARF has come under criticism for not being more aggressive in settling disputes, but ASEAN officials believe that making it a formal forum too quickly might prompt some members to drop out and thus sever the annual dialogue they see as the forum's strength.

(Inter Press Service)

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