The Asia-Pacific Security Lexicon (Upated 2nd Edition) 9789812304971

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The

Asia-Pacific Security Lexicon

The Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS) was established as an autonomous organization in 1968. It is a regional centre dedicated to the study of socio-political, security and economic trends and developments in Southeast Asia and its wider geostrategic and economic environment. The Institute’s research programmes are the Regional Economic Studies (RES, including ASEAN and APEC), Regional Strategic and Political Studies (RSPS), and Regional Social and Cultural Studies (RSCS). ISEAS Publishing, an established academic press, has issued almost 2,000 books and journals. It is the largest scholarly publisher of research about Southeast Asia from within the region. ISEAS Publishing works with many other academic and trade publishers and distributors to disseminate important research and analyses from and about Southeast Asia to the rest of the world.

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UPDATED

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The

Asia- Pacific Security Lexicon DAVID CAPlE • PAUL EVANS

I5EI5 INSTITUTE OF SOUTHEAST ASIAN STUDIES

Singapore

First published in Singapore in 2007 by ISEAS Publishing Institute of Southeast Asian Studies 30 Heng Mui Keng Terrace Pasir Panjang Singapore 119614 E-mail: [email protected] Website: http://bookshop.iseas.edu.sg All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. © First edition 2002 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore. First Reprint 2002 Second Reprint 2003 Third Reprint 2005 Fourth Reprint 2006 © Second edition 2007 Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore. Second Edition 2007 The responsibility for facts and opinions in this publication rests exclusively with the authors and their interpretations do not necessarily reflect the views or the policy of the Institute or its supporters. ISEAS Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data Capie, David H., 1968 The Asia-Pacific security lexicon / David Capie and Paul Evans. (Issues in Southeast Asian security) 1. National security—Asia—Dictionaries. 2. National security—Pacific Area—Dictionaries. 3. Asia—Strategic aspects—Dictionaries. 4. Pacific Area—Strategic aspects—Dictionaries. I. Evans, Paul M. II. Title. UA830 C24 2007 ISBN 978-981-230-425-4 (soft cover) ISBN 978-981-230-497-1 (PDF) Cover photographs Top: Six-party talks at Diaoyutai State Guesthouse, Beijing, 18 December 2006. REUTERS/Frederic J. Brown/Pool Bottom: Demonstrations against a fuel price hike in Jakarta, 2 October 2000. REUTERS/Str Old Credit: Photos alt.TYPE/REUTERS Typeset in Singapore by Superskill Graphics Pte Ltd Printed in Singapore by Utopia Press Pte Ltd

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CONTENTS

Abbreviations Introduction to the Second Edition

vii xi

Ad Hoc Multilateralism A la Carte Multilateralism The “ASEAN Way” Balance of Power Bilateralism Coalition of the Willing Coercive Diplomacy Collective Defence Collective Security Common Security Comprehensive Security Concert of Powers Concerted Unilateralism Confidence-Building Measures Confidence- and Security-Building Measures

1 5 9 21 33 37 43 47 53 59 65 77 83 87 93

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CONTENTS

Constructive Intervention Cooperative Security Engagement Comprehensive Engagement Conditional Engagement Constructive Engagement Flexible Consensus Human Security Humanitarian Intervention Middle Power Multilateralism Mutual Security New Security Approach Non-Traditional Security Open Regionalism Peaceful Rise Pre-emption and Preventive War Preventive Diplomacy Security Community Terrorism Track One Track One-and-a-Half Track Two Track Three Transparency Trust-Building Measures

97 105 115

131 135 145 155 159 165 169 173 179 187 191 199 211 221 229 231 233 237 241 245

About the Authors

248

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ABBREVIATIONS

ABAC ABM ACD AFTA AMM ANZUS APA APCET APEC APSD ARF ASA ASEAN ASEM CAEC CANCHIS CASAP CBMs CDE CINCPAC

APEC Business Advisory Council Anti-Ballistic Missile - normally followed by “Treaty” Asian Cooperation Dialogue ASEAN Free Trade Agreement ASEAN Ministerial Meeting Australia, New Zealand, United States [Treaty] ASEAN People’s Assembly Asia-Pacific Coalition for East Timor Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation Asia-Pacific Security Dialogue ASEAN Regional Forum Association of Southeast Asia Association of Southeast Asian Nations Asia-Europe Meeting Council for Asia-Europe Cooperation Canada-China Seminar on Regional Multilateralism Council for Alternative Security in the Asia-Pacific confidence-building measures Conference on Disarmament in Europe Commander in Chief, U.S. Pacific Command vii

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ABBREVIATIONS

CPM CSBMs CSCA CSCAP

Communist Party of Malaysia confidence- and security-building measures Conference on Security and Cooperation in Asia Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe concerted unilateral action Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (Canada) Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (Australia) Democratic People’s Republic of Korea East Asia Economic Caucus East Asia Summit East Asia Strategy Initiative Eminent Persons Group European Union Five Power Defence Arrangements Group of Seven General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs gross domestic product gross national product House Resolution International Atomic Energy Agency International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty International Institute for Strategic Studies International Monetary Fund Incidents at Sea Agreement inter-sessional support group Institutes for Strategic and International Studies inter-sessional meeting Joint Centre for Asia Pacific Studies Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization Mutual Balanced Force Reduction Talks most-favoured-nation Ministry for International Trade and Industry Ministry of Finance Ministry of Foreign Affairs mutual reassurance measures

CSCE CUA DFAIT DFAT DPRK EAEC EAS EASI EPG EU FPDA G7 GATT GDP GNP HR IAEA ICISS IISS IMF INCSEA ISG ISIS ISM JCAPS KEDO MBFR MFN MITI MOF MOFA MRMs

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MST MTCR NAFTA NATO NEACD NEASD NEAT NEP NGOs NLD NPCSD NPT NSC ODA OSCE PAMS PBEC PBF PDSAP PECC PKO PLA PMC PRC ROK SAPA SARS SDF SDSC SEANWFZ SEATO SLOCs SLORC SOM SPDC START TAC TBMs TCOG U.N.

Mutual Security Treaty Missile Technology Control Regime North American Free Trade Agreement North Atlantic Treaty Organization Northeast Asia Cooperation Dialogue Northeast Asia Security Dialogue Network of East Asian Think-tanks New Economic Policy non-governmental organizations National League for Democracy North Pacific Cooperative Security Dialogue Non-Proliferation Treaty National Security Council official development assistance Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe Pacific Armies Management Seminar Pacific Basin Economic Council Pacific Business Forum Peace, Disarmament and Symbiosis in the Asia-Pacific Pacific Economic Cooperation Conference peacekeeping operations People’s Liberation Army Post-Ministerial Conference People’s Republic of China Republic of Korea Solidarity for Asian People’s Advocacy severe acute respiratory syndrome self-defence force Strategic and Defence Studies Centre Southeast Asia Nuclear Weapons Free Zone Southeast Asia Treaty Organization sea lines of communication State Law and Order Restoration Council Senior Officials Meeting State Peace and Development Council Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty Treaty of Amity and Cooperation trust-building measures Trilateral Coordination and Oversight Group United Nations ix

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ABBREVIATIONS

ABBREVIATIONS

UNDP U.S. USSR WMD WPNS WTO ZOPFAN

United Nations Development Programme United States Union of Soviet Socialist Republics Weapons of Mass Destruction Western Pacific Naval Symposium World Trade Organization Zone of Peace, Freedom and Neutrality

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INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND EDITION

A Singaporean academic once described the first edition of the Lexicon as “words from East Asian talk shops”. He may well be right. The book treats words seriously and, to paraphrase T.S. Eliot, continues to focus on their refusal to remain still. The first edition of the Asia-Pacific Security Lexicon was completed in late 2001 and appeared in 2002. It seemed to find an audience. More than 6,000 copies were sold in four years and the book has been reprinted four times. A Japanese translation by Akiko Fukushima was published in 2003 and translations have also been produced in Chinese, Korean, Mongolian, and Vietnamese. Our choice of terms in the first edition reflected a decade of creative institution-building and burgeoning multilateralism in the region. When we began research for the book in 1996, ASEAN had just seven members, the ASEAN Regional Forum was barely established and the first proposals for an East Asian regional grouping had been rejected six years earlier. By the time the book came out, we were able to look back on a decade in which multilateralism had taken root in the rhetoric and practice of Asia-Pacific security. xi

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Yet by 2001 it was clear that some of the gloss had gone from regional multilateralism. An ineffective response to the Asian economic crisis, inaction over environmental problems and the disunity brought about by ASEAN’s admission of new members, all raised serious questions about the effectiveness of cooperation on a regional basis. These doubts were compounded by the election in 2000 of a new U.S. administration that regarded multilateralism with deep scepticism, preferring bilateralism or ad hoc approaches to multilateral cooperation. This growing ambivalence towards multilateralism was reflected in changes in the regional security discourse. ASEAN’s traditional norm of non-interference was challenged by proponents of “flexible engagement” and “enhanced interaction”. The Bush administration’s director of policy planning declared a preference for “a la carte multilateralism”. The changes were further compounded by the terrorist attacks in the United States on 11 September 2001 (9/11) and later bombings in Indonesia. In its simplest form “multilateral” refers to interaction among more than two parties, usually defined as states. It can take a variety of institutional forms ranging from talks and consultations and can vary in its level of institutionalization from ad hoc and loose, to more permanent and formal. The basic philosophy of these small “m” approaches to multilateralism is that these processes are conceived as instruments for achieving specific national goals. Another approach to multilateralism can be classified as capital “M”. It sees multilateral institutions as a way of transforming state policies, not just implementing them, through a process of creating generalized principles of conduct that include indivisibility, non-discrimination and diffuse reciprocity. With it comes a belief in law, rules, transparency and binding obligations and often a commitment to strong organizational structures. States may be the most visible actors but effective multilateralism involves the support and engagement of multiple layers of non-state actors including epistemic communities, NGOs, civil society organizations, business, business associations, and social movements. In its most robust forms, multilateralism aims at creating new institutions beyond the sovereign nation state. For the past six years, small “m” multilateralism has had a moment in the sun while joined by a more assertive unilateralism. This second edition reflects the post 9/11 regional context, with new entries that provide insights into the use of the language of xii

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the “war on terror” in Asia. New terms in this revised edition include terrorism, pre-emption, preventive war, and coalition of the willing. Looking back on the selection of key terms we included in the first edition, we can see how vocabulary has evolved. Some expressions seem to have lost salience, while others have grown in influence and use. In the mid-1990s for example, there was enormous interest and debate around new security concepts like common, comprehensive, and cooperative security. They are still commonly used and have been internalized by a significant portion of security analysts and practitioners. But they do not evince as much energy and enthusiasm as a decade ago. Similarly, the dozens of various forms of “engagement” — usually used to describe U.S. policy towards China — also seem to have declined. In part this is because China’s resurgence in regional affairs and emergence as a global force makes a simple form of engagement appear anachronistic or redundant. China is not just an active participant in a host of regional processes, it is the initiator and facilitator of others including the Six-Party Talks and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Other terms that were only just emerging in regional security discourse five years ago have become more established. Concepts such as human security, non-traditional security, and China’s own contribution, the new security concept, have become much more widely used. Even those who reject the concepts have a clearer sense of their meaning, even as that meaning evolves. For this second edition, we have completely revised human security and the new security concept, and have updated almost all of the major entries. The Lexicon is not designed to explain why terms are used as they are or why they wax and wane. Words sit in an eternal triangle of action and power that lies beyond the scope of this project. But four trends stand out. The first is the influence of the Bush administration’s philosophy of foreign affairs. The focus on terrorism, the bi-modal imagery of friends and enemies, the preference for unilateral action or U.S.-led coalitions rather than more cumbersome inclusive multilateralism, the emphasis on state-to-state relations rather than civil society, human rights and democracy promotion — all resonated in regional discussions. The conservative tide found and reinforced the views of a good number of Asian adherents in governmental and Track-Two fora. xiii

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INTRODUCTION SECOND EDITION

THE

TO

INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND EDITION

The second is the centrality of China, both as a subject of security discussions and also as a progenitor of them. As a subject, the rise of China dominated Track-Two agendas. And as a progenitor of ideas, Chinese academics and officials made a major mark in promoting various ideas and initiatives in the area of “non-traditional” security issues. Indeed, they have helped bring “non-traditional” security into more traditional security discourse in contexts including CSCAP and the ARF. And these ideas have been part of China’s new-found reputation for soft power. Third, it remains the case that Southeast Asia is the ideational factory in which ideas are discussed, rejected, modified, and legitimated. As the promoters of what Anthony Milner has called a “relentless conversation”, Southeast Asian leadership in multilateral institutions including ASEAN, the ARF, CSCAP, APEC, ASEM and the ASEAN+3 and East Asia Summit processes still mean that most multilateral roads run through their region. Fourth, there are signs of a new South Asian, and especially Indian, presence in regional discourse. South Asians are increasingly involved in Asia-Pacific meetings, not just to shine a light on developments and issues in South Asia but also to engage the regional discussion. Among officials and in Track-Two settings, this presence has tended toward more traditional state-centric discourse and priorities. Among academics and in some TrackThree settings, there has been a strong emphasis on non-traditional and human security issues. The concepts used in regional discussions continue to contain creativity and innovation along with confusion, distortion, and misunderstanding. The purpose of the Lexicon remains to provide a handbook for practitioners and experts, not so much to resolve these tensions and disagreements as to make them clearer in the search for a genuinely consensual knowledge. Methodology The methodology used to create this revised edition was slightly different to the first one. Gathering sources between 1996 and 2001 usually meant relying heavily on hard copies of conference papers and speeches as well as newspaper accounts, books and academic articles. Today, a much greater range of sources is available through the Internet and electronic databases. In updating and expanding this edition we have relied heavily on electronic resources. While they have greatly widened the materials available xiv

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to us, we recognize that their use also perhaps means there is some selection bias in the sources included. Acknowledgements We have a number of people to thank for making this second edition possible. Ambassador K. Kesavapany, Director of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, agreed that a second edition would be useful and supported the project from the outset. Triena Ong managed the production of both the first edition and the revised edition of the Lexicon. It has been a pleasure to work with her. ISEAS hosted and funded a one-day workshop in December 2004, “Change and Continuity in the Regional Security Discourse”, that allowed us to review the new entries with a panel of fifteen experts from across Asia, among them Chowdhury Abrar, Mely Anthony-Caballero, Bui Quang Tran, Chin Kin Wah, Ralf Emmers, Hyun In-Taek, Kim Sung-Han, Kwa Chong Guan, Tan See Seng, Wang Yizhou, and Yu Xiaofeng. We appreciated their insightful comments and support. In addition, several academic colleagues have provided helpful suggestions and constructive criticism along the way. We would like especially to thank Amitav Acharya, Akiko Fukushima, Brian Job, and Xiaoming Huang. Finally, we would also like to acknowledge the research assistants who have contributed to the revision process over the last two years: Erin Williams, Julie MacArthur, Seth Bateman, Jenny Wigley and Natalia Mikhenker.

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AD HOC MULTILATERALISM

Multilateralism created for “a particular or specific purpose.”1 Sometimes also called “single-issue multilateralism”, the term was used by Robert Scalapino to describe collaborative mechanisms developed to deal with specific security problems in Eastern Asia prior to the existence of a functioning regional security institution.2 In particular, the term has been used in Asia to describe multilateral responses to security problems on the Korean peninsula and in Cambodia. Ad hoc multilateralism usually focuses on a single problem or issue and membership tends to be restricted to parties with a close link to the matter at hand. Scalapino’s initial use of the term focused on North Korea’s threat to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) during the first nuclear crisis. He argued that in the absence of a permanent peacemaking or peacekeeping institution in Northeast Asia, ad hoc multilateral arrangements limited to particular issue areas had to be organized to deal with the crisis. In the Korean case, this process involved complex shuttle diplomacy between the foreign ministers and leaders of the United States, Japan, China, and the two Koreas. It also included a key role for non-state actors including institutions such as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the Korean Peninsula 1

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Energy Development Organization (KEDO). Scalapino characterized the interactions between the parties as involving the construction of ad hoc arcs formed in concentric manner over a particular issue. He describes a series of interactions that take place among and between diverse parties, from the most essential to the more peripheral, but in each case stemming from a sense of national interest. In his view, arcs, not circles, represent the most appropriate metaphor since the different levels must be open-ended so that contact can be maintained among and between them.3 Brian Job argues that ad hoc multilateralism should be seen as one end of a spectrum of possible multilateral arrangements. He claims its exponents see “only an efficiency argument to state security cooperation … States act in response to their short-term interest, narrowly defined; they collaborate with other states because of a short-term coincidence of interests.”4 This logic can be contrasted with what he calls the “deeper” multilateralism of institutions such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), where states take on far greater commitments with only the promise of diffuse reciprocity in return (for a more detailed discussion of these terms, see the entry on “Multilateralism”). Job compares the logic of ad hoc multilateralism with the temporary collaboration of great powers, coming together to act in a problem-solving capacity when another state threatens the overall regional security environment. The goal is temporary cooperation, not the creation of binding rules or the transformation of inter-state relations. In a similar vein, Susan Shirk has linked ad hoc multilateralism to her analysis of the prospects for a concert of powers in Asia (see the entry on “Concert of Power”). Shirk points out that while the supervision of elections after the end of Cambodia’s civil war involved United Nations peacekeeping forces, and North Korea’s threat to leave the NPT involved the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), “the arena for working out these problems [was] not … the Security Council, but consultations among the major regional powers: the United States, China, Russia, and Japan, along with ASEAN in the case of Cambodia and South Korea in the case of North Korea.”5 In contrast, Benjamin Miller’s study of concerts unequivocally states that single-issue, ad hoc great power cooperation should not be confused with concert-like behaviour.6 More recently, ad hoc multilateralism has been linked to efforts such as the Six-Party Talks, the Proliferation Security Initiative and “coalitions of the willing” (see the relevant entry). The United 2

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States 2006 National Security Strategy describes these approaches as “results-oriented partnerships”.7 It says “these partnerships emphasize international cooperation, not international bureaucracy. They rely on voluntary adherence rather than binding treaties. They are oriented towards action and results rather than legislation or rule-making.”8 Notes 1 2

3

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5 6

7

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Concise Oxford English Dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), p. 15. Robert Scalapino, “The United States and Asia: Future Prospects”, Foreign Affairs 70, no. 5 (Winter 1991–92): 19–40; Susan L. Shirk, “Asia-Pacific Security: Balance of Power or Concert of Powers?” Paper prepared for the Japan Institute of International Affairs-Asia Society Conference on “Prospects for Multilateral Cooperation in Northeast Asia: An International Dialogue”, Tokyo, 18–20 May 1995, p. 29. See also, Robert Scalapino, “Northeast Asia in an Age of Upheaval”, Paper prepared for the “Major Powers and Future Security in Northeast Asia” Conference, Seoul, Republic of Korea, 25–26 May 1995. For a discussion of ad hoc multilateralism, see Robert A. Scalapino, “Historical Perceptions and Current Realities Regarding Northeast Asian Regional Cooperation”, NPCSD Working Paper no. 20, York University, Toronto, 1992, pp. 10–11. Brian L. Job, “Bilateralism and Multilateralism in the Asia Pacific Region”, manuscript, p. 3. An earlier version of this paper appears in Bilateralism in a Multilateral Era, edited by William Tow, Russell Trood, and Toshiya Hoshina (JIIA and the Centre for the Study of Australia-Asia Relations, 1997). Shirk, “Asia-Pacific Security”, p. 29. Benjamin Miller, “Explaining the Emergence of Great Power Concerts”, Review of International Studies, 20 (1994): 327–48, 329. Cited in Ralph Cossa, “Let Freedom (and Democracy) Ring!” Comparative Connections 8, no. 1 (April 2006). Ibid.

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A LA CARTE MULTILATERALISM

A la carte suggests the idea of picking and choosing. The term a la carte multilateralism was coined by Richard Haass, Director of Policy Planning in the U.S. State Department from 2001 to 2003. In a speech in July 2001, Haass told a Washington think-tank that “what you’re going to get from [the George W. Bush] administration is a la carte multilateralism… we’ll look at each agreement and make a decision, rather than come out with a broad-based approach.”1 Haass’ use of the term came against a backdrop of debate about the Bush administration’s supposed preference for unilateral action, signalled by its rejection of the Kyoto Protocol, the International Criminal Court and the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty. According to one analyst the formulation was intended to suggest that “multilateralism was not rejected out of hand, but would be engaged only as and when the United States chooses to participate”.2 Treaties will “be judged one issue at a time, one negotiation at a time, one summit meeting at a time”.3 As such, the term clearly shares much with ideas like “ad hoc multilateralism” or “coalitions of the willing” in which one leading state creates a multilateral group by “picking and choosing its allies and mechanisms as circumstances dictate”.4

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Advocates of an a la carte approach argue that it is realistic and pragmatic. Rather than accepting multilateralism as an end in itself, a la carte multilateralism puts emphasis on achieving outcomes. Satu Limaye has said the Bush administration’s approach more closely resembles “accountable multilateralism” in which “a premium is placed on making institutions achieve concrete ends”.5 Robert Kagan agrees, arguing that, “contrary to fashionable wisdom, the debate today is not between multilateralism and unilateralism. It’s between effective multilateralism and paralytic multilateralism”.6 John Bolton, then U.S. Under-Secretary of State for international security affairs, explicitly links the efficacy of a la carte multilateralism to its ability to serve the national interest. “We’re making a national interest calculation and whether it’s multilateralism, unilateralism or bilateralism, those are a means to an end. Those are like a knife, fork and spoon. They are all utilitarian tools to use, but the philosophical calculus behind them is what’s in our national interest.”7 Critics of ad hoc and a la carte approaches have argued that they do not represent multilateralism at all.8 Former Clinton administration official Strobe Talbott has described the practice as “tactical multilateralism”9 while critics in Malaysia described it as “bogus multilateralism”.10 One U.S. newspaper responded to Haass’s speech with a critical editorial that read, “Translation: We’ll do what we want, where we want and with whom we want. Treaties are for wimps.”11 Scholarly analyses have noted how a la carte approaches differ from other forms of institutionalised multilateral cooperation in that they reject the idea that the most powerful state should also be constrained by the same rules as weaker states — the compromise at the core of traditional multilateralism. Lisa Martin argues that what she calls ‘opportunistic multilateralism’ is a short-sighted strategy for even a powerful state. Operating without the inconveniences of multilateral constraints is a tremendous temptation for the powerful. It allows unfettered expression of power, and may maximize immediate payoffs… [But] turning to multilateral organizations only under duress and when it appears convenient demonstrates a lack of commitment,

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even explicit rejection, of the principles of multilateralism. This in turn leads other states to expect the United States to renege on agreements or operate outside the constraints of multilateral organizations when it is convenient to do so. This hollows out the core of such organizations, as they no longer provide the self-binding function they once did. Multilateral organizations become marginalized, and cannot produce the international agreements and plans of action that provided long-term stability and prosperity in the late twentieth century. International lawyer Philippe Sands has argued the practice of a la carte multilateralism is inherently contradictory. “Where it suits, the [Bush] administration will rely on multilateral approaches; where it does not, there is no compunction or hesitation in dispensing with legal niceties.”12 He went on to argue “International law is by definition not ‘a la carte’. You are either subject to the rules, or you are not.”13 Notes 1

2

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5 6

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Cited in Harry Dunphy, “Administration Says Its Approach not Isolationist, Issues Examined on Merits”, Washington Dateline, 25 July 2001. Satu Limaye, “Minding the Gaps: The Bush Administration and U.S.-Southeast Asia Relations”, Contemporary Southeast Asia, 1 April 2004. Thom Shanker, “White House Says the U.S. Is Not a Loner, Just Choosy”, The New York Times, 31 July 2001. Brad Glosserman, “America’s a la Carte Multilateralism in Putting Allies on Edge”, South China Morning Post, 27 March 2003. Limaye, “Minding the Gaps”, op. cit. Robert Kagan, “Coalition of the Unwilling”, The Washington Post, 17 October 2001. “Editorial: Knife, Fork and Spoon Diplomacy”, The Chicago Tribune, 25 August 2001, p. 20. Tan See Seng, “More Give and Take in Asia-Pacific Region after Sept 11”, The Straits Times, 26 February 2002. Cited in Harold Hongju Koh, “Foreword: on American Exceptionalism; Symposium on Treaties, Enforcement, and U.S. Sovereignty”, Stanford Law Review, 1 May 2003. “Editorial: A Crisis of Confidence”, New Straits Times (Malaysia), 16 September 2002, p. 10. “Editorial: Ordering a la carte”, St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Missouri), 1 August 2001, B6. Philippe Sands, “American Unilateralism”, in the American Society of International Law, Proceedings of the Annual Meeting 2002, pp. 85–94. Ibid.

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THE “ASEAN WAY”

A style of diplomacy or code of conduct that has evolved in intraASEAN relations.1 It has been brought into regional institutions such as the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) and Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation forum (APEC) by virtue of ASEAN’s special role within them. Also presented in parallel formulations as the “Asian way”, “APEC way”, or “Asia-Pacific way”, the “ASEAN way” is often contrasted by Asian leaders and policymakers with what they perceive to be imported Western notions of diplomacy and multilateralism.2 In contrast to a Western, “American”, or even “Cartesian” style of diplomacy which some Asians regard as “formalistic” and focused on “legalistic” procedures and solutions, the “ASEAN way” stresses patience, evolution, informality, pragmatism, and consensus.3 Kusuma Snitwongse calls the “ASEAN way” “a distinct political process” developed by the association and characterized by “the habit of consultation and accommodation … fostered by frequent interaction”.4 The idea of a distinctively ASEAN or Asian way of diplomacy has not been universally accepted, however, and some strong critiques of the concept have been put forward. Its origins pre-date the creation of the association in 1967. According to Estrella Solidum, the desire to avoid confrontation and acrimony in international relations and the importance of 9

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low-key, consensus-based diplomacy can be traced back to ASEAN’s predecessor, the short-lived Association of Southeast Asia (ASA).5 In 1961, the founders of the ASA declared that problems in the region should be resolved using “Asian solutions that contain Asian values”. Solidum says the most important of these values was the use of “very low-key diplomacy [which] avoids fanfare before an agreement is reached”.6 She stresses the importance attached to “invisible ground rules” shared by ASEAN élites. Typically, scholars identify these shared norms as including a preference for informality and for non-legalistic and, thus, nonbinding approaches to diplomacy which allows for consensus, flexibility, and accommodation.7 A central characteristic has been its cautious attitude towards formal institutionalization. 8 Singapore’s Foreign Minister S. Jayakumar called this ASEAN’s predilection for “organizational minimalism”.9 Robert Scalapino has described it as a process of “soft regionalism” or “soft dialogue”10 while Alastair Iain Johnston uses the term “thin institutionalization”.11 In essence, all these labels suggest that ASEAN is a different regional institution from those that have appeared in Europe since World War II.12 Its member states do not seek to create a political union nor does the institution have any supranational authority. Rather, ASEAN is an example of “sovereignty-enhancing regionalism” where most decision-making powers continue to reside in the various national capitals. ASEAN’s institutional resources reflect its preference for informality. Compared to the European Union (EU), ASEAN has only a modest bureaucratic apparatus, although its Jakarta-based Secretariat has expanded its role in recent years.13 Both APEC and the ARF have followed ASEAN’s organizational model. The APEC Secretariat in Singapore is small.14 The ARF has no formal secretariat, although in June 2004 an ARF Unit within the ASEAN Secretariat was established, fulfilling many of the roles of a secretariat.15 An ASEAN+3 Unit has also been established and the Chairman’s Statement following the 2005 ASEAN+3 Summit “reaffirmed the need to strengthen [it] to coordinate and implement cooperation”.16 The preference for informality is reflected in the labels used to describe these institutions. ASEAN representatives initially preferred to describe the ARF as a “dialogue forum” rather than the more formal-sounding “multilateral security mechanism”.17 A similar preference for less formal language has affected the ARF’s 10

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inter-sessional process. At the second ARF meeting in 1995, it was agreed to establish inter-sessional working groups. However, China objected to the use of the term working groups and opposed an open-ended timetable because “this smacked of thicker institutionalization.”18 The meeting eventually compromised and designated the groups as inter-sessional support groups (ISGs) and inter-sessional support meetings (ISMs). Many of the same arguments have taken place about institutionalization within APEC. APEC has been referred to as a “consultative mechanism” to clearly distinguish it from an “economic community”, a term that has obvious European connotations. An Australian proposal to use “community” in the APEC context was met with consternation by APEC’s Asian members.19 In 1994, APEC’s advisory Eminent Persons Group (EPG) recommended “the progressive development of a community of Asia Pacific economies with free and open trade and investment”. According to the EPG, “community” was not meant to imply complete economic integration or even a customs union, but “simply to connote a like-minded group that aims to remove barriers to economic exchange among its members in the interests of all”.20 The preference of the “ASEAN way” for informality can also be seen in the use of consultative processes such as “habits of dialogue” and non-binding commitments rather than legalistic formulae and codified rules. 21 According to Yuen Foong Khong,”ASEAN officials have contrasted their approach to [those] that emphasize legal contracts, formal declarations, majoritarian rules, and confrontational negotiating tactics.”22 Similarly, neither APEC nor the ARF has adopted formal dispute settlement mechanisms. APEC proponents explicitly rejected calls for the establishment of a regional dispute settlement mechanism. They did not see a need for “highly legalistic” procedures such as those of the World Trade Organization (WTO). Instead APEC’s Bogor Declaration only calls for the creation of “a voluntary, consultative dispute mediation service”.23 Similarly, for the ARF, the idea of conflict resolution has had a mixed reception. The ASEAN Concept Paper, presented at the second ARF meeting, initially proposed a three-stage approach to future security cooperation: beginning with confidence-building, then preventive diplomacy, and finally conflict resolution. However, after some discussion the term conflict resolution was changed to “elaboration of approaches to conflicts”, apparently because China found conflict resolution “too formal a category” and opposed any such role for the ARF, at least in the 11

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THE “ASEAN WAY”

immediate future.24 Though a striking example of antipathy for legalistic approaches, Acharya notes that China’s position would not be inconsistent with ASEAN’s own approach to intra-mural conflicts, which is “better described as one of conflict avoidance than conflict resolution.”25 The importance of personal relations and élite diplomacy between ASEAN leaders is another manifestation of this preference for informality. A founding father of ASEAN, Ali Moertopo, has said intra-ASEAN consultations are often successful because its leaders are friends who “know one another so well”.26 Likewise, ASEAN leaders prefer what Tun Abdul Razak called “sports shirt diplomacy” over Western “business shirt diplomacy”.27 This implies that discussions over dinner or on the golf course are more likely to be effective than sitting down to debate a policy in a meeting. Some analysts have noted, however, that the importance of personal relations has declined as a new generation of ASEAN leaders has come to power.28 Despite that, bilateral meetings, especially face-to-face meetings between leaders remain important in building trust. ASEAN uses the Bahasa expression empat mata (literally meaning “four eyes”) to refer to direct one-on-one meetings between leaders, which take place preferably without agendas or interpreters.29 Advocates of the “ASEAN way” also stress the importance of patience. Former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir described the first task of any dialogue process as “the tedious business of getting to know one another”.30 Others have said “the process is as important as any eventual agreement”.31 In an institutional setting such as the ARF, the “ASEAN way” seeks to build a “level of comfort” amongst participants before embarking on ambitious initiatives. As one ARF Chairman’s Statement put it, “the ARF process shall move at a pace comfortable to all participants.”32 An ASEAN Concept Paper described this pace as not “too fast for those who want to go slow and not too slow for those who want to go fast”.33 In practice, this means that any contentious issues likely to provoke confrontation or open disagreement are dropped from the agenda. Some Asian leaders have referred to the need for multilateral institutions to “mature” before robust dialogue can take place.34 The need for patience has been recognized by some non-Asian participants as well. One regional defence official has said of the ARF, “[t]he rate of progress will try the patience of some, but the speed of the train becomes irrelevant if some of the carriages are left behind.”35 12

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While proponents of the “ASEAN way” are uncomfortable with formalistic approaches to institution-building, and assert that “process is more important than structures”, this discomfort should not be exaggerated. Although Asia-Pacific institutions have small bureaucracies by European standards, the number of track one officials meetings and working groups co-ordinated by ASEAN, ASEAN Plus Three, APEC, ASEM and the ARF is considerable. ASEAN alone organizes hundreds of officials meetings annually. APEC has eleven formal working groups, covering issues from fisheries to trade promotion. ARF InterSessional Meetings have become routine and regional defence ministers now have their own annual gathering. The decision to draft an ASEAN Charter has also raised questions about the likely future shape of ASEAN. At a meeting of ASEAN foreign ministers in Cebu in April 2005, a Philippine official stated that a charter would mean that “whatever agreement Asean will make will have a binding effect.” In contrast, Singapore’s Foreign Minister George Yeo said that while there is much that ASEAN can learn from the EU, it is doubtful if “ASEAN integration will ever reach even half the level of integration in Europe today”.36 In December 2005, Secretary-General Ong Keng Yong added that a “certain formality based on a more legal regime will help ASEAN grow into a more effective regional organisation”.37 Another element of the “ASEAN way” is the principle of inclusivity: bringing both like-minded and non-like-minded participants into dialogue. As early as the 1991 ASEAN Ministerial Meeting, it was envisaged that non-like-minded states, such as the Soviet Union, China, North Korea, and Vietnam, should be included in any future regional security dialogue.38 Inclusivity also underpinned ASEAN’s policy of constructive engagement with the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) regime in Myanmar (Burma) before it was admitted to the Association in July 1997.39 Inclusiveness is an important foundation of APEC’s embrace of non-discriminatory open regionalism (see the entry on “Open Regionalism”) and some scholars have used the term to describe ASEAN’s own model of regionalism.40 A third and perhaps the most important element of the “ASEAN way” is its particular use of consensus. Some accounts trace the origins of ASEAN’s deeply-rooted preference for consensus to Javanese village culture, in particular to its twin notions of musyawarah and mufakat.41 Herb Feith described musyawarah as a “psychological disposition on the part of the 13

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THE “ASEAN WAY”

THE “ASEAN WAY”

members to give due regard to the larger interests”.42 It is a process of discussion and consultation, which at the village level meant the leader should not act arbitrarily or impose his will, but rather “should make gentle suggestions of the path the community should follow, being careful always to consult all other participants fully and to take their views and feelings into consideration before delivering his synthesis conclusions.”43 According to former Indonesian Foreign Minister Subandrio, negotiations in the musyawarah spirit take place “not as between opponents but between friends and brothers.”44 Mufakat is the consensus reached through the process of musyawarah. In theory, musyawarah goes on for as long as is needed to achieve mufakat. Michael Haas has argued that this process eschews what he calls “Anglo-European” tendencies like “power plays, trade-offs, and deals that produce temporary compromises”.45 J. N. Mak says the process creates an “amalgamation of the most acceptable views of each and every member”,46 and Jorgensen-Dahl says it is based on the belief that a “feeling of goodwill based on feelings of brotherhood and kinship may serve the same purpose as oil on rough sea”.47 ASEAN’s approach to consensus should not be confused with unanimity. Former Indonesian Foreign Minister Ali Alatas described it as finding a way of “moving forward by establishing what seems to have broad support”.48 Noordin Sopiee said it means “agreeing to disagree without being disagreeable”.49 Where there is “broad” support for a specific measure, the objections of a dissenting participant can sometimes be discounted, provided the proposal does not threaten that member’s most basic interests. This habit is sometimes also referred to as “flexible consensus” (see the relevant entry) or “Ten minus X”.50 The need for flexibility has led one scholar to argue that ambiguity is the “handmaiden of consensus”.51 ASEAN often uses ambiguous language that allows “participants to reach common standards, and subsequently, to hold their own interpretation of so-called common stands”.52 Critics have described this approach to consensus-building as “accommodation on the basis of the minimum common denominator”.53 Within institutions such as the ARF, the consensus approach to decision-making gives the key role to the chair, as it is the one who determines when consensus has or has not been reached. It is, therefore, especially important that the chair is regarded by all the participants as a legitimate figure.54

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The final element is the norm of non-interference in the internal affairs of member states. As new and predominantly post-colonial states, ASEAN’s members have always placed a great deal of importance on the preservation of their sovereignty. The principle of non-intervention is enshrined in all of ASEAN’s founding documents, including the 1967 Bangkok Declaration, the 1976 Treaty of Amity and Cooperation (TAC), the 1976 Declaration of ASEAN Concord and more recently the Declaration of ASEAN Concord (Bali Concord II). In the late 1990s, however, the regional economic crisis, the environmental problem known as the “haze”, and violence in Cambodia and Indonesia, led to calls for ASEAN to revisit its fundamental norms. Some said it should abandon key aspects of the “ASEAN way”, particularly the norm of noninterference and the preference for thin institutionalization (for a more detailed discussion of these calls, see the entry on “Constructive Intervention”). One scholar predicted that ASEAN’s failure to act collectively in the face of the economic crisis spelled the end for the “ASEAN way”.55 Another noted that “the ‘Asian way’ of consensus-based diplomacy suffered greatly — in coherence and prestige — because of the financial crisis.”56 While frequently invoked in intra-ASEAN relations, the principle of non-interference has often been honoured in the breach. Some recent examples focus on Myanmar. Following violent attacks against Burmese pro-democracy groups near the town of Depayin in May 2003, ASEAN foreign ministers issued a statement calling on Yangon to “resume its efforts of national reconciliation and dialogue among all parties concerned leading to a peaceful transition to democracy.” Indonesian officials went further, calling for the use of the ASEAN Troika mechanism and the dispatch of a delegation to Myanmar to discuss the crisis. While the proposal was not taken up, Singapore’s Straits Times described the foreign ministers’ statement as a “small step away from non-interference, but significant nonetheless”.57 Further action was taken as some ASEAN leaders increasingly worried that Myanmar was becoming a liability for the group. Former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir told a French wire service that Myanmar should be expelled from ASEAN.58 During a visit to Myanmar in March 2005, Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong warned its leaders that “in an interdependent world, developments in one Asean country could impact on Asean as a whole.” Singapore Foreign Minister George Yeo announced that

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events meant Myanmar’s chairmanship of ASEAN would be discussed at the upcoming foreign ministers meeting in Laos in July 2005. Sensing the growing pressure, Myanmar announced at the Vientiane Ministerial Meeting that it had decided to relinquish its turn to be ASEAN chair.59 Despite the criticism of Myanmar’s internal politics, many ASEAN officials went to great lengths to argue that their actions did not breach the principle of non-interference. One minister argued that “I would not view this as an interference in the internal affairs because the principle of non-interference continues to be a principle — not only for ASEAN, I mean it’s the principle of international law and is in the United Nations Charter. But what happened here was that ASEAN has developed to a point where we feel comfortable talking about each other’s concerns on a matter which might have taken place in one of our countries.”60 Philippines Foreign Minister Blas Ople added, “the principle still stands. But no country from here on may claim absolute immunity from collegial scrutiny if certain policies or acts of commission or omission tended to put the whole organization in disrepute or undermine its credibility.” While cautioning against abandoning the principle altogether, The Straits Times suggested a new understanding might be that “if the domestic arrangements of a member state impinge on the efficient functioning of the whole grouping, they rise to become legitimate issues for the group.”61 The “ASEAN way” has not been without its detractors. In his essay “What is Asian about Asian Security?” Gerald Segal dismissed claims of a distinctive East Asian security culture as “ethnic chic”. 62 He argued that there is nothing especially “European” about formal approaches to multilateralism and arms control.63 Segal noted that progress was made in the Middle East using arms control techniques derived from the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE). He concluded, “rather than any special approach to security and arms control which has yet to find the appropriately devised, and culturally-sensitive, mechanism … East Asians may simply be suffering from a lack of will.”64 Hiro Katsumata has questioned claims made about the influence of “traditional” models of consensus decision making. “If the politics of Southeast Asian countries were influenced by their traditional village culture, … the domestic aspect of their politics would also be informal and less institutionalized. However, their domestic institutions are by no means informal in nature. Indeed, in the past, the nationalists in these countries … [have] 16

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embraced the centralizing tendencies of Western law, and rejected local traditions, such as musyawarah and mufakat.”65 Numerous authors have also pointed to the inconsistent application of ASEAN’s core norms, rejecting the notion that regional states share a collective identity.66 Michael Leifer was also critical of some of the more exaggerated claims made about the “ASEAN way”. Responding to one scholar’s suggestion that “cultural tradition in the Asia-Pacific can facilitate greater regional security cooperation,” Leifer described the ARF as “an embryonic, onedimensional approach to regional security among states of considerable cultural and political diversity. … To interpret its role in terms of a new paradigm in international relations would be the height of intellectual naivety.”67 Notes 1

2

3

4

5

6 7 8

9

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The ten member states of ASEAN are Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. For a critical discussion of the “Asian way” in a broader sense, examining arguments made by the so-called Singapore school (whose most notable members include Lee Kuan Yew, Tommy Koh, and Kishore Mahbubani) about development and Asian values, see Alan Dupont, “Is there an Asian Way?”, Survival 38, no. 2 (Summer 1996): 13–33. For an example of this distinction, see S. Mankusuwondo, “APEC Trade Liberalization”, in Indonesian Perspectives on APEC and Regional Cooperation in Asia-Pacific, edited by Hadi Soesastro (Jakarta: Centre for Strategic and International Studies, 1994); see also Noordin Sopiee, “An Asian Way for APEC”, Japan Times, 19 September 1994, p. 2. Kusuma Snitwongse, “Thirty Years of ASEAN: Achievements through Political Cooperation”, The Pacific Review 11, no. 2 (1998): 183–94, 184. Estrella Solidum, “The Role of Certain Sectors in Shaping and Articulating the ASEAN Way”, in ASEAN Identity, Development and Culture, edited by R. P. Anand and Purificacion V. Quisumbung (Manila and Honolulu: University of the Philippines Law Centre and the East-West Center Culture Learning Institute, 1981), pp. 130–48. Ibid., p. 136. This is a paraphrase taken from Snitwongse, “Thirty Years of ASEAN”, p. 184. Acharya describes this as a preference for the avoidance of “excessive institutionalization”, see Amitav Acharya, “Ideas, Identity, and InstitutionBuilding: From the ASEAN Way to the Asia-Pacific Way?”, The Pacific Review 10, no. 3 (1997): 319–46, 328–30. Quoted in Lee Kim Chew, “Don’t Discard Fundamentals”, Straits Times, 25 July 1998. Cited in Diane Stone, “Networks, Second Track Diplomacy and Regional Cooperation: The Role of Southeast Asian Think Tanks”, Paper presented at the 38th Annual Meeting of the International Studies Association, Toronto, Canada, 16–22 March 1997, p. 20. Alastair Iain Johnston, “The Myth of the ASEAN Way? Explaining the Evolution

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of the ASEAN Regional Forum”, in Imperfect Unions: Security Institutions Over Time and Space, by Helga Haftendorn, Robert O. Keohane, and Celeste A. Wallander (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 287–324, 299. Liao Shaolian, “ASEAN Model in International Economic Cooperation”, in One Southeast Asia in a New Regional and International Setting, edited by Hadi Soesastro (Jakarta: Centre for Strategic and International Studies, 1997), pp. 83– 92. More information about the ASEAN Secretariat can be found on its website at . Michael Richardson, “Asian Security Forum Gains Support”, International Herald Tribune, 31 July 2000. The ARF Unit’s stated goals are to (1) to support the enhanced role of the ARF Chair, including interaction with other regional and international organizations, defense officials dialogue and Track-II organizations; (2) to function as depository of ARF documents/papers; (3) to manage database/ registry; and (4) to provide secretarial works and administrative support, including serving as the ARF’s institutional memory. For more information see . Chairman’s Statement of the Ninth ASEAN Plus Three Summit, Kuala Lumpur, 12 December 2005, para 4. Available at: . See, for example, Singapore Defence Minister Yeo Ning Hong quoted in “The Jane’s Interview”, Jane’s Defence Weekly, 19 February 1994, p. 52, cited in Acharya, “Ideas, Identity, and Institution-Building”, pp. 333–34. Johnston, “The Myth of the ASEAN Way?”, p. 311. Roslan Ali, “Indonesia: APEC Community Will Be Different from EC — Evans”, Business Times (Malaysia), 10 August 1993. In the article, Australian Foreign Minister Gareth Evans is quoted as saying, “There is no reason why we cannot in our regional village, use the word community to mean what we want it to mean. We can push ahead with building our economic community according to our patterns, our models and our language.” He went on to say, “Community is already embryonically in practice in the every day processes of APEC and is emerging in the ASEAN Post-Ministerial Conference (PMC) process. That means a community built in the APEC way, the ASEAN dialogue way, founded on the evolutionary recognition of mutual benefits and interests, open dialogue, consensus-building, and loose but effective arrangements.” Second Report of the Eminent Persons Group, Achieving the APEC Vision: Free and Open Trade in the Asia Pacific (Singapore: APEC Secretariat, 1994). Acharya, “Ideas, Identity and Institution-Building”, pp. 334–35; Snitwongse, “Thirty Years of ASEAN”, p. 184. Khong Yuen Foong, “ASEAN’s Collective Identity: Sources, Shifts, and Security Consequences”, Paper presented at the 94th Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Boston, 3–6 September 1998, p. 10. Third Report of the Eminent Persons Group, Implementing the APEC Vision (Singapore: APEC Secretariat, 1995), p. 12. Acharya, “Ideas, Identity and Institution-Building”, p. 335. China was insistent on this wording. An ASEAN Draft on Concept and Principles of Preventive Diplomacy presented at an ARF Track-II meeting held in Singapore in April 2000, contained a sentence which referred to “elaboration of approaches to conflict resolution”. China asked for the word resolution to be deleted, saying

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25 26

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28 29 30

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34 35

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37 38

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43 44 45

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“the Chinese side always believes it is crucially important to strictly follow the consensus reached by the ARF ministers.” For more details on these papers, see the entry on “Preventive Diplomacy”. Ibid. Quoted in Michael Antolik, ASEAN and the Diplomacy of Accommodation (New York: East Gate Books, 1990), p. 95. Quoted in Michael Haas, “The Asian Way to Peace”, Pacific Community, no. 4 (1973): 504. Jusuf Wanandi, “ASEAN’s Future at Stake”, The Straits Times, 9 August 2000. Antolik, ASEAN and Diplomacy of Accommodation, p. 90. Quoted in Jusuf Wanandi, “Pacific Economic Cooperation: An Indonesian View”, Asian Survey 23, no. 2 (December 1983): 1272. Jose T. Almonte, “Ensuring Security the ‘ASEAN Way’ ”, Survival 39, no. 4 (Winter 1997–98): 80–92, 81. ASEAN Regional Forum, Chairman’s Statement, 1995, p. 2. “ASEAN Regional Forum: A Concept Paper”, para. 21, reproduced in Desmond Ball and Pauline Kerr, Presumptive Engagement: Australia’s Asia-Pacific Security Policy in the 1990s (St Leonards, NSW: Allen & Unwin, 1996), Appendix 2. Asian Wall Street Journal, 24 June 1994, pp. 1, 6. Gerald Hensley, “Asia-Pacific Security: A Balance Sheet”, Speech given by the New Zealand Secretary of Defence in Honolulu, 27 July 1995 (author’s copy). Cited in Amitav Acharya, “Challenges for an ASEAN Charter”, The Straits Times, 24 October 2005. Li Xueying, “Rewriting the ASEAN Way”, The Straits Times, 13 December 2005. Explanatory text for the 1991 ASEAN Ministerial Meeting, cited in Stewart Henderson, “Canada and Asia Pacific Security: The North Pacific Cooperative Security Dialogue: Recent Trends”, NPCSD Working Paper no. 1, York University, Toronto, 1992, p. 12. The SLORC was renamed the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) on 15 November 1997; see Jose Manuel Tesoro and Dominic Faulder, “Changing of the Guard: SLORC Fixes Its Name — and Purges Some Faces”, Asiaweek, 24 November 1997; “A SLORC by Any Other Name”, Washington Post, 6 March 1998, p. A24. Mohammed Ariff, “Open Regionalism à la ASEAN”, Journal of Asian Economics 5, no. 1 (1994): 99–117. Arnafin Jorgensen-Dahl, Regional Organization and Order in Southeast Asia (London: Macmillan, 1982), p. 166. Herb Feith, The Decline of Constitutional Democracy in Indonesia (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1962), p. 100, note 58. Ibid., p. 40. Cited in Jorgensen-Dahl, Regional Organization, p. 166. Michael Haas, “Asian Culture and International Relations”, in Culture and International Relations, edited by Jongsuk Chay (New York: Praeger, 1990), p. 179. J. N. Mak, “The ASEAN Process (‘Way’) of Multilateral Cooperation and Cooperative Security: The Road to a Regional Arms Register?”, Paper presented at the MIMA-SIPRI Workshop on “ASEAN Arms Register: Developing Transparency”, Kuala Lumpur, 2–3 October 1995, p. 5.

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47 48

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50 51 52 53

54 55

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63 64 65

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Jorgensen-Dahl, Regional Organization, p. 167. The Straits Times, 13 November 1994, p. 17, cited in Acharya, “Ideas, Identity, and Institution-Building”, p. 331. Emphasis added. Michael Richardson, “Alliance Prefers Informal Consensus”, The Globe and Mail (Toronto), 7 June 1997, p. A19. Snitwongse, “Thirty Years of ASEAN”, p. 191 Antolik, ASEAN and Diplomacy of Accommodation, p. 157. Ibid. Ernst B. Haas, “International Integration: The European and the Universal Process”, in International Political Communities: An Anthology (New York: Doubleday, 1966), p. 95, cited in Jorgensen-Dahl, Regional Organization, p. 168. See also, Snitwongse’s comment about “ ‘meat grinder wisdom’ based on the lowest common denominator”, in “Thirty Years of ASEAN”, p. 184. Johnston, “The Myth of the ASEAN Way?”, p. 299. Kay Möller, “Cambodia and Burma: The ASEAN Way Ends Here”, Asian Survey, XXXVIII, no. 12 (December 1998): 1087–104. Amitav Acharya, “A Concert of Asia?”, Survival 41, no. 3 (Autumn 1999): 84– 101, 84. “ASEAN Makes Its Move”, The Straits Times, 21 June 2003. “Indonesian Daily Views Possibility of Myanmar being Expelled from ASEAN”, World News Connection, 22 July 2005. Bhagyashree Garekar, “Coffee and a Surprise: Myanmar Gives up ASEAN Chair amid Suspense Befitting a Whodunit”, The Straits Times, 27 July 2005. Singaporean Minister S. Jayakumar, cited in Jurgen Haacke, “ ‘Enhanced interaction’ with Myanmar and the Project of a Regional Security Community: Is ASEAN Refining or Breaking with Its Diplomatic and Security Culture?”, Contemporary Southeast Asia 27, no. 2 (August 2005). “Editorial: Work Starts on an ASEAN Charter”, The Straits Times, 14 December 2005. Gerald Segal, “What is Asian About Asian Security?”, in Unresolved Futures: Comprehensive Security in the Asia-Pacific, edited by James Rolfe (Wellington: Centre for Strategic Studies, 1995), pp. 107–20, 107. Ibid., p. 114. Ibid. Hiro Katsumata, “Reconstruction of Diplomatic Norms in Southeast Asia: The Case for Strict Adherence to the ‘ASEAN Way’ ”, Contemporary Southeast Asia 25, no. 1 (2003). See for examples Samuel Sharpe, “An ASEAN Way to Security Cooperation in Southeast Asia?”, The Pacific Review 16, no. 2 (2003): 231–50; M. L. Smith and D. M. Jones, “ASEAN, Asian Values and Southeast Asian Security in the New World Order”, Contemporary Security Policy 18, no. 3 (December 1997): 126–56, 147. See also Tobias Ingo Nischalke, “Insights from ASEAN’s Foreign Policy Cooperation: The ‘ASEAN Way’, a Real Spirit or a Phantom”, Contemporary Southeast Asia 22, no. 1 (April 2000): 89–112. Nischalke concludes that “put starkly, the ‘ASEAN way’ has proven to be a myth”, p. 107. Michael Leifer, The ASEAN Regional Forum: Extending ASEAN’s Model of Regional Security, Adelphi Paper no. 302 (London: International Institute of Strategic Studies, 1996), p. 59.

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BALANCE OF POWER

According to Kenneth Waltz, “if there is any distinctively political theory of international politics, balance of power theory is it.”1 While the idea of the balance of power is often taken for granted in writings on security, it has always been a hotly contested and controversial notion. It is seen by some as being akin to “a law of nature; by others, as simply an outrage. Some view it as a guide to statesmen; others a cloak that disguises their imperialist policies. Some believe that a balance of power is the best guarantee of the security of states and the peace of the world; others, that it has ruined states by causing most of the wars they have fought.”2 While some writers imply the term has a “common sense” meaning, there are several distinct ways in which balance of power can be used, although many scholars tend to confuse and conflate them.3 Ernst Haas uncovered eight different definitions in his work and Martin Wight found nine.4 Han Morgenthau, the paterfamilias of American realism, used four different meanings. This confusion prompted Haas to entitle his seminal 1953 essay on the subject: “Balance of Power: Prescription, Concept, or Propaganda?”5 According to Inis Claude, the term balance of power has two principal meanings. First, “a situation of equilibrium”, and second, “a system of states engaged in competitive manipulation of power 21

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BALANCE OF POWER

relationships among themselves”. 6 Similarly, Morgenthau distinguishes between the balance of power as “a policy” aimed at creating a certain state of affairs, and “an actual state of affairs.”7 Despite these clear distinctions, Claude laments that “champions of balance of power rarely bother to define their crucial terms.” He argues that unless scholars state which definition is being used, “we cannot be certain whether we are being asked to welcome a result or to accept the claim that a certain mechanism is reliably conducive to that result.”8 As a condition, state of affairs, or situation, the balance of power refers to a roughly equal distribution of power existing between two or more states. It can be broken down further into what Hedley Bull called “simple” or “complex” balances. A simple balance of power is one made up of just two powers, while a complex balance involves three or more. According to Bull, the important difference between the two is that while a simple balance requires equality of power between the actors, a complex balance does not. In a system with three or more actors, the development of gross inequalities in power among them does not necessarily put the strongest in a position of preponderance because the others have the ability to combine against it.9 Bull also distinguishes between what he calls the “general balance of power” and “local” or “particular” balances of power. A general balance exists when no one actor has a preponderance of power in the international system as a whole. In some areas of the world, such as Southeast Asia, a local balance of power exists. In other areas — Bull gives the Caribbean as an example — there may actually be a local preponderance of power. However, neither situation belies the fact that there can be a general balance of power across the entire international system.10 There is no precise way to determine whether a balance of power exists in a given international order. Measuring the distribution of relative power among states is not an exact science and there is no sure way to determine whether power is balanced or unbalanced at any given time. However, as Arnold Wolfers notes, “it makes sense to speak of an existing balance of power — or of a fair approximation to such a balance — whenever there are indications that two opposing nations, or blocs of nations, are being deterred from putting their opponents’ total power to the test.”11 In a study of the balance of power in the Asia-Pacific, Paul Dibb refers to a balance existing when “no one power is in a position to determine the fate of others.”12 Bull says that it is not 22

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enough for a material balance to exist “objectively”. He says there must also be a “general belief” among the powers that such a balance exists.13 While “a situation of balance or equilibrium” sounds desirable, this definition also aptly describes the situation during the Cold War when both East and West were deterred from putting each other’s total capabilities to the test by what Winston Churchill called “the balance of terror”. Furthermore, even if the general balance of power among the superpowers prevented global war, its success in preventing regional conflicts was questionable at best. Similarly, because the idea of the balance of power centres on preserving the status quo, it has been criticized by some for ignoring questions of justice.14 Despite this, Wolfers argues that parity between two blocs may be better (in terms of preserving the peace) than giving hegemony to one supposedly “peace-loving” bloc. He argues that a balance of power enforces a sense of restraint among the actors, preventing adventurism and temptations, as well as the abuse of power.15 In contrast, some have argued that because a balance of power requires a relatively equal balance of capabilities between states, it is incapable of adequately deterring a would-be aggressor. They argue that only an opposing force of overwhelming capability can dependably deter. One of the more prominent criticisms of the ability of the balance of power (understood as a situation of rough parity) to keep the peace came from Churchill in his famous “Iron Curtain” speech at Fulton, Missouri, in 1946. Churchill said if the English-speaking Commonwealth were to join forces with the United States, “there will be no quivering, precarious balance of power to offer its temptation to ambition or adventure. On the contrary, there will be an overwhelming assurance of power.”16 The second way of thinking about the balance of power is to consider it as a policy or as behaviour pursued by states. Scholars who take this interpretation often refer to balancing behaviour on the part of states. As a policy, states following the edicts of balance of power theory use both internal and external efforts to achieve their goals. Internal efforts, often simply referred to as “self-help”, include “moves to increase economic capability, to increase military strength, and to develop clever strategies”. External efforts include “entering alliances, strengthening existing alliances or weakening the alliances of one’s opponents”.17 This kind of policy or strategy is also sometimes called “power politics”. A further distinction can be drawn between hard and soft balancing strategies. Hard 23

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balancing involves using “arms buildups and alliance formation” to counter a rival.18 Soft balancing strategies, by contrast, are “limited, tacit or indirect balancing strategies largely through coalition building and diplomatic bargaining within international institutions, short of formal bilateral and multilateral military alliances.”19 Much of the debate about soft balancing concerns challenges to U.S. dominance. Robert Pape argues that soft balancing measures are “actions that do not directly challenge U.S. military preponderance but that use nonmilitary tools to delay, frustrate, and undermine aggressive U.S. policies”.20 According to T.V. Paul, ties between China and Russia during both the 1999 Kosovo crisis and in the lead up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq are cases of soft balancing in practice.21 Critics of balance of power policies argue that they can exacerbate the security dilemma, and can lead to arms racing and even war. Indeed, Robert Jervis notes that one prerequisite for the existence of a balance of power is that “war must be a legitimate instrument of statecraft … states must believe they can resort to the use of force if they believe it to be useful.”22 According to Brian Job, balance of power systems historically have a poor record of maintaining system stability. They have not accommodated rapid change well, and are “not necessarily peaceful subsystems”.23 In perhaps the most systematic critique of power politics and balancing behaviour, John Vasquez concludes that “the attempt to balance power is itself part of the very behaviour that leads to war.”24 Henry Kissinger states there are two situations where the balance of power works best.25 The first is when states are free to form and re-form alliances and coalitions depending on the circumstances of the moment. Instead of relying on ideological ties, states calculate and act according to their own perceptions of self-interest or realpolitik. They recognize that, in Jervis’ words, “today’s enemy may be tomorrow’s ally and vice versa.”26 An example of this during the Cold War was the “triangular” diplomacy practised by the Nixon administration, which after 1972 used relations with its former adversary China to balance against the Soviet Union.27 The second situation is a modified form of the balance of power system in which one power plays the role of the “balancer”.28 The balancer is usually a powerful state that can stand apart from the others (often it is separated geographically) and has the capability of playing a determining role in alliances or conflict. In 24

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essence, it is charged with ensuring that “no one state or alliance is able to exercise a hegemony over the others, or even to establish an imperium.”29 Richard Rosecrance describes the balancer as a “regulator”, a force for stability that counters disruptive elements to maintain order consistent with the norms of the system.30 Palmer and Perkins claim that is “the most desirable role for a great power to play”.31 According to some scholars, Great Britain played this role in Europe from the late seventeenth century to the nineteenth century in seeking to prevent French hegemony. In the event of French expansionism, Britain threw its weight behind the weaker and more threatened side. These writers claim that Britain was the ideal European balancer state, seeking no more for itself than to prevent the domination of Europe by any one power. It also had the best incentive to balance: as a small island off the coast of Europe it would have been completely at the mercy of a single hegemonic Continental empire. Some have suggested the United States could act as a similar balancer in the Asia-Pacific region.32 There is no doubt that, like Britain during the nineteenth century, the United States has sufficient military and economic strength to tip the balance in any future conventional conflict. It also has the advantage of geographical detachment. Not surprisingly then, some governments have made reference to the United States as a balancer in the region. In 2000, Lee Kuan Yew stated that “the role of the United States as the balancer is crucial if Asian countries are to have elbow room for themselves.”33 U.S. defence documents have also said that the country’s forward-deployed presence in Asia makes it “the key regional balancer.”34 However, advocates of a balancing role for the United States are muted on whether this is compatible with the country’s existing alliance commitments, including the U.S.-Japan and U.S.-South Korea security treaties. To be a genuinely independent balancing force, the United States would presumably have to abrogate its obligations to individual Asian powers. Similar questions were raised when South Korean president Roh Moo-hyun gave a speech in early 2005 calling for the ROK to adopt a “balancer” role in Northeast Asia. He gave few details as to the substance of his proposal but the opposition Grand National Party quickly criticized the notion as undermining South Korea’s alliance with the United States. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill was quoted as saying “If I were a South Korean looking into the future, I would be saying to myself, ‘I want a 25

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special relationship with a distant power.’ ” Another American commentator simply described the idea as “an alliance killer”.35 ROK Deputy Foreign Minister Chun Young-woo attempted to clarify the proposal, arguing that there were actually two balancers in Northeast Asia. “One is the ‘inside balancer’, which is us, and the other is the ‘global balancer’, which is the U.S.,” Chun said. “Even if we play a balancing role, there is no guarantee that it will succeed 100 per cent and therefore the U.S. can do it at the second stage.”36 Another senior Uri party official claimed that “the Northeast Asia balancer theory is not the traditional theory of power balance, but it is a Northeast Asia peace balancer theory which pursues peace with the objective of realizing a regional community very much like the European Union.”37 According to a poll taken by the Korean Herald newspaper, most Koreans simply interpreted Roh’s comments as meaning the country should raise a more independent voice on regional issues.38 Critics of the idea of the balancer argue that it rests on the flawed assumption that one state will somehow be motivated by different aspirations than the others. Organski argues, “there is no such thing as a ‘balancer’ and there never has been. No single nation is motivated primarily by a desire to maintain the balance.”39 Sterling has also noted the high correlation between admirers of traditional British foreign policy and admirers of the balance of power system; a correlation which may have influenced the importance they attach to the role of the balancer.40 These broad notions of the balance of power apply to contemporary Asia-Pacific security in two ways. The condition of a balance of power (understood as lack of hegemony by a single power) is usually seen as desirable by officials and scholars in the region. However, concerns remain about the possibility for misunderstanding or miscalculation as the particular shape of a “new balance” emerges. A great deal of literature, particularly that informed by realist or neo-realist theories of international relations, is dominated by concerns about the changing distribution of power in the region caused by the “rise” of China, and the possible emergence of a “power vacuum” in the event of a U.S. withdrawal.41 The 2006 U.S. Quadrennial Defense Review report, for example, argues that “China’s military build up already puts regional military balances at risk.”42 Often such accounts rely on specific historical analogies, likening the rise of China to the changes in power distribution that occurred when Wilhemine Germany, and later Japan, entered the international system.43 26

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Second, if there is general agreement about the need for achieving a balance of power as a goal, there is no consensus about the utility of some traditional balance of power policies. While arms modernization and “self-help” strategies have been embraced by many states, Michael Leifer notes: there is a conspicuous absence of a regional constituency for moving beyond individual force modernization towards multilateral defence cooperation. This absence stems from a number of factors, but above all from the judgement that the traditional instrument of balance of power, if expressed in a new multilateral form, is more likely to provoke than protect, particularly regarding China.44 While some realists, such as John Mearsheimer and Charles Krauthammer, explicitly advocate the development of alliances by the United States to “contain” Chinese power, they are in the minority.45 Most advocates of balancing behaviour seem to argue for a “hedge” strategy against future uncertainty, based partly on arms modernization and the continuation of close relationships between the United States and its friends in Asia, and partly on the use of multilateral institutions such as the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF). Balance of power policies usually hinge upon selfhelp or the formation of alliance or collective defence relationships. Because they are predicated on the centrality of competitive power politics, they are also generally not considered to be hospitable to cooperative multilateral organizations. Indeed, balance of power theorists such as Mearsheimer have dismissed what they call the “false promise” of multilateral attempts to prevent conflict and promote cooperation. Mearsheimer argues such institutions either are ineffective, or impose unwarranted constraints on individual national strategies.46 The relationship between multilateralism and the balance of power is complex. Realists such as Michael Leifer believe that institutions like the ARF inevitably only reflect the realities of power distribution in the region. Leifer describes the ARF as “a valuable adjunct to the workings of the balance of power in helping to deny dominance to a rising regional power with hegemonic potential”. He concludes, “it is more realistic to regard the Forum as a modest contribution to a viable balance or distribution of power within the Asia-Pacific by other than traditional means.”47 27

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In contrast, constructivists argue that institutions such as the ARF can actually help shape state behaviour and change state interests and identities through processes of socialization and by promoting norms of acceptable conduct.48 They argue that over time the ARF can contribute to the goal of a balance of power in the region. Amitav Acharya says that this is the hope the ASEAN states have for the ARF. He claims ASEAN’s enthusiasm for the ARF reflects its deep and long-standing distrust of major power security guarantees that are integral to a balance of power mechanism. This reflects not only a declining faith in the credibility of the American military presence and security umbrella, but also a realization of the limitations and dangers of a balance of power approach.49 He acknowledges that ASEAN has not completely rejected balance of power behaviour. Some developments — for example, patterns of arms modernization and Myanmar’s membership in ASEAN — could also be viewed as balance of power policies. But while no ASEAN country sees the ARF as a substitute for balance of power mechanisms in the short term … [they] also recognize that military balancing is not an adequate guarantee of regional security. Since [they] cannot individually or collectively aspire to defence self-reliance, a policy of military balancing will amount to increased dependence on external military powers. To prevent this, a balance of power approach must be supplemented by multilateral security dialogues and cooperation.50 Finally, some scholars have argued that the notion of the balance of power may not be an appropriate concept for use in the Asia-Pacific at all. Making the case that the concept emerged in the historical and cultural milieu of Renaissance Europe, Nicola Baker and Leonard Sebastian have questioned the relevance of the balance of power in a region such as the Asia-Pacific. They argue that there are enough important cultural, geographic, and strategic differences between the Asian and European security environments to suggest that caution should be used before the concept is imported wholesale into analysis of the region. 51 Soedjati Djiwandono agrees, arguing Europe makes a poor geopolitical 28

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analogue. He says Asia is a unique strategic environment where there is no simple “balance,” but rather what he calls a “mosaic” of power.52 Notes 1

2 3

4

5

6

7

8 9

10 11

12 13 14 15 16

17 18

19 20

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Kenneth N. Waltz, Theory of International Politics (New York: Random House, 1979), p. 117. Ibid. Dibb notes that in his experience, “the concept of the balance of power is much less contested among foreign policy and defence practitioners than among academics and intellectuals.” See Paul Dibb, Towards a New Balance of Power in Asia, Adelphi Paper no. 295 (London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1995), p. 75, Chapter 1, note 1. Martin Wight, “The Balance of Power”, in Diplomatic Investigations: Essays in the Theory of International Politics, edited by Herbert Butterfield and Martin Wight (London: Allen and Unwin, 1966). Ernst B. Haas, “The Balance of Power: Prescription, Concept or Propaganda?”, World Politics 5, no. 4 (July 1953): 442–77. Inis L. Claude, Jr., “The Balance of Power Revisited”, Review of International Studies 15 (1989): 77–85, 77. Hans J. Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations: The Struggle For Power and Peace, 5th ed. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1978), p. 173. Claude, “The Balance of Power Revisited”, p. 77. Hedley Bull, “The Balance of Power and International Order”, in The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics, 2nd ed. (London: Macmillan, 1995), pp. 97–121, 98. Ibid., pp. 89–99. Arnold Wolfers, “The Balance of Power in Theory and Practice”, in Discord and Collaboration: Essays on International Politics, edited by Arnold Wolfers (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1962), pp. 117–31, 118. Dibb, Towards a Balance of Power, p. 6. Bull, The Anarchical Society, p. 99. Wolfers, “The Balance of Power”, p. 119. Ibid. Cited in William Safire, Safire’s New Political Dictionary: The Definitive Guide to the New Language of Politics (New York: Random House, 1993), p. 38. For another Churchill quote along these lines and one by Richard Nixon, see Claude, “The Balance of Power Revisited”, p. 79. Waltz, Theory of International Politics, p. 118. T.V. Paul, “Soft Balancing in the Age of US Primacy”, International Security 30, no. 1 (Summer 2005): 46–71, 58. Ibid. Robert Pape, “Soft Balancing Against the United States”, International Security 30, no. 1 (Summer 2005): 7–45, 10. T.V. Paul, “Soft Balancing in the Age of US Primacy,”, op. cit. For a sophisticated critique of the soft balancing argument, see Stephen G. Brooks and William C. Wohlforth, “Hard Times for Soft Balancing”, International Security 30, no. 1 (Summer 2005): 72–108. Robert Jervis, “From Balance to Concert: A Study of International Security Cooperation”, World Politics 38, no. 1 (October 1985): 58–79, 60.

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Brian L. Job, “The Evolving Security Order of the North Pacific Subregion: Alternative Models and Prospects for Subregionalism”, Paper presented at the Ninth Asia-Pacific Roundtable, Kuala Lumpur, 5–8 June 1995, p. 4. John Vasquez, The Power of Power Politics: A Critique (London: Frances Pinter, 1983), p. 220. Henry A. Kissinger, Diplomacy (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994), pp. 17–21. Jervis, “From Balance to Concert”, p. 59. Kissinger, Diplomacy, pp. 703–32. Martin Sheehan, “The Place of the Balancer in Balance of Power Theory”, World Politics 15 (1989): 123–34; Jervis, “From Balance to Concert”, p. 60. Sheehan, “The Place of the Balancer”, p. 124. Richard Rosecrance, Action and Reaction in World Politics (Boston: Little Brown, 1963), p. 229. N. Palmer and H. Perkins, International Relations (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1953), p. 312. Evan S. Medeiros and Jing-dong Yuan, “A US Military Presence in Asia: Offshore Balancer or Local Sheriff”, Jane’s Intelligence Review 13 (January 2001): 31–35. Lee Kuan Yew, “Need for Balance on East Asia’s Way to World Eminence”, International Herald Tribune, 23 November 2000. U.S. Department of Defence Report, A Strategic Framework for the Asian Pacific Rim, Report to Congress, Washington, D.C., 1992. Nicholas Eberstadt cited in Lee Dong-min, “Roh Fights Preconceptions to Forge Stronger Ties with US”, Yonhap News Agency, 23 February 2006. “US is ‘Ultimate’ Balancer in Northeast Asia: Official”, Yonhap News Agency, 1 June 2005. Moon Hee-sang cited in “Ruling Party Chief says S. Korea to Become Balancer of Peace”, Xinhua News Agency, 25 April 2005 (emphasis added). “Editorial: Roh’s ‘balancer’ idea”, The Korean Herald, 12 April 2005. For the results of the surveys by the TNS polling firm, see “Majority of Public Back ‘Balancer’ Role”, The Korean Herald, 11 April 2005. A. F. K. Organski, World Politics (New York: Knopf, 1968), p. 288. Richard Sterling, Macropolitics: International Relations in a Global Society (New York: Knopf, 1974), p. 55, cited in Sheehan, “The Place of the Balancer”, p. 126. See, for examples, John Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (W.W. Norton, New York, 2001); Aaron Friedberg, “Ripe for Rivalry: Prospects for Peace in Multipolar Asia”, International Security 18, no. 3 (Winter 1993–94): 5–33; Richard Betts, “Wealth, Power and Instability”, International Security 18, no. 3 (Winter 1993–94): 34–77; Denny Roy, “Hegemon on the Horizon? China’s Threat to Asia-Pacific Security”, International Security 19, no. 1 (Summer 1994): 149–68. U.S. Department of Defense, Quadrennial Defense Review Report 2006 (Department of Defense, Washington D.C., 2006) 29. Available online at . Gerald Segal, “The Giant Wakes: The Chinese Challenge to East Asia”, Harvard International Review XVII, no. 2 (Spring 1996): 26–71; John Garver, “Will China Be Another Germany?” (Carlisle Barracks, U.S. Army War College, National Strategy Institute, 1996); see also Friedberg, “Ripe for Rivalry”, p. 30; Michael Leifer, The ASEAN Regional Forum: Extending ASEAN’s Model of Regional Security, Adelphi Paper no. 302 (London: International Institute of Strategic Studies, 1996), pp. 53–54.

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44

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47 48

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50 51

52

Leifer, The ASEAN Regional Forum, p. 53. Leifer’s views on the balance of power in Southeast Asia are analysed in Jurgen Haacke, “Michael Leifer, the Balance of Power and International Relations Theory”, in Order and Security in Southeast Asia: Essays in Honour of Michael Leifer, edited by Joseph Liow and Ralf Emmers (London: Routledge, 2006), pp. 46–60. Charles Krauthammer, “Why We Must Contain China”, Time, 31 July 1995, p. 72. John Mearsheimer, “The False Promise of International Institutions”, International Security 19, no. 3 (1994–95): 5–59. Leifer, The ASEAN Regional Forum, p. 57. Alastair Iain Johnston is the leading scholar of socialization in Asian institutions. See his “Treating International Institutions as Social Environments”, International Studies Quarterly 45, no. 4 (December 2001): 487; also his “Socialization in International Institutions: The ASEAN Way and the International Relations Theory”, in International Relations Theory and the Asia-Pacific, edited by John G. Ikenberry and Michael Mastundono (Columbia University Press, New York, 2003), pp. 107–62, and “Beyond Europe and Towards Mid-Range Theorising”, International Organization 59 (Fall): 1011–44; and Social States: China in International Institutions 1980–2000 (Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2008). More generally see Alexander Wendt, “Anarchy Is What States Make of It: The Social Construction of Power Politics”, International Organization 41 (Summer 1995); also “Constructing International Politics”, International Security 20, no. 1 (Summer 1995): 71–81; and Social Theory of International Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999); Peter J. Katzenstein, ed., The Culture of National Security: Norms and Identity in World Politics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996). Amitav Acharya, Constructing a Security Community in Southeast Asia (Oxford University Press, Singapore, 2001). Ibid. Nicola Baker and Leonard C. Sebastian, “The Problem with Parachuting: Strategic Studies and Security in the Asia/Pacific Region”, Journal of Strategic Studies 18, no. 3 (September 1995), Special Issue on “The Transformation of Security in the Asia/Pacific Region”, edited by Desmond Ball, pp. 15–31. Soedjati Djiwandono, “Non-provocative Defence Strategy”, in Non-offensive Defence: A Global Perspective (New York: Taylor and Francis, 1990), p. 120.

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BILATERALISM

The adjective bilateral is usually used to describe a relationship, event, or institution involving just two parties. It can be contrasted with multilateralism, which usually refers to a situation involving three or more actors. In this sense, bilateralism grows out of a belief that inter-state relations are best organized on a one-on-one or dyadic basis. For example, even if B and C are perceived to be friends, A will find the prospect of sustaining A-B and A-C ties more efficacious than forming an A-B-C (nominally multilateral) arrangement. In this sense, bilateralism is by definition, an exclusive relationship. According to William Diebold, in its narrowest sense, bilateral is neutral to the qualitative dimension of the particular relationship.1 John Ruggie argues there are several examples in history of bilateral relationships that have involved more than two parties: for example, the Nazi trading system devised by Hjalmar Schacht. The Schactian system coordinated economic relations between Nazi Germany and several states in the Balkans, Latin America, and East Central Europe. However, according to Ruggie, “it had no inherent limit; it could have been geographically universalized to cover the entire globe, with an enormous spider web of bilateralist agreements radiating out from Germany.”2 He argues it is the qualitative character of the relationships involved 33

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that tells the most about the meaning of terms such as bilateralism and multilateralism. There are two substantive characteristics that made the Schactian system bilateral — despite its numbers — and which Ruggie argues are attributes of bilateralism generally. First, irrespective of the total number of actors involved in a relationship, bilateralism segments relations into multiples of dyads and compartmentalizes them. The Schactian system was in essence based on a series of “reciprocal” agreements negotiated between Germany and an individual foreign trading partner. The system was inherently discriminatory. All the arrangements were held only on a case-by-case and product-by-product basis. A trade deal negotiated with a partner was not extended to all the others, as it would be, for example, under a most-favoured-nation (MFN) multilateral system such as the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT)/World Trade Organization (WTO). The second characteristic of bilateralism is that it assumes a specific exchange between the two parties in each dyadic relationship. Keohane calls this kind of transaction “specific reciprocity” or the “simultaneous balance of specific quid pro quos by each party with every other at all times”.3 It can be contrasted with multilateralism which requires only “diffuse reciprocity”, an expectation that a rough equivalence of benefits will be yielded to all the members over time. In the Asia-Pacific region, bilateralism was the hallmark of Cold War security relations. Through a series of bilateral security arrangements from Japan to New Zealand, the United States sought to provide a network of extended deterrence to contain the spread of communism (for a more detailed discussion, see the entry on “Collective Defence”). In contrast to the failed multilateral alliance SEATO (Southeast Asia Treaty Organization), the so-called “hub and spokes” system was a durable arrangement that suited the needs of the United States. In each bilateral relationship, the United States was clearly the dominant partner, allowing it to mould each alliance to suit the particular strategic environment. As one U.S. policy statement acknowledged, bilateral treaties are “more manageable” than multilateral arrangements.4 Brian Job has drawn a distinction between bilateral arrangements which are seen as an end in themselves, and those which suggest the possibility of acting as a stepping stone towards multilateralism. Those who advocate “narrow bilateralism” see

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no virtue in multilateral institutions. In contrast, proponents of “expansive bilateralism” anticipate and view as positive, the transition from bilateral to multilateral institutional forms. For the latter, bilateral relations are the product of a specific set of historical circumstances, notably the Cold War. With the removal of ideological barriers, expansive bilateralists argue there can be movement towards multilateral frameworks.5 Job describes a system where bilateralism is the primary structure for security relations but it is supplemented by multilateral mechanisms as “extended bilateralism”.6 Clinton administration officials used the terms “enriched bilateralism” and “security pluralism” to describe the emerging set of complementary bilateral and multilateral arrangements. According to former Commander in Chief, U.S. Pacific Command, Admiral Dennis Blair: We now need to enrich [our] bilateral ties. No longer is it sufficient to consult only South Korea on American policy toward North Korea, we need also to work very closely with Japan, and consult with China and Russia. Consulting with security partners on bilateral relations regarding third countries before setting policy and taking action is becoming more important. From enriched bilateralism, it is a relatively small step towards bringing all parties working on the issue together for consultation and coordination. The approach that Japan, South Korea, and the U.S. used for coordinating their policies regarding North Korea is a template for building upon enriched bilateralism.7 Despite a rhetorical commitment to multilateral initiatives as a complement to existing bilateral treaties, the Clinton administration was criticized by some for failing to explain “how a preference for maintaining power-balancing alliances could be reconciled with an inclination to seek instruments for threat reduction and region-wide security collaboration”.8 In contrast, the George W. Bush administration had a more straightforward view. It came to office with a stated desire to strengthen its bilateral alliances and a skeptical attitude to multilateralism. In 2004, a U.S. State Department official described the alliances as “the backbone of our strategy” in Asia.9 Another

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recent survey of U.S. policy towards institutions in Asia sums up the general trend, concluding that “overall, multilateral approaches have ranked consistently lower than bilateralism.”10 Notes 1

2

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6 7

8

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10

William Diebold, Jr., “The History and the Issues”, in Bilateralism, Multilateralism and Canada in U.S. Trade Policy, edited by William Diebold, Jr. (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Ballinger, 1988). John Gerard Ruggie, “Multilateralism: The Anatomy of an Institution”, International Organization 46, no. 3 (Summer 1992): 561–98, 569. Ibid., pp. 572–73. Douglas T. Stuart and William S. Tow, A U.S. Strategy for the Asia-Pacific, Adelphi Paper no. 299 (London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1995), p. 16. Brian L. Job, “Bilateralism and Multilateralism in the Asia Pacific Region”, Paper presented at the Second Canada-China Seminar (CANCHIS II), Toronto, January 1998, pp. 2–3. An earlier version of this paper can be found in Brian L. Job, “Multilateralism in the Asia Pacific Region”, in Bilateralism in a Multilateral Era, edited by William Tow, Russell Trood, and Toshiya Hoshina (JIIA and Centre for Australia-Asia Relations, 1997). Ibid., p. 5. Remarks by Admiral Dennis C. Blair, U.S. Navy Commander in Chief, U.S. Pacific Command, at the Institute of Strategic and International Studies, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 8 September 1999. See also Dennis C. Blair and John T. Hanley, Jr. “From Wheels to Webs: Reconstructing Asia-Pacific Security Arrangements”, The Washington Quarterly 24, no. 1 (Winter 2001): 7–17. William Tow, Asia-Pacific Strategic Relations: Seeking Convergent Security (Cambridge University Press, New York, 2001) p. 189. Mitchell Reiss, “Challenges and Opportunities in a Changing Asia”, Remarks to the Asia Foundation, Washington, D.C., 14 May 2004, available online at: . Evelyn Goh, “The ASEAN Regional Forum in United States Strategy”, The Pacific Review 17, no. 1 (March 2004): 47–69, 62.

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COALITION OF THE WILLING

A group of states that cooperate in an ad hoc or informal fashion, outside of more formal multilateral institutions and alliances. The term has been used recently to describe the group of countries supporting the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, but its origins predate the George W. Bush administration. While the term usually refers to cooperation for military purposes, it has also been used in relation to other economic and human security issues in the AsiaPacific region. A key component of any coalition of the willing seems to be its essentially pragmatic, ad hoc nature. The Oxford English Dictionary defines a “coalition” as “a union, combination or fusion”, noting that in politics the term often refers to “an alliance for combined action of distinct parties, persons, or states, without permanent incorporation into one body”. Webster’s describes a “coalition” as a “combination, for temporary purposes, of persons, or parties, or states, having different interests”. The precise origins of the term “coalition of the willing” are unclear, but a controversial 1992 Pentagon planning document captured the essence of the concept, arguing that coalitions “hold considerable promise for promoting collective action”. It said the United States “should expect future coalitions to be ad hoc assemblies, often not lasting beyond the crisis being confronted, and in many cases carrying only general agreement over the objectives to be accomplished”.1 37

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Recent usage continues to stress this flexible, impermanent character. Less than a month after the 9/11 attacks in 2001, U.S. Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld said, there will not be a single coalition as there was in the Gulf War. The kinds of things we’re going to be engaged in will engage some countries on one aspect of it and still other countries on another aspect of it. And we will see revolving coalitions that will evolve and change over time depending on the activity and the circumstance of the country. The mission needs to define the coalition, and we ought not to think that a coalition should define the mission.2 Coalitions of the willing have been likened to “ad hoc” or “a la carte multilateralism” (see the entries on each) temporary collective responses to a particular issue, with one state playing a leading role and “picking and choosing its allies and mechanisms as circumstances dictate”.3 One attraction of the approach is that it is simpler for the leading state to undertake action, rather than having to work through cumbersome consultation processes with allies or forge consensus in global institutions such as the United Nations. Ivo Daalder and James Lindsay emphasize this point, drawing a distinction between the approach taken during the war in Kosovo, which required intense consultation and joint planning within NATO, with the Afghanistan war, where Pentagon planners did not have to subject any of their decisions to foreign approval. They conclude, “This is not to say that [the Bush administration has] ruled out working with others. Rather, [its] preferred form of multilateralism — to be indulged when unilateral action [is] impossible or unwise — [involves] building ad hoc coalitions of the willing.”4 Advocates for these ad hoc coalitions have contrasted them with what they perceive to be dysfunctional global institutions. Richard Perle has written that the twentieth century gives plenty of evidence for the need for coalitions of the willing. “Far from disparaging them as a threat to a new world order, we should recognize that they are, by default, the best hope for that order, and the true alternative to the anarchy of the abject failure of the United Nations.”5 Robert Kagan agrees, stating that Bismarck said every alliance has a horse and a rider, and one should endeavor to be the rider. The same goes for 38

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international coalitions. You’re either leading them or they’re leading you. Of course, we’re all interested in what “the coalition” feels may be necessary. We’d like to have as many nations on our side as possible. But with many thousands of Americans dead, and who knows how many more at risk, Washington ought to be making its own decisions about the war on terrorism. This is not the voice of unilateralism speaking. Contrary to fashionable wisdom, the debate today is not between multilateralism and unilateralism. It’s between effective multilateralism and paralytic multilateralism.6 Critics argue that “coalitions of the willing” essentially dress up unilateral action in multilateral garb. William O. Beeman has described the term as a “neat bit of rhetoric … designed to convince Americans, wary of unilateral action in the Middle East, that we are not alone in our support of the war effort”.7 Others have argued that in the Iraq case, the coalition assembled by the United States was only “an inch deep” and that Washington’s allies were not being asked to do more than line up “behind American military action”.8 U.S. Senator Robert Byrd went further, saying “Right now, the Administration is trying to coax nations to join the ‘coalition of the willing’ by paying them, not by asking them to help us pay for the war.” He went on to ridicule the use of the term, saying “ ‘Coalition of the willing’ or ‘COW’ for short. It appears to me that the U.S. is the ‘cow’ — the cash cow in this case. We are the ones being milked.”9 Other critics have played on the phrase, referring to the “coalition of the coerced”, “the coalition of the billing”, “coalition of the fleeing”, “coalition of the unwilling”, and “the coalition of the reluctant” amongst others.10 Some critics of the U.S. action in Iraq say they do not reject the notion of “coalitions of the willing” altogether, but rather stress the need for any ad hoc coalition to have international legitimacy.11 Indeed, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan endorsed the idea in principle, saying that because the UN does not have a combat capacity “ad hoc coalitions of the willing are usually better suited for [peacekeeping].” However, he was also quick to point out that “authorisation by the [Security] Council is essential for broad international support and legitimacy.”12 The recent association of the term with military action not explicitly endorsed by the United Nations Security Council has given it a pejorative connotation in the eyes of some Southeast 39

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Asian governments. Senior Indonesian officials, for example, have used the phrase as a contrast to UN-backed action. According to The Jakarta Post, foreign ministry officials said, “Indonesia would only be interested in joining a UN-led peacekeeping force in Afghanistan and not one organized by a coalition of willing nations.”13 Similarly, some regional leaders who supported U.S. actions in Iraq have rejected the use of the term as it applies to them. In March 2003, Singapore’s Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong said, “the United States-led coalition that Singapore had joined was not a ‘coalition of the willing’, but the ‘coalition for the immediate disarmament of Iraq’.” Said Goh: “ ‘Coalition of the willing’ suggests those deeply involved in the military warfare against Iraq. We are not at all involved on the military side.”14 In addition to military operations in Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq, regional security arrangements in Asia have occasionally been described using the term. Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer called for the deployment of a “an international security force under the auspices of the United Nations, […] to use the phrase I often use — a coalition of the willing” to East Timor after post-referendum violence there in 1999.15 According to one writer, the Five Power Defence Arrangements (FPDA) between the United Kingdom, Singapore, Malaysia, Australia and New Zealand represent another coalition of the willing, because the institution does not impose “undue strain or obligation on any party”.16 Yet the informal quality of any coalition of the willing has also raised concerns in some parts of East Asia. According to one commentator, “some governments see ‘coalitions of the willing’ as a way to loosen the ties that bind Washington to its allies. They worry that the US desire to enjoy flexibility could extend to ends as well as means. Fears of abandonment, always present in some countries, could be intensified as a result.”17 While recent discussions of the term have focused mainly on cooperation for military purposes, “coalition of the willing” has also been used to describe economic relationships and ties between governments and non-governmental actors in the area of human security. Writing on the 1997 treaty banning the use of antipersonnel landmines, Rob McRae describes the development of a new style of diplomacy, involving close working ties between governments and civil society groups. He says the treaty made progress because “while negotiations on banning these weapons had broken down in the UN, a non-traditional coalition of the willing, including like-minded governments, NGOs, 40

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parliamentarians, and citizens (including victims), led what became a global movement.”18 In the Southeast Asian context, “coalition of the willing” has also been used to call for a more flexible approach to decisionmaking within ASEAN. Writing in August 2000, the Indonesian commentator Jusuf Wanandi warned that if “Asean fails to change, then it will become irrelevant to its members and wither away.” Rather than rely on consensus-based decision-making, he said “the principle of the ‘coalition of the willing’ or the decision of “ASEAN minus X” should be introduced. As such, some members can develop a programme without the participation of others at the beginning.19 Yu Ping Chan has also linked “coalition of the willing” with the notion of “ASEAN minus X” arguing it could be a way to overcome problems of compatibility on security issues caused by the inclusion of smaller states such as Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar.20 Notes 1

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U.S. Department of Defense, Defence Planning Guidance cited in Patrick Tyler, “Pentagon Drops Goal of Blocking New Superpowers”, The New York Times, 24 May 1992. Remarks by Secretary of Defence Donald H. Rumsfeld, 25 September 2001, available at . Brad Glosserman, “Allies Unnerved by Coalitions of the Willing”, PacNet Newsletter, no. 14, 27 March 2003. Ivo Daalder and James Lindsay, The Bush Revolution in Foreign Policy (Brookings Institution Press, Washington D.C., 2003), p. 14. Richard Perle, “Coalitions of the Willing Are Our Best Hope”, The National Post (Canada), 21 March 2003. Robert Kagan, “Coalition of the Unwilling”, The Washington Post, 17 October 2001. William O. Beeman, “Domino Effect — Bush’s European Allies Could Battle Populace Next”, Pacific News Service, 23 February 2003. . Tony Judt, cited in Kumar Ramakrishna, “America’s Southeast Asian AntiTerror Strategy Lacks Creativity,” Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies, Singapore, Working Paper no. 26, 2002, p. 7. “Tell The World The True Cost of War”, Senate remarks by Senator Robert C. Byrd, 26 February 2003. Available at: . Pepe Escobar, “Coercion, All in the Name of Democracy”, Asia Times, 6 March 2003. Amitav Acharya, “Will US Let Others Form a ‘Coalition of the Willing’?”, The Straits Times, 17 April 2003. Bhanravee Tansubhapol, “United Nations/Peacekeeping Operations: Rapid Response is Vital, Says Annan”, The Bangkok Post, 12 February 2000.

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13 14 15

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“RI to Join only UN-backed Forces”, The Jakarta Post, 22 November 2001. Quoted in The Straits Times, 23 March 2003. Doorstop Interview about East Timor with Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, Canberra, 7 September 1999, 3.00pm, transcript available online at: . Khoo How San, “The Five Power Defence Arrangements: If It Ain’t Broke…”, Pointer: The Journal of the Singapore Armed Forces 26, no. 4 (December 2000). Glosserman, op. cit. See also, Jonathon Fenby, “Age of Shifting Coalitions”, The Japan Times, 29 March 2003. Rob McRae, “The New Global Civil Society”, in Human Security and the New Diplomacy, edited by Rob McRae and Don Hubert (McGill-Queens University Press, Montreal and Kingston, 2001) p. 244. Jusuf Wanandi, The Straits Times, 9 August 2000. Yu Ping Chan, “Standing By: Association of Southeast Asian Nations”, Harvard International Review 23, no. 1 (March 2001): 14.

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COERCIVE DIPLOMACY

Describes the use of limited force or the threat of force to achieve a specified diplomatic outcome. According to Sumit Ganguly and Michael Kraig, “the essential distinguishing feature of [coercive diplomacy] (and possibly its only consistent feature) is that it involves the threat of the use of force or the limited use of force. In essence, the coercing state uses this method to induce an adversary to desist from ongoing hostile actions and reverse any gains it has made.”1 According to Alexander George, there are three possible goals for coercive diplomacy: to get an adversary to stop an action already underway short of its goal; to persuade the adversary to reverse an action already carried out, and to attain “cessation of the opponent’s hostile behaviour through a change in the composition of the adversary’s government or in the nature of the regime”.2 Coercive diplomacy differs from deterrence, in that deterrence uses the threat of force only to dissuade an opponent from doing something that has not yet begun. It is also different from traditional military strategies. The target state’s military “stays largely intact, and its overall ability to fight is not severely degraded”. Or in George’s rather more colourful expression, the goal is to “persuade an opponent to cease his aggression, rather than bludgeon him into stopping”.3 Any use of force is designed 43

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to be exemplary, “to create a dramatically heightened sense of risk — an urgent fear by the elites of the targeted state that if they do not reverse course, disaster will surely ensue”.4 According to Barry Blechman and Stephan Kaplan, “with coercive diplomacy, military units themselves do not attain the objective; goals are achieved through the effect of the force on the perceptions of the [targeted] actor”.5 For its proponents, coercive diplomacy has advantages over diplomacy or the resort to war. “It is more compelling than diplomacy alone, for it carries with it the explicit threat of resorting to war if compliance is not forthcoming within a specified time span. On the other hand, it also avoids the rapid resort to war, the consequences of which may not be calculable or controllable.”6 Robert Art describes it as a “technique for achieving objectives ‘on the cheap’ and has allure because it promises big results with small costs (to the coercer)”.7 At the same time Art warns, that despite its allure, coercive diplomacy “is difficult and has a relatively low success rate”.8 Bruce Jentleson identifies five instances where coercive diplomacy was employed during the Reagan administration: the 1982–84 deployment of marines to Lebanon; the military and diplomatic pressures against Libya culminating in the 1986 bombing; the 1987–88 reflagging of Kuwaiti oil tankers; the deployment of the U.S. Navy against Iran in the Persian Gulf; and the supply of covert assistance to the mujahideen forces in Afghanistan and the contras in Nicaragua during the 1980s.9 Former Secretary of State James Baker described the lead up to the first Gulf War in 1990 as an exercise in coercive diplomacy. He recalled in his memoirs that this involved a steady escalation in coercion, which would begin “with diplomatic pressure, then add economic pressure…and finally move toward military pressure by increasing American troop strength in the Gulf”.10 Coercive diplomacy has also been used to describe several incidents in the Asia-Pacific. U.S. Secretary of Defence William Perry described the combination of what he called “diplomatic action and defence measures” used by the United States in the 1990s to stop North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme as “coercive diplomacy.”11 In his detailed examination of the case, William Drennan argues that both the United States and North Korea used coercive diplomacy. He argues “in the end both strategies failed, creating a highly combustible situation that in the judgment of those closest to the action, was almost certain to 44

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result in a major war that neither side wanted but appeared unable to stop.”12 David Shambaugh has used the term to describe China’s use of force near Taiwan prior to the 1996 presidential election.13 Robert Art agrees that China’s firing of missiles into the sea around Taiwan was indeed coercive diplomacy aimed at curtailing what were perceived to be moves towards Taiwanese independence. However, he argues that Washington’s subsequent deployment of naval forces to the region was not coercive diplomacy but rather “deterrence diplomacy”. As such, he concludes both Beijing and Washington got what they wanted. Taiwan was warned not to move precipitously towards independence and Washington appeared to be a reliable and credible ally to its friends in Asia.14 Notes 1

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Sumit Ganguly and Michael R. Kraig, “The 2001–2002 Indo-Pakistani Crisis: Exposing the Limits of Coercive Diplomacy”, Security Studies 14, no. 2 (April– June 2005): 290–324. Alexander George and William Simons, eds. The Limits of Coercive Diplomacy, 2nd ed. (Boulder: Westview Press), pp. 8–9. Cited in Robert Art, “Coercive Diplomacy: What do We Know?” in The United States and Coercive Diplomacy, edited by Robert Art and Patrick Cronin (United States Institute for Peace, Washington D.C., 2003) p. 360. Ganguly and Kraig, p. 293. Barry Blechman and Stephen Kaplan, Force Without War: U.S. Armed Forces as a Political Instrument (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1978), p. 13. Ganguly and Kraig, p. 294. Robert Art, “Introduction”, in Art and Cronin, eds., The United States and Coercive Diplomacy, p. 7. Robert Art, “Coercive Diplomacy: What do We Know?” in Art and Cronin, p. 402. Art concludes that of the cases discussed in the book, only 32 per cent were successful and that even that number may be too high as many were at best “borderline” success stories, p. 403. Bruce W. Jentleson, “The Reagan Administration and Coercive Diplomacy: Restraining More Than Remaking Governments”, Political Science Quarterly 106, no. 1 (Spring 1991): 57–82. Cited in Jon B. Alterman, “Coercive Diplomacy against Iraq, 1990–1998”, in The United States and Coercive Diplomacy, edited by Robert J. Art and Patrick M. Cronin (United States Institute for Peace, Washington D.C., 2003), p. 280. William Perry, “Defense in an Age of Hope”, Foreign Affairs 75, no. 6 (November/ December 1996): 64–79. William Drennan, “Nuclear Weapons and North Korea: Who’s Coercing Whom?”, in Art and Cronin, pp. 157–223, 159. Quoted in Tony Walker, “China’s Uncomfortable Embrace”, Financial Times, 6 February 1996, p. 15. Robert S. Ross, “The 1995–96 Taiwan Strait Confrontation”, in Art and Cronin, pp. 225–73, 226–27.

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COLLECTIVE DEFENCE

Sometimes called “collective self-defence”. Historically one of the most important elements of states’ national security policies, second only to “self-help”. The concept refers to the practice where states agree to collaborate to ward off a threat from an identified enemy (whether actual or potential). This collaboration is usually in the form of alliance relationships, coalitions, or pacts of mutual assistance, which aim to deter the would-be aggressor. The bestknown collective defence arrangements during the Cold War were the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the Warsaw Pact. The “inherent right of individual or collective self-defence” is recognized in Article 51 of the United Nations Charter.1 While collective defence is a very simple idea, in practice it is often confused with collective security. This is not surprising, for as well as having similar names they overlap in content. In the case of both collective security and collective defence, states commit themselves to assist others in the event of an attack. In both instances, the victim of aggression expects its defensive strength to be supplemented by the strength and support of other states. However, the essential difference between the two concepts is the way the states conceive of the enemy. According to Arnold Wolfers, nations enter collective defence arrangements to ward off threats to their national security emanating from some “specific country or 47

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group of countries regarded as the chief national enemy, actual or potential”.2 In contrast, collective security arrangements are directed against “any and every country anywhere that commits an act of aggression, allies and friends included”.3 In other words, while collective defence arrangements are focused against a particular (albeit often unnamed) external enemy, collective security targets aggression itself, from wherever it might come, including from within the group, with the threat of all against one. The development of the modern series of collective defence agreements in the Asia-Pacific began with the end of World War II. After 1945 the United States rejected a return to the pre-war policy of isolationism. Instead, after a period of enthusiasm for collective security symbolized by the launching of the United Nations, it began to build a collective defence structure designed to contain the spread of communism. The so-called Truman Doctrine, promulgated in March 1947, pledged that the United States would assist friendly nations that faced either external aggression or threats from “armed minorities”. In 1949 the North Atlantic Treaty was signed, bringing collective defence to Western Europe. NATO subsequently became the prototype for other U.S.sponsored multilateral defence arrangements, including several in Asia and the Pacific. The foundation of non-communist Asia’s collective defence framework with the United States was the “San Francisco system”.4 This was inaugurated in August and September 1951 when the United States signed a Mutual Security Treaty (MST) with Japan, a Mutual Defence Treaty with the Philippines, and entered ANZUS with Australia and New Zealand. While none of these agreements matched NATO’s breadth of membership, each agreement made mention of the goal of forming a wider regional security arrangement in the Pacific. In a 1954 speech, the U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles said that the collective defence treaties with the Philippines, Australia, and New Zealand “were only initial steps toward the development of a more comprehensive system of collective security [sic] in the region”.5 The United States expanded its alliance network to include South Korea (in 1953), Taiwan (in 1954, until its revocation in 1979), and Thailand (in 1962, with the Rusk-Thanat communiqué). In addition, the 1954 Southeast Asia Collective Defence Treaty (also known as the Manila Pact) led to the creation of the ill-fated Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO).6

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SEATO was the largest of the Asia-Pacific collective defence agreements. Its members were the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Britain, France, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Thailand. It was also arguably the least successful, formally wound up in 1977. The only other significant non-bilateral alliance, ANZUS, also stumbled in August 1986 when the United States suspended its treaty obligations to New Zealand in protest of that country’s ban on visits by nuclear-armed or propelled vessels.7 As nominally multilateral agreements, however, SEATO and ANZUS were exceptions in the region. Most collective defence arrangements in the Asia-Pacific were bilateral in form and the United States continues to maintain formal bilateral alliance relationships with Australia, Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, and Thailand. These are sometimes described using the metaphor of a wheel — with the United States as a central “hub” from which many “spokes” emerged — hence the term “hub and spokes system”.8 The goal of all these agreements was to ally a number of Asian states with the United States to deter and contain an identified adversary. This adversary was usually some variation of communism, and collective defence was directed by the United States and its allies at different times and with differing levels of success, against the Soviet Union, China, North Korea, and North (and subsequently, the Socialist Republic of) Vietnam. Fear of communism was not the only catalyst for collective defence, however. ANZUS was signed in 1951 at least in part to assuage Australian and New Zealand fears of a resurgent Japan.9 The communist powers also maintained their own collective defence and alliance relationships. The Soviet Union and China signed a mutual defence pact in 1950 that operated until the Sino-Soviet split in the 1960s. The Soviet Union also maintained formal alliances with Vietnam and Mongolia. While the end of the Cold War led some to question the salience of bilateral collective defence arrangements,10 they continue to hold appeal for many states. The United States continues to maintain bilateral military ties with South Korea, Japan, the Philippines, Australia, and several Southeast Asian nations.11 In addition, on 18 December 1995, the Australian and Indonesian Governments signed an “Agreement on Maintaining Security” which they had negotiated in secret.12 Among other things, the treaty (in Article 2) committed the two parties to “consult each other in the case of adverse challenges to either party or to

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their common security interests and, if appropriate, consider measures which might be taken either individually or jointly and in accordance with the processes of each Party” — language that is very similar to that used in the ANZUS Treaty.13 The agreement was short-lived. Relations between the two countries deteriorated in 1999 as the situation in East Timor fell into crisis and the Indonesian Government subsequently suspended the agreement.14 In April 2005, the two governments agreed to begin negotiations for a new treaty. However, Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer drew a distinction between any future security arrangement and a collective security agreement, saying “what we have both said to each other from the outset is we don’t want a kind of security or a defence pact like the ANZUS alliance.”15 Notes 1

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The text of the United Nations Charter is reproduced in Inis L. Claude, Jr., Swords into Plowshares: The Problems and Progress of International Organization (New York: Random House, 1971), pp. 463–94. Arnold Wolfers, “Collective Defence Versus Collective Security”, in Discord and Collaboration: Essays on International Politics, edited by Arnold Wolfers (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1962), p. 183. Emphasis added. Ibid. Douglas T. Stuart and William S. Tow, A U.S. Strategy for the Asia-Pacific, Adelphi Paper no. 299 (London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1995), p. 4. Address by the U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles on the Geneva Conference, reproduced in Robert L. Branyan and Lawrence H. Larsen, The Eisenhower Administration: 1953–1961 — A Documentary History, vol. I (New York: Random House, 1971), pp. 336–43, 336. The text of the treaty is reproduced in American Foreign Policy 1950–1955, vol. I, Parts I–IX (Washington, D.C.: Department of State, 1957), pp. 912–15. For a variety of perspectives on the ANZUS dispute, see Jacob Bercovitch, ed., ANZUS in Crisis: Alliance Management in International Affairs (London: Macmillan, 1988). In his 1992 article in Foreign Affairs, Secretary of State Baker used the slightly different metaphor of a fan to describe the U.S. security posture in Asia. According to Baker, the base of the fan was in North America and it radiated west across the Pacific. Each of the United States’ core alliances (Japan, South Korea, Philippines, Thailand, and Australia) constituted one spoke in the fan. Connecting the spokes, Baker said, was “the fabric of shared economic interests now given form by the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) process.” James A. Baker, III, “America in Asia: Emerging Architecture for a Pacific Community”, Foreign Affairs 70, no. 5 (Winter 1991–92): 4–5. For an account that stresses the U.S. role as instigator of ANZUS, see David MacLean, “ANZUS Origins: A Reassessment”, Australian Historical Studies 24, no. 94 (April 1990): 64–82. China has been particularly critical of alliances in the region it sees as

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anachronistic remnants of a “Cold War mentality”. See comments by Chinese Vice-Foreign Minister Chen Jian cited in Mary Kwang, “ARF Talks End with No Consensus on Bilateral Alliances”, Japan Economic Newswire, 10 March 1997. Jacqueline Rees and Nigel Holloway, “Cold Comfort”, Far Eastern Economic Review, 8 August 1996, p. 18. Agreement between the Government of Australia and the Government of the Republic of Indonesia on Maintaining Security, reproduced in Desmond Ball and Pauline Kerr, Presumptive Engagement: Australia’s Asia-Pacific Security Policy in the 1990s (St Leonards, NSW: Allen & Unwin, 1996), Appendix 5, pp. 143–44. For a discussion on the agreement’s origins, see Rizal Sukma, “Indonesia’s Bebas-Aktif Foreign Policy and the ‘Security Agreement’ with Australia”, Australian Journal of International Affairs 51, no. 2 (July 1997): 231–49; For an analysis of the agreement and what it means for the ARF, see Leifer, The ASEAN Regional Forum: Extending ASEAN’s Model of Regional Security, pp. 50– 51. Ball and Kerr, Presumptive Engagement, p. 144. Chua Lee Hoong, “Can the U.N. Finish What It has Begun?”, The Straits Times, 18 September 1999. Graeme Dobell, “Australia/Indonesia Negotiate New Defence Agreement”, ABC’s “PM” Show. Transcript available at: .

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COLLECTIVE SECURITY

Came to prominence during and immediately after World War I, partly as a reaction against the perceived failings of the balance of power system. The concept’s best-known early advocate was Woodrow Wilson. Appalled by the outbreak of war in Europe, Wilson decided by the end of 1914 that nations must be “bound together for the protection of the integrity of each, so that any one nation breaking from this bond will bring upon herself war; that is to say punishment, automatically”.1 He called for a League to Enforce Peace, and publicly committed himself to “an association of nations”.2 In his famous 1917 “peace without victory” speech to the U.S. Senate calling for war against Germany, Wilson lashed out at the “crude machinations” of the balance of power and its failure to keep the peace in Europe.3 He pledged that once the war was over, he would work to replace the balance of power with a “community of power.”4 It was this idea which would eventually grow into the modern notion of collective security and lead to the creation of the ill-fated League of Nations. While the United States turned its back on collective security when it rejected participation in the League, the idea resurfaced under President Roosevelt. In 1943, Cordell Hull, one of the architects of the successor to the League, the United Nations, declared that the creation of an international collective security 53

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organization meant there would be “no need for spheres of influence, for balance of power, or any other of the special arrangements through which, in the unhappy past, the nations strove to safeguard their security.”5 Speaking to the Senate following the 1945 San Francisco conference, Senator Arthur Vandenberg declared that he would support ratification of the United Nations Charter, saying “peace must not be cheated of its collective chance … We must have collective security to stop the next war, if possible before it starts; and we must have collective security to crush it swiftly if it starts; and we must have collective action to crush it swiftly if it starts in spite of our organized precautions.”6 The fundamental basis of collective security is the idea of all against one.7 States that participate in a collective security system, while retaining considerable autonomy in their foreign relations, commit to join a coalition to confront any would-be aggressor. An attack against any of the members is treated as an attack against them all. In one description, collective security is a “permanent potential alliance against the unknown enemy … on behalf of the unknown victim”.8 Inis Claude has said collective security “purports to provide security for all states, by the action of all states, against all states which might challenge the existing order by the arbitrary unleashing of their power”.9 The aim of such a system is more effectively to deter aggression than would be possible through “balancing” forces in a purely anarchic environment. Advocates of collective security argue that because any would-be aggressor will be met with an overwhelming preponderance of power, over time the use of force will decline, and international relations will become more cooperative and less conflictual.10 Examples of collective security organizations vary from what Claude calls “ideal collective security systems” to concert-based arrangements (see the entry on concert of powers).11 An ideal collective security system would involve all the states of the world, cover all regions of the world, and require a legally binding and codified commitment on the members to respond against aggression whenever and wherever it might appear. Such a system obviously assumes a very high degree of common interest among states. In practice, there has never been an organization that has met the requirements of an ideal collective security system, although the League of Nations and the United Nations come closest.12 A concert-based system lies at the other end of the spectrum. Though also predicated on the idea of all against one, 54

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concert membership tends to be more restricted, usually to the great powers in a system. Concert members consult informally on a regular basis to discuss events and if necessary, to organize collective action. Decisions are made based on consensus. Competitive power politics is not completely eliminated, but a concert system assumes that its members’ overriding concern about preserving peace will prevent jockeying for influence from becoming actual conflict.13 According to Charles and Clifford Kupchan, there are three preconditions for the creation and effective functioning of a collective security system. First, no single state can be so powerful that even the strongest opposing coalition would be unable to marshal preponderant force against it. In other words, “all states in the system must be vulnerable to collective sanctions.”14 This requires that the nations subscribing to the collective security system are not only able to resist an aggressor but also willing to do so. Secondly, all the major powers must share a common view of what constitutes a stable and acceptable international order. In practical terms, notes Kenneth Thompson, “the peace which a collective security system must defend is the territorial status quo existing at the time the system is brought into being.”15 A collective security system cannot work where there is one major revisionist power committed to overturning the international order for either ideological or power-related reasons. The third (and related) condition is that the major powers must share what Thompson calls “a minimum of political solidarity and moral community”.16 Decision-makers must hold a common vision of the international system and believe that efforts “to protect and promote political solidarity” are needed to make the vision a reality. In addition, élites in one state must believe that élites in the others share the value they place on mutual security and cooperation.17 The meaning of collective security has become increasingly confused and indeterminate over the past few decades. Even the most knowledgeable scholars now use the term as synonymous with collective defence (see the entry on “Collective Defence”). Inis Claude laments this “semantic debasement” in his book, Swords into Plowshares, observing that “collective security has been appropriated as an honorific designation for virtually any and all multilateral activities that statesmen or scholars may regard, or wish to have regarded, as conducive to peace and order.”18 He notes that it was a “particularly ironic twist of fate”, that the label “collective security” was being used to describe alliances, “in 55

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flagrant disregard of the fact that the notion of a collective security system was originally developed in reaction against and in the hope of providing a substitute for the traditional system of competing alliances.”19 In another celebrated essay comparing collective security with collective defence, Claude concludes that the misappropriation and debasement of collective security was probably part of a deliberate strategy. One can see why American statesmen should be particularly inclined to use the two terms as synonymous, often applying the term “collective security” to such collective defence arrangements as NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization] and SEATO [Southeast Asia Treaty Organization] or even to such bilateral military pacts as the ones concluded with South Korea or Nationalist China. Consciously or unconsciously, they are seeking to make these arrangements more palatable to a people they believe to be adverse to alliances as the “power-political” instrument Woodrow Wilson condemned as the chief cause of war.20 Notes 1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Richard N. Current, “The United States and Collective Security: Notes on the History of an Idea”, in Isolationism and Security, edited by Alexander DeConde (Durham: Duke University Press, 1957), p. 36. Ibid., p. 37. For a discussion of other contemporary notions of collective security, see Martin David Dubin, “Toward the Concept of Collective Security: The Bryce Group’s ‘Proposals for the Avoidance of War’, 1914–1917”, International Organization 24, no. 2 (Spring 1970): 288–318. John Gerard Ruggie, “Contingencies, Constraints, and Collective Security: Perspectives on United Nations Involvement in International Disputes”, International Organization 28, no. 3 (Summer 1974): 493–520. John Gerard Ruggie, “The Past as Prologue: Interests, Identity, and American Foreign Policy”, International Security 21, no. 4 (Spring 1997): 89–125, 95; an expanded version of this discussion is presented in John Gerard Ruggie, Winning the Peace: America and World Order in the New Era (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996). Alfred Vagts, “The Balance of Power: The Growth of an Idea”, World Politics 1, no. 1 (October 1948): 82–101, 82. Kenneth W. Thompson, “Isolationism and Collective Security: the Uses and Limits of Two Theories of International Relations”, in Isolationism and Security, edited by DeConde, p. 172. Charles A. Kupchan and Clifford A. Kupchan, “Concerts, Collective Security, and the Future of Europe”, International Security 16, no. 1 (Summer 1991): 114– 61.

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8

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10 11 12 13 14

15 16

17

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19 20

John Gerard Ruggie paraphrasing Sir Arthur Salter, cited in Ruggie, “Multilateralism: The Anatomy of an Institution”, International Organization 46, no. 3 (Summer 1992): 569. Inis L. Claude, Jr., Power and International Relations (New York: Random House, 1962), p. 110. Emphasis in original. Kupchan and Kupchan, “Concerts, Collective Security”, pp. 118, 125. Claude, Power and International Relations, pp. 110, 168. Kupchan and Kupchan, “Concerts, Collective Security”, pp. 120–23. Ibid., pp. 119–20. Ibid., p. 124. See also Thompson, “Isolationism and Collective Security”, pp. 175–76. Thompson, “Isolationism and Collective Security”, p. 175. Kenneth Thompson, “Collective Security Re-examined”, American Political Science Review 47, no. 3 (September 1953): 753–72, 758–62, cited in Kupchan and Kupchan, “Concerts, Collective Security”, p. 124; see also Howard Johnson and Gerhart Niemeyer, “Collective Security: The Validity of an Ideal”, International Organization 8 (February 1954): 19–35. Robert Jervis, “Security Regimes”, International Organization 36, no. 2 (Spring 1982): 173–94, 176–78, cited in Kupchan and Kupchan, “Concerts, Collective Security”, p. 125. Inis L. Claude, Jr., Swords into Plowshares: The Problems and Progress of International Organization (New York: Random House, 1971), p. 247. Ibid. Claude, “Collective Defense versus Collective Security”, p. 185. Cf. Ruggie, who argues that NATO “reflects a truncated version” of a collective security system. He points out that internally NATO was based on two multilateralist principles which make it more similar to a traditional collective security arrangement than most alliances. First, NATO was based on the “indivisibility of threats to the collectivity — that is, it did not matter whether it was Germany, Great Britain, the Netherlands, or Norway that was attacked, nor in theory by whom — and the second was the requirement of an unconditional collective response”. See Ruggie, “Multilateralism: The Anatomy of an Institution”, pp. 570–71. Under the 1954 Manila Pact, SEATO did not require the same “automatic” response to aggression from members.

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Conceived in its contemporary usage in Cold War Europe, it was first formulated in the 1982 report of the Independent Commission on Disarmament and Security Issues, chaired by the late Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme.1 Egon Bahr, a West German member of the Commission and a former adviser to Willy Brandt, has claimed credit for inventing the term.2 According to Geoffrey Wiseman, “common security is designed to be a long-term and pragmatic process that will eventually lead to peace and disarmament by changing thinking that has created the superpower arms race, prevented arms control and disarmament, and which has seen continued high levels of conventional conflict.”3 The Palme Commission’s report, Common Security: A Blueprint for Survival, described common security as underpinned by the assumption that security is best assured through cooperation rather than competitive power politics. The report set out six principles of common security: all nations have a legitimate right to security; military force is not a legitimate instrument for resolving disputes between nations; restraint is necessary in expressions of national policy; security cannot be attained through military superiority; reductions and qualitative limitations of armaments are necessary for common security; and “linkages” between arms negotiations and political events should be avoided.4 59

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The commission’s report dismissed notions of security as a zero-sum phenomenon that can be attained unilaterally. It recognized that “inadvertent” war could arise from the dynamics of a reciprocal security dilemma, in which the defensive preparations of one state are seen as offensively intended by rival states.5 To avoid such a scenario, common security emphasizes the importance of reassuring potential adversaries. According to Palme, “states cannot achieve security at each other’s expense”; security must be achieved “not against the adversary but with him”. Common security, the report went on, “must replace the present expedient of deterrence.”6 The Palme Commission also called for arms control, multilateral cooperation and the enhancement of the collective security functions of the United Nations. Common security is also closely associated with the development of specific confidence-building measures (CBMs) intended to reduce tensions between the East and West. These include the presence of observers from both sides at large military exercises, increased transparency, and information-sharing. Together these measures have the broad aim of reducing the fear of a surprise attack. There is, however, a certain tension at the core of the concept. As Andrew Mack notes, common security “must both avoid ‘security dilemma’ risks by reassuring potential adversaries, while also deterring would-be aggressors. Achieving an appropriate balance between the requirements of deterrence and reassurance is extraordinarily difficult.”7 The Palme Commission also viewed “security” as a multidimensional concept — a fact that has been overlooked in some of the more recent references to the concept.8 The commission’s report suggested that security must be conceived in broad terms to include economic issues as well as military threats. It stressed the linkage between common security and common prosperity. It declared that “security requires economic progress as well as freedom from fear”, and urged a more just distribution of global resources between the North and South.9 In the Asia-Pacific region, common security first came to prominence when it was linked with Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev’s 1986 Vladivostok and Krasnoyask proposals for an Asian equivalent of the Helsinki (CSCE, or Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe) process.10 These proposals were bluntly dismissed by the United States and some of its allies at the time as an attempt by the Soviet Union to introduce naval arms control into what was then the U.S. Navy-dominated North Pacific.11 60

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The concept was taken up again by the Australian and Canadian governments in 1990. Former Australian Foreign Minister Gareth Evans used the concept in several speeches and a now-famous article in the International Herald Tribune, entitled “What Asia Needs is a Europe-Style CSCA [Conference on Security and Co-operation in Asia]”. In it, Evans said unambiguously “it is not unreasonable to expect that new Europe-style patterns of cooperation between old adversaries will find their echo in this part of the world.”12 While Evans’ proposal was perhaps more cautious than the article’s headline suggested — he acknowledged the need for a “gradualist” approach and called for the establishment of a “similar institutional framework”, not the wholesale importation of the CSCE structure13 — it was greeted with antipathy in the region.14 Despite the rejection of the CSCA idea (which was actually referred to as APSD [Asia Pacific Security Dialogue] by its supporters), the concept of common security nonetheless found some resonance. Speaking in 1992, the Malaysian Defence Minister Najib Tun Razak referred approvingly to the principles of common security, saying that “although the Palme Commission’s major preoccupation was with nuclear confrontation, I am of the opinion that these principles are equally valid in the non-nuclear context.”15 At about the same time that Evans was advocating his CSCA proposal, Canadian Secretary of State for External Affairs Joe Clark was using the language of common security to argue “the time has come to develop institutions of dialogue in the Pacific.” In a series of speeches in Canada, Japan, and Indonesia, Clark urged the establishment of a “Pacific adaption” of the CSCE.16 Like Evans’ proposal, however, the Canadian call was rejected outright by the United States, Japan, and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). A common complaint among Asian scholars and officials was that both the Australian and Canadian proposals were based on inappropriate “Eurocentric” models of security.17 The Australian and Canadian foreign ministers went on to embrace the concept of cooperative security (see the entry on “Cooperative Security”), which had the advantages of not being perceived as “imported” from outside the region and not being associated with calls for a CSCA. Controversy around the term has declined in recent years and many regional states now use the term with no apparent discomfort. Some commentators have speculated that China’s “new security concept” (see the entry) is actually a “common security 61

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approach” under another name.18 Chinese officials themselves have said that “the core of the new security concept is to seek common security through consultations, coordination, and cooperation.”19 Notes 1

2

3 4 5

6 7

8

9 10

11

12 13

Palme Commission, The Report of the Independent Commission on Disarmament and Security Issues under the Chairmanship of Olof Palme — Common Security: A Blueprint for Survival (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1982) (Hereafter referred to as Common Security). Bahr claimed credit for coining the term in an interview with Geoffrey Wiseman, perhaps the leading scholar of common security, in an interview at Oxford in 1987. See Geoffrey Wiseman, Common Security and Non-Provocative Defence: Alternative Approaches to the Security Dilemma (Canberra: Peace Research Centre, Australian National University, 1989), p. 5, note 41. Ibid., p. 7. Common Security, pp. 8–11. For a succinct definition of the concept of the security dilemma, see John Herz, “Idealist Internationalism and the Security Dilemma”, in The Nation-State and the Crisis of World Politics, by John Herz (New York: David McKay, 1976), pp. 72–73. Common Security, p. xiii. Andrew Mack, “Concepts of Security in the Post-Cold War World”, Working Paper no. 8, Department of International Relations, Australian National University, Canberra, 1993, p. 9. For example, Mack says, “ ‘Common security’ policies do not deal with economic, political or social issues as causes of insecurity, still less with such issues as dimensions of security or insecurity.” Ibid., p. 8 (emphasis in original). Cf. Common Security, which notes “pressures stemming from economic underdevelopment and the maldistribution of resources and wealth produce stresses and strains both within and between nations. Hunger, malnutrition, poverty, and ill-health on a massive scale all work to spur political change, sometimes through violent means.” See Common Security, p. 11, see also p. xv; Geoffrey Wiseman, “Common Security in the Asia-Pacific Region”, The Pacific Review 5, no. 1 (1992): 42–59, 43. Common Security, p. xvi. For a discussion of the Gorbachev Vladivostok Initiative, see Ramesh Thakur and Carlyle A. Thayer, The Soviet Union as an Asian Pacific Power: Implications of Gorbachev’s 1986 Vladivostok Initiative (Boulder: Westview Press, 1987). Wiseman also emphasizes the role played by the Australian and New Zealand peace movements and “social democratic” political parties in taking the European literature on alternative defence policies and giving them a regional relevance. Wiseman, “Common Security in the Asia-Pacific Region”, p. 43. Andrew Mack, “Why the Navy Hates Arms Control”, Pacific Research (November 1989). International Herald Tribune, 27 July 1990. In a speech Evans made to the ASEAN Post-Ministerial Conference in Jakarta the day the article appeared in the International Herald Tribune, he referred to the possibility of “wholly new institutions” evolving in Asia. See Gareth Evans,

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14

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“ASEAN’s Past Success a Prelude to the Future”, reproduced in Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s The Monthly Record, July 1990, p. 430. In a book he co-authored with Bruce Grant, Evans says the idea of the CSCA is better thought of as a “metaphor” for a process of dialogue and mutual confidence-building. Gareth Evans and Bruce Grant, Australia’s Foreign Relations in the World of the 1990s, 2nd ed. (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1995), p. 117. For example, see the statements by Indonesian Foreign Minister Ali Alatas and Singapore Foreign Minister Wong Kan Seng in “ASEAN Wary of Pacific Security Plan”, Australian, 8 October 1990, p. 8; The United States was also strongly opposed to the proposal. A leaked copy of a letter written by Secretary of State James Baker to Foreign Minister Evans on 19 November 1990 was published in the Australian press in 1991. See, “Security, In Letter and Spirit”, Australian Financial Review, 2 May 1991, p. 12. Datuk Seri Mohammed Najib Tun Razak, Minister for Defence, Malaysia, “Regional Security: Towards Cooperative Security and Regional Stability”, Speech at the Chief of the General Staff Conference, Darwin, Australia, 9 April 1992. Joe Clark, “Canada and Asia Pacific in the 1990s”, Speech at the Victoria Chamber of Commerce, Victoria, British Columbia, 17 July 1990; Speech at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan, Tokyo, 24 July 1990; Speech at the Indonesia-Canada Business Council and the Canada Business Association, Jakarta, 26 July 1990. For a discussion of the Eurocentric framing of common security discourse during the late 1980s, see Kevin Clements, “Common Security in the AsiaPacific: Problems and Prospects”, Alternatives XIV (1989): 49–76, 52–54. Phar Kim Beng, “China’s Strategic Shift to Common Security”, Asia Times, 26 November 2002. “Chinese Army Paper on New Security Concept”, Jiefangjun Bao, 24 Dec 1997, p. 5 \ FBIS-CHI-98-015, 15 Jan 1998, available online at .

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One of the most widely used security concepts in the Asia-Pacific region. According to Muthiah Alagappa, the term was first formally coined in Japan during the Ohira Administration in the 1970s. It has also been widely used by several governments in Southeast Asia, particularly Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore.1 Since the end of the Cold War, interest in inclusive approaches to security has spread to other parts of the Asia-Pacific region. For example, Mongolia’s concept of national security, which was officially articulated in 1994, also embraces much of the substance of comprehensive security.2 The central premise of comprehensive security is that security must be conceived in a holistic way — to include both military and non-military threats to a state’s overall well-being. The concept also stresses the importance of non-military policy responses. Like many security concepts, however, the term “comprehensive security” is used and interpreted in very different ways in different parts of the region. The Japanese interpretation of “comprehensive national security” (Soogoo anzen hoshoo) was developed as an alternative to the concept of “national security” which within Japan was widely associated with the period of wartime expansionism and aggression.3 Following a series of government studies on the 65

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subject, the “Report on Comprehensive National Security” was submitted to the government of Acting Prime Minister Masayoshi Ito in July 1980.4 The so-called Inoki Report defined security in a very broad way: it stressed the need to maintain military preparedness and alliances, identified the less orthodox goals of attaining energy and food security, and also set out measures for dealing with major earthquakes. At the core of the Japanese idea of comprehensive security lies the multidimensional nature of contemporary threats: challenges to a state can come in the form of economic problems, the disruption of trade or natural disasters, as well as from an armed enemy.5 In stressing the multidimensional nature of threats, the Japanese interpretation of comprehensive security recognizes that military power, in itself, is not sufficient to guarantee a nation’s security. It emphasizes a wide variety of non-military policy responses including the full use of political, economic, diplomatic, and military resources. One important instrument Japan has used to attain comprehensive national security is its enormous economic power. The 1983 Foreign Ministry Blue Book acknowledges that “official development assistance (ODA), constitutes one of [Japan’s] major efforts to ensure its comprehensive security.” In particular, ODA has been directed at securing a stable supply of food and energy, a strategy described by one analyst as “comprehensive security through aid”.6 While the Japanese approach to comprehensive security expands the language of security to cover a broader range of less traditional security goals, it also includes an important role for conventional military security. In 1984 a second report, entitled “Comprehensive Security Policy for the International State, Japan” was submitted to Prime Minister Nakasone by the Peace Issues Research Council. This echoed many of the findings of the Inoki Report, but added that the relative decline of American power meant Japan would need to increase its military expenditure. The report recommended a review of the 1 per cent ceiling of gross national product (GNP) on defence spending. The ceiling was subsequently abolished by Prime Minister Nakasone in January 1987. Some scholars have suggested that comprehensive security helped the Japanese Government draw attention away from the more traditional military aspects of its security policy. They argue that it helped facilitate the development and modernization of the Japan Self Defence Force (SDF) and allowed a less polemical debate about defence issues and the role of the SDF to evolve.7 66

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In practice, the use of comprehensive security also led to changes in the way Japan formulates its defence policy. In 1986, the Nakasone government created a powerful new National Security Council (NSC) to be the principal security policy-making body. Charged with maintaining military preparedness and coordinating security policy, the NSC also deals with emergencies of a non-military nature, including natural disasters. Peter Katzenstein and Nobuo Okawara suggest another key aspect of Japanese comprehensive security is the habit of cross-posting staff between government departments involved in the formulation and execution of security policy. Officials from the Ministries of Finance (MOF), Foreign Affairs (MOFA), and International Trade and Industry (MITI) are regularly posted to positions inside the Japan Defence Agency, allowing them input to the policy-making process at its core, and helping to create a broader notion of security.8 The Japanese Government’s use of comprehensive security seems to have peaked in the 1990s. Recent issues of the Foreign Ministry Blue Book, for example, make few references to the term. The section on ODA in the 2004 Blue Book does not refer to comprehensive security at all, but instead makes thirteen references to “human security”.9 Japan’s ODA Charter also notes that human security is its “basic principle”.10 It would appear that human security has displaced comprehensive security as Japan’s security concept of choice. The concept of comprehensive security has also been used widely in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). According to David Dewitt, “at least three ASEAN members — Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore — have developed distinctive notions of security which go beyond military objectives and instruments, while the Philippines also has … developed a similar doctrine to guide its approach to security.”11 More recently, Thai scholars have offered their own interpretation of a comprehensive security approach.12 The ASEAN member states’ interpretations of comprehensive security, however, have been historically quite different to that of Japan. While Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore emphasize non-military threats and policy instruments, their policy has had, at least until recently, a different orientation from the Japanese concept. While the Japanese notion of comprehensive national security deals almost exclusively with the possibility of external threats, the ASEAN member states have traditionally used comprehensive security to focus predominantly on internal concerns.13 67

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Indonesia’s notion of comprehensive security, expressed in the idea Ketahanan Nasional or national resilience, originated at the beginning of the New Order regime. The concept was discussed and debated by Indonesia’s National Defence Board between 1968 and 1972 and was formally promulgated as a national doctrine in 1973 in the “Guidelines of State Policy.” Its importance is evidenced by its formal position in Indonesian State Law where it is described as a dynamic condition of will-power, determination, and firmness with the ability to develop national strength to face and overcome all manner of threats internal and external, direct or indirect, that may endanger the Indonesian national identity and the total way of life of the nation and its people.14 Like many security concepts in the developing world, Indonesia’s interpretation of comprehensive security can be seen as part of a broader policy of state-building.15 Muthiah Alagappa has linked the origins of national resilience to the movement against Dutch colonialism and the subsequent desire to build a united Indonesian state.16 He says this explains the central role of the military (ABRI, or Angkatan Bersenjata Republik Indonesia) and its dual functions in the Indonesian political system. Alagappa says, while ABRI believed the likelihood of a direct military attack on Indonesia was low, they were concerned at the possibility of “war by proxy”. The emphasis of comprehensive security is, therefore, “on maintaining internal security and stability to deny opportunities for infiltration and subversion. The focus has been on internal threats such as ethnic, religious, racial and intergroup conflicts … drug addiction and trafficking, and criminal acts.”17 The means through which resilience was to be attained included “ideological, political, economic, political, socio-cultural, and security-cum-defence” policies with “top priority” being accorded to economic development.18 While Alagappa argues “the doctrine of national resilience does not address the international environment”, the development of the policy also had the effect of easing tensions created by Indonesia’s policy of Konfrontasi in the 1960s. During Konfrontasi, Indonesia’s relations with its neighbours reached an unprecedented low. National resilience’s more introspective security posture

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assuaged the fears of neighbouring states by focusing primarily on economic development and the preservation of internal stability. Malaysia’s concept of comprehensive security places a similar priority on economic development, national homogeneity, and the amelioration of non-military threats, although on the surface at least, the concept has a more outward-looking appearance. According to Noordin Sopiee, the country’s interpretation of comprehensive security was first outlined in a speech entitled “Malaysia’s Doctrine of Comprehensive Security”, given by Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Musa Hitam in Singapore in March 1984.19 The deputy prime minister compared comprehensive security with a house built on three mutually reinforcing pillars. The first pillar consists of ensuring a secure Southeast Asia. The second is to ensure “a strong and effective ASEAN ‘community’ ”, and the third, which he described as “most basic,” is the necessity to have “a sound, secure and strong Malaysia”. Sopiee has summarized the concept as “ensuring national security in substantial part through regional security (and ensuring regional security in substantial part through national resilience and security)”.20 The Malaysian interpretation of comprehensive security has been colourfully summarized by then Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, who noted at a conference on national security, that When we talk about national security, the picture that usually comes to mind is that of armed soldiers manning border posts or fighting in the jungle … But security is not just a matter of military capability. National security is inseparable from political stability, economic success, and social harmony. Without these all the guns in the world cannot prevent a country from being overcome by its enemies, whose ambitions can be fulfilled sometimes without firing a single shot. All they need to do is to subvert the people and set up a puppet regime. Clearly economic difficulties are serious threats to national security. Failure to understand this threat may result in a cycle of recession followed by political instability, security threats and even greater recession. The skillful management of the economy and clear thinking are therefore an integral part of the strategy for national security.21

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The origins of Malaysia’s approach to comprehensive date back to war against the banned Communist Party of Malaysia (CPM). The government worried that although communist ideas had only limited appeal in relatively affluent Malaysia, and the guerrillas were too weak to win a military victory, they might be able to exploit latent ethnic, religious, and social cleavages within Malaysian society to their advantage. Developing a domestic political consensus became a central goal for successive Malaysian governments. After independence, this consensus was forged through a delicate compromise based on a trade-off between special rights for indigenous Malays in return for citizenship rights for non-Malays and economic dominance for the Chinese community. Despite being set back by racial riots in 1969, the establishment of the New Economic Policy (NEP) with its goals of eradicating poverty and increasing Malay participation in the economy sought to further this goal by eliminating “internal contradictions”.22 This approach undoubtedly reflected a multidimensional concept of security. But there was no attempt to fashion a formal national security doctrine along these lines until the 1970s. Alagappa claims that it was not until the late 1970s and early 1980s that terms such as national resilience and comprehensive security crept into the Malaysian vocabulary, and these were not officially endorsed until sometime later. Indeed, he notes that these concepts initially were viewed with some scepticism by Malaysia’s armed forces and police, who believed they would downgrade their role in the defence of the state.23 Other specific threats to comprehensive security that have since been identified by Malaysian scholars and officials include: drug addiction, religious extremism, illegal immigration, crime, and economic stagnation. In a speech in 1986, Tun Hussein Onn noted that the threats to Malaysian security “traverse political, socio-cultural, psychological, and economic dimensions”.24 While the internal dimension of Malaysia’s comprehensive security policy is often stressed, it has always had an important external and regional focus as well.25 In a 1984 article, Noordin Sopiee stresses the need for Malaysia to ensure comprehensive regional resilience through “a resilient ASEAN community of nations”.26 He says comprehensive security requires “commitment to the territorial integrity of the Philippines and Thailand” (which like Malaysia were fighting insurgencies at the time); the strengthening of ASEAN; and “the building of mutual trust, confidence, and goodwill between the ASEAN states”. He argues 70

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these latter goals require adherence to the principle of not inviting external intervention in the region and “the development of institutions, conventions, procedures, and practices for the peaceful resolution of conflict”.27 In the event of armed aggression against Malaysia, Deputy Prime Minister Musa Hitam articulated a notion similar to the Maoist strategy of People’s War. He said: Any foreign aggressor will … have to face the fury of Malaysian civil resistance … I can assure any potential aggressor that Malaysians will fight for every inch of our soil. What any aggressor will find is that we are like a lump of steel — possible to swallow, but impossible to digest.28 Singapore has also pursued a comprehensive approach to its security through the concept of “Total Defence” (sometimes referred to as “Total Security”), an idea associated with Goh Chok Tong and Lee Hsien Loong.29 Similar to resilience, it emphasizes internal stability through the fostering of a unified national identity and continued economic development. According to a Singapore defence policy statement presented to an ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) Senior Officials Meeting (SOM), the concept works to make sure “every sector of society is mobilized and has a part to play in Singapore’s security.”30 Total Defence has five constitutive elements. The first is “psychological defence” or the development of a collective will among Singaporeans to defend their country. According to Defence Minister Teo Chee Hean, “every Singaporean has a part to play to make us more resilient and strengthen the country’s ability to protect itself from threats, whatever form they may take.”31 The second is “social defence” which stresses the importance of homogeneity, demanding conformity from citizens regardless of their race, language, or religion; third is “economic defence” which connotes the ability to resist specific economic threats such as boycotts, sanctions, or sabotage; fourth is “civil defence” or coordinated responses to protect the population in the event of a state of emergency. The final element is “military defence” which includes the maintenance of a well-equipped and professional armed forces.32 Like the Malaysian idea of the “lump of steel”, Singapore’s deterrence posture has been compared to a “poisonous shrimp”. Recent policy statements commit Singapore “to strengthen all five components of Total 71

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Defence” noting that in addition to having strong military capabilities, the Singapore Armed Forces need to “work more closely with other government agencies to develop an effective defence against new security challenges, especially the nontraditional threats that may arise”.33 The ASEAN member states’ articulation of comprehensive security was largely internally focused during the Cold War. However, since the advent of multilateral security dialogues in the Asia-Pacific, there has been a growing interest in making comprehensive security more relevant at the regional level. One possibility that has been discussed is through some connection to the concept of cooperative security. In a Sydney Morning Herald article in June 1994, Jusuf Wanandi was quoted as saying the creation of the ARF marked “a transformation of ASEAN’s idea of comprehensive security based on the so-called doctrine of the 1971 Zone of Peace, Freedom and Neutrality”. He said that reaching out to northern Asia and non-like-minded states is part of the association’s new “cooperative security approach”.34 Dewitt and Acharya similarly argued “cooperative security can be viewed as the means to achieve the goals embedded within the notion of comprehensive security.”35 The Working Group on Comprehensive and Cooperative Security of the Council for Security Co-operation in Asia Pacific (CSCAP) has also explored a regional role for comprehensive security. In CSCAP Memorandum No. 3 on Comprehensive and Cooperative Security,36 the group reiterated many of the elements of comprehensive security set out above, but also enlarged the concept’s meaning. It noted a desire to set out “an over-arching organizing concept for the management of security in the region which might be agreeable to all states.” It contrasted comprehensive security with other approaches to regional security, stating: Neither collective security nor balance of power approaches are of themselves adequate organizing principles for the region because security of vital interests and core values extends beyond the military sphere and comprehensive security can only be attained through cooperation based on common interests. Collective security and balance of power therefore need to be complemented, or at times, superseded, by comprehensive security approaches.37

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The memorandum set out seven principles as the “distinctive features” of comprehensive security as an “organizing concept”. These are the Principle of Comprehensiveness; the Principle of Mutual Interdependence; the Principle of Cooperative Peace and Shared Security; the Principle of Self-Reliance; the Principle of Inclusiveness; the Principle of Peaceful Engagement; and the Principle of Good Citizenship. It explicitly embraced confidencebuilding measures, preventive diplomacy, and the peaceful resolution of conflict and differences, and argued that “military capabilities should as far as possible be ‘defensive’ and ‘nonthreatening’ in nature.” It added, “arms control and transparency measures are an important element of comprehensive security.”38 In this respect, the CSCAP memorandum’s understanding of the concept is very similar to common security. To implement comprehensive security at the regional level, the memorandum called for the use of both track one and track two mechanisms and recognized the role coordinating institutions, such as the ARF, could play at the regional level. It also argued that comprehensive security issues also “need not be addressed in ostensibly ‘security’ processes alone. They can be handled in forums such as APEC, or in bilateral and subregional economic cooperation processes when consistent with their basic purposes.”39 It concluded that the ARF “will have to be strengthened incrementally. Its agenda … will have to be broadened, to give greater room to non-military issues.” The memorandum, however, was ambiguous about the relationship between comprehensive security and bilateral defence structures in the region. Under the Principle of Self-Reliance, it acknowledged that “non-threatening, mutually beneficial defence cooperation among states may comprise a relevant ingredient of comprehensive security.” However, under the Principle of Inclusiveness, it argued, “alliance systems, including those which, since the end of the Cold War, have no clearly defined adversary, are a diminished option for comprehensive security management in the region.”40 The interpretation of comprehensive security set out in the CSCAP memorandum goes beyond the concept that evolved in Japan and ASEAN. Answering the question “if security is comprehensive, where do we draw the line?” the report argued, “a problem may be regarded as a comprehensive security problem when it is perceived as threatening, or as having the clear potential to threaten, the security of the vital interests or core values of the

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person, the community or the state.”41 This breadth of scope, including regarding the individual as one potential referent object, would seem to place the CSCAP interpretation of comprehensive security close to the idea of “human security”. This takes it some considerable distance from the interpretation originally set out in Japan and the ASEAN member states. Notes 1

2

3

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7 8

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Muthiah Alagappa, “Comprehensive Security: Interpretations in ASEAN Countries”, Research Paper and Policy Studies no. 26, Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley, n.d. The concept of national security adopted on 30 June 1994 by the State Great Hural (or Parliament) includes in addition to orthodox security concerns, references to economic independence, ecological development, cultural, scientific, technological, and educational elements. It also mentions the importance of information security and the security of Mongolia’s population and “gene pool”. See ambassador J. Enkhsaikhan, “Human Security Factor in Mongolia’s National Security Concept”, Paper presented at the International Conference on Human Security in a Globalizing World, Ulan Bator, Mongolia, May 2000. J.W.M. Chapman, R. Drifte, and I.T.M. Gow, Japan’s Quest for Comprehensive Security: Defence-Diplomacy-Dependence (London: Frances Pinter, 1983), p. xiv. The authors are very grateful to Akiko Fukushima for sharing her insights on the history and development of Japanese conceptions of comprehensive security. A summary of the report is given in Robert W. Barnett, Beyond War: Japan’s Concept of Comprehensive National Security (New York: Pergamon-Brassey’s, 1984), pp. 1–6. David B. Dewitt, “Common, Comprehensive and Cooperative Security”, Pacific Review 7, no. 1 (1994): 1–15, 2. Anny Wong, “Japan’s Comprehensive National Security Strategy and Its Economic Cooperation with the ASEAN Countries”, Research Monograph no. 6, Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies, Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1991, pp. 54–70, 54. Chapman et al., Japan’s Quest for Comprehensive Security, p. xvi. Peter J. Katzenstein and Nobuo Okawara, “Japan’s National Security: Structures, Norms, and Policies”, International Security 17, no. 4 (Spring 1993): 84–118, 92–95. Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Blue Book 2004, available online at . Ibid., p. 204. Dewitt, “Common, Comprehensive and Cooperative Security”, pp. 3–4. See Panitan Wattanayagorn, “Thailand: The Elite’s Shifting Conceptions of Security”, in Asian Security Practice: Material and Ideational Influences, edited by Muthiah Alagappa (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998), pp. 417–44. Ibid. Alagappa, “Comprehensive Security”, pp. 57–58. Mohammed Ayoob, “Defining Security: A Subaltern Realist Perspective”, in Critical Security Studies: Concepts and Cases, edited by Keith Krause and Michael

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C. Williams (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997), pp. 121–46, 131–32. Alagappa, “Comprehensive Security”, p. 58. Ibid., p. 60. Ibid., pp. 60–61. Noordin Sopiee, “Malaysia’s Doctrine of Comprehensive Security”, Journal of Asiatic Studies XXVII, no. 2: 259–65. Ibid., p. 259. Speech by Mahathir Mohamad at the First ISIS National Conference on National Security, Kuala Lumpur, 15 July 1986, cited in Dewitt, “Common, Comprehensive and Cooperative Security”, p. 4. Alagappa, “Comprehensive Security”, pp. 63–65, 68. Ibid., p. 67. Ibid. K. S. Nathan, “Malaysia: Inventing the Nation”, in Asian Security Practice: Material and Ideational Influences (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998), p. 515. Sopiee, “Malaysia’s Doctrine of Comprehensive Security”, p. 262. Ibid. Cited in ibid., p. 261. Alagappa, “Comprehensive Security”, p. 75. Republic of Singapore, “Defence Policy Statement”, Paper prepared for the Third ASEAN Regional Forum Senior Officials Meeting, Yogyakarta, Indonesia, 10–11 May 1996. Lunch Talk on “Defending Singapore: Strategies for a Small State” by Minister for Defence Teo Chee Hean, 21 April 2005 available online at: . Ibid., pp. 1–2. “Defence Policy” Singapore Ministry of Defence, available online at: . Lindsay Murdoch, “Australia: Towards Peace in Our Neighbourhood”, Sydney Morning Herald, 20 June 1994. David B. Dewitt and Amitav Acharya, “Cooperative Security and Developmental Assistance: The Relationship between Security and Development with Reference to Eastern Asia”, Eastern Asian Policy Papers no. 16, University of TorontoYork University Joint Centre for Asia Pacific Studies, Toronto, 1994. The text of the memorandum is reproduced in an appendix in David Dickens, ed., No Better Alternative: Towards Comprehensive and Cooperative Security in the Asia-Pacific (Wellington: Centre for Strategic Studies, 1997), pp. 161–67. Page numbers given here refer to this edition. Ibid., p. 163. Ibid., p. 167. Ibid. Ibid., p. 166. Ibid., p. 165.

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Likened to a security management system “by committee”. In the words of Benjamin Miller, a concert is an international institution or security regime for highlevel diplomatic collaboration among all the great powers of the day. It is a relatively durable, wide-scope, multiissue, and institutionalized framework of cooperation. This cooperation is the result of a convergence of longterm, stable, and deliberate collaborative approaches or strategies on the part of the great powers.1 Concerts bring together a small group of major powers in order to regulate relations among themselves, to promote norms of cooperation, and to prevent conflicts between smaller states from provoking a larger war. Rosecrance and Schott describe a concert as a “club or group of powers that agree collectively to lower security costs for a given geographic (regional or worldwide) area”.2 They should be clearly distinguished from ad hoc singleissue diplomacy, “less institutionalized forms of great power diplomatic cooperation such as détente and entente”, and alliances of several major powers balancing against another power or powers.3 77

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An essential requirement for a functioning concert system is an agreement among concert members not to act unilaterally. Instead, decisions are made by consensus after consultation, and action to implement decisions is taken collectively. The central objective of a concert is to maintain stability, in effect the status quo of an international order. Because of this, the second important prerequisite for the establishment of a concert of powers is the acceptance of a set of common norms of behaviour by its members. Concert members must share compatible views of a stable international order. They must acknowledge one another’s security interests and respect one another’s domestic affairs. Members must agree not to act unilaterally against one another with force, or without consultation. Because concert systems can be informal, they have the additional advantage of not requiring complex institutional or bureaucratic mechanisms.4 The best-known example of a functioning concert is the Concert of Europe, which was established at the end of the Napoleonic Wars and which managed inter-state relations in Europe between 1815 and the outbreak of the Crimean War in 1854.5 The concert’s members were the great European powers of the day: Prussia, Austria, Great Britain, and Russia (France also joined in 1818). The example of the Concert of Europe has inspired several scholars to suggest that such a model might be appropriate in the post-Cold War world: Charles and Clifford Kupchan have argued that a new concert made up of the United States, Russia, Britain, France, and Germany could bring a stable collective security regime to Europe.6 Richard Rosecrance has similarly called for a global concert, with the United States, China, Russia, Japan, and the European Community as its members.7 Some have argued that the G-8 already fulfils this kind of role.8 Miller has argued that two quite different types of concert can be discerned by looking at the Concert of Europe. One conception focuses on the mutual restraint which typifies the relationship between major powers in a concert. Here the powers define their own interests, to some degree, in the terms of a larger common good. He calls this a “passive concert”, in which each of the great powers still behaves as an individual actor, but acts in a more moderate way, even without reaching agreements and coordinating their actions with the other concert members.9 The second type focuses on great powers as more active regulators of the international system, and on their relationship with smaller powers in the system. This “regulatory concert” stresses the great powers’ 78

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“co-managerial responsibilities for maintaining peace and stability and resolving disputes”.10 It is more collective in emphasis and more demanding: the members consult and exchange views on problems that involve smaller powers. They may also coordinate joint actions (including the use of collective security measures) as part of their “policing” and managerial role. Several scholars have discussed the utility of a concert of powers in the Asia-Pacific.11 Among the first was Susan Shirk, a State Department official in the Clinton administration. Shirk argues that because concerts recognize some states as leaders and great powers, they have to overcome the initial obstacle that they are not “politically correct”.12 Therefore, to avoid offending regional sensitivities, the objectives of an Asia-Pacific concert would have to be modest, at least initially. Shirk suggests a regional concert could have two goals: first, to “regulate relations between the major powers”. This would be done through the sharing of information about each state’s military capabilities and intentions in order to reduce the risk of security dilemmas arising. The second goal would be to prevent conflicts between other regional states from provoking a major conflict between the great powers. Shirk argues that “at a minimum” the concert would establish a norm that the powers would not intervene militarily in conflicts between smaller states. She also suggests that the concert might engage in collective mediation efforts or undertake limited peacekeeping activities in war-torn states.13 Shirk acknowledges that an Asia-Pacific concert would not attempt to provide security for all the states of the region. Some conflicts among small and middle powers might erupt without precipitating a response from the concert.14 This distinguishes Shirk’s model from “classic” concerts such as the Concert of Europe. While the powers that made up the Concert of Europe could dictate terms to their less powerful neighbours, any contemporary Asian concert would have to recognize the much greater autonomy of middle powers in the international system today.15 It is difficult to imagine that formidable states such as the members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Australia, or South Korea would permit a concert to dictate their national policies.16 In the late 1990s the Japanese Government also showed interest in the idea of a concert for Asia. On the eve of a visit by Boris Yeltsin to Tokyo in April 1998, the then Japanese Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto discussed a proposal advanced by his 79

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government calling for the region’s four major powers — the United States, China, Japan, and Russia — to hold summit-level talks on security issues. Following President Bill Clinton’s visit to Beijing in June 1998, the Japanese Government also expressed interest in developing a “triangular” security arrangement with the United States and China.17 While the Chinese Government rejected the idea of a concert of power, it did express willingness to engage in “four power” talks on regional security. According to Acharya, “the development of a concert not only suits China’s quest for enhanced international status, but it also reduces China’s fear that ARF-style multilateral approaches could become a way for smaller powers to gang up against it.”18 Numerous practical problems facing any concert have been broached by scholars. Some raise the potentially troubling issue of membership. Who should be included and who left out? Most plans envisage a role for China, Japan, the United States, and Russia, but some leading regional figures — such as Lee Kuan Yew — argue that stability in the region “still boils down to the relationship between the United States, Japan, and China.”19 According to some writers, China believes that only two states — itself and the United States — can guarantee the region’s stability.20 Other writers highlight the importance of a minimum of shared beliefs among concert members. Leif Roderick Rosenberger has argued that, at present, there are insufficient shared cultural values between East Asia and the rest of the Asia-Pacific (in particular the United States). Without the kind of shared beliefs and values found among the states of Western Europe, an Asian Concert of Powers will not be attainable.21 Khoo and Smith argue that “advocates of a concert system for Asia overlook an important ingredient that accounts for what is said to be its success in nineteenth century Europe, namely, the homogeneous nature of the continent’s political regimes.”22 Rosecrance and Schott also note the lack of a “single ideological basis for a concert agreement” in the East Asian region, but suggest that as China and Russia are brought increasingly into the world trading system, they “are likely to respond to world problems and trouble spots in ways similar to Japan and the United States”.23 Notes 1

2

Benjamin Miller, “Explaining the Emergence of Great Power Concerts”, Review of International Studies 20 (1994): 329. Richard Rosecrance and Peter Schott, “Concerts and Regional Intervention”, in Regional Orders: Building Security in a New World, edited by David A. Lake and

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Patrick M. Morgan (Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania University Press, 1997), pp. 140–63. Miller, “Explaining the Emergence”, p. 329. Charles A. Kupchan and Clifford A. Kupchan, “Concerts, Collective Security and the Future of Europe”, International Security 16, no. 1 (Summer 1991): 114– 61, 123–24. For a survey of the literature on the Concert of Europe, see ibid., p. 122, note 23. Clifford Kupchan and Charles Kupchan, “After NATO: Concert of Europe”, The New York Times, 6 July 1990; see also Philip Zelikow, “The New Concert of Europe”, Survival 34, no. 2 (Summer 1992): 12–30. Richard Rosecrance, “A New Concert of Powers”, Foreign Affairs 71, no. 2 (Spring 1992): 64–82. John Kirton, “The Diplomacy of Concert: Canada, the G-7 and the Halifax Summit”, Canadian Foreign Policy 3, no. 1 (Spring 1995). Miller, “Explaining the Emergence”, pp. 329–30. Ibid., pp. 330–31. See, for example, the testimony of Susan Shirk before the U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on International Relations Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific, Federal Document Clearing House Congressional Testimony, 20 July 1995; see also Rosencrance and Schott, “Concerts and Regional Intervention”, p. 148; Susan L. Shirk, “Asia-Pacific Security: Balance of Power or Concert of Powers?”, Paper prepared for the Japan Institute of International Affairs-Asia Society Conference on “Prospects for Multilateral Cooperation in Northeast Asia: An International Dialogue”, Tokyo, 18–20 May 1995, passim. Shirk, “Asia-Pacific Security,” p. 18. Ibid., p. 19. Ibid. Holsti notes that while the Concert of Europe was successful in averting war between major powers, it could not prevent conflicts between major and minor powers, or intervention by major powers in the affairs of smaller states. See Kalevi J. Holsti, Peace and War: Armed Conflicts and International Order 1648– 1989 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), pp. 142–43. Paul Dibb, Towards a New Balance of Power in Asia, Adelphi Paper no. 295 (London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1995), p. 8; Shirk, “AsiaPacific Security”, p. 19. Amitav Acharya, “A Concert of Asia?”, Survival 41, no. 3 (Autumn 1999): 85. Ibid., p. 97. Cited in Acharya, “A Concert of Asia?”, p. 87. Acharya, “A Concert of Asia?”, p. 87; see also Banning Garett and Bonnie Glaser, “Beijing’s View on Multilateral Security in the Asia-Pacific Region”, Contemporary Southeast Asia 16, no. 1 (June 1994): 18. Leif Roderick Rosenberger, “The Cultural Challenge for a Concert of Asia”, Contemporary Southeast Asia 18, no. 2 (September 1996): 135–62. Nicholas Khoo and Michael L R Smith, “A Concert of Asia?” Policy Review Online (August 2001) available at: . Rosecrance and Schott, “Concerts and Regional Intervention”, p. 148.

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According to Yoichi Funabashi, the term concerted unilateral action (CUA) emerged from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) where he says it had the pejorative connotation of “big boys doing what they want to do”.1 Its meaning in the Asia-Pacific security discourse is quite different. The term was used extensively in discussions leading up to the 1994 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders’ Meeting in Bogor and was formally introduced in APEC’s Osaka Action Agenda in 1996. It has declined in use in recent years, but the concept continues to have influence within APEC. Concerted unilateralism is a process whereby states gather together to identify specific common objectives, but subsequently take steps to pursue those goals unilaterally and voluntarily. This distinguishes it from other modes of economic liberalization such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) or the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT) which rely on concessions made through complex and legally binding multilateral negotiating processes. Japanese MITI official Hidehiro Konno has described CUA as “a new type of trade liberalization process … on a peer pressure basis”.2 One Chinese scholar has identified three separate elements to concerted unilateralism. 83

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(1) Collective action [should be] formulated on the basis of unilateral action plans (i.e., unilateral action as the mainstay and collective action as a supplement). (2) Individual action plans should abide by common principles agreed to by member countries. Where possible, they will be concerted through a process of consultation and review. Hence, the action agenda will include a section setting out objectives and guidelines for both individual and collective actions across a wide range of issues. (3) [There must be] an appraisal and assessment mechanism. All individual plans must be comparable. During consultation, member countries can compare one another’s action plans and revise and coordinate them so that each country moves in roughly the same direction in an even way.3 Concerted unilateralism was the focus of discussions about trade liberalization leading up to the Bogor APEC Leaders’ Meeting in 1994. These discussions reached an impasse when parties were unable to agree on the pace of liberalization, or the need for coordination and review to prevent free-riding. A solution of sorts was found in concerted unilateralism, where, while long-term target dates for achieving liberalization were set out (2010 for developed economies and 2020 for developing economies), the pursuit and pace of liberalization policies was to be determined by each APEC member according to its national economic and political situation. With CUA, the objectives are non-binding and are set out only in “aspirational” terms. This is in keeping with the supposed style of the “ASEAN way” or “Asia-Pacific way” (see the entry on “The ‘ASEAN Way’ ”).4 This voluntary and informal approach, however, has its limitations. Jusuf Wanandi sums up the challenge, saying “Concerted unilateralism needs heroes and leadership from an economy or a group of economies. In their absence there will be no effective ‘peer pressure’ and the process will be dictated by the least forthcoming member.”5 The concept was more popular with Asian states than with the United States. U.S. officials expressed concerns about the comparability of individual liberalization plans and argued the process is “impractical in the long term and could set back the region’s negotiating position vis-à-vis the European Union”. American ambassador Sandra Kristoff put it bluntly, saying “basically the ‘C’ and the ‘A’ of CUA are not convincing, leaving 84

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only ‘U’. The United States doesn’t see too much value in the ‘U’ alone.”6 A Korean commentator has concluded that “APEC’s principle of concerted unilateralism has come to be seen as a major weakness of APEC itself.”7 At subsequent APEC meetings the United States stated that while it recognized unilateral action within APEC was necessary, it opposed the term CUA. Washington initially advocated substituting “concerted unilateralism” with the phrase “concerted individual actions”. Subsequently CUA was replaced with the term concerted liberalization, although as Funabashi notes, the basic concept remained intact.8 Concerted liberalization simply split liberalization into two separate tracks. The first covers areas such as standards harmonization that can be handled collectively. The second track covers areas such as deregulation and tariff reduction, which were to be addressed in an individual and voluntary manner. This two-track approach was explicitly set out in the Osaka Action Agenda. While the term “concerted unilateralism” seems to have lost favour in recent years, the essence of the concept is contained in APEC’s “pathfinder” approach. The “pathfinder” initiative, adopted at the 2001 Shanghai Leaders’ Meeting encourages states ready to liberalize to do so, hoping they will set an example for others to follow. According to one analysis, the pathfinder approach is “a safety valve to allow APEC to save face if the Bogor goals are not met. Nonetheless it recognizes APEC’s diversity and extends its efforts to accommodate economies that are at different stages of openness — even though it is unlikely that any of the ‘pathfinders’ will be among APEC’s less-developed economies.”9 Notes 1

2 3

4

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6 7

Yoichi Funabashi, Asia Pacific Fusion: Japan’s Role in APEC (Washington, D.C.: Institute for International Economics, 1995), p. 98. Ibid., p. 96. Jialin Zhang, “An Assessnent of Chinese Thnking on Trade Liberalization”, Hoover Institution Working Paper, available online at: . Amitav Acharya, “Ideas, Identity, and Institution-Building: From the ASEAN Way to the Asia-Pacific Way?”, The Pacific Review 10, no. 3 (1997): 337. Jusuf Wanandi, “Building a Community: APEC is the Most Important Regional Institution”, Asiaweek, 2001, available online at . The Straits Times, 1 April 1995. Soogil Young, Coordinator PECC Finance Forum, “The Case for the Peerreview Approach to Concerted Unilateralism and Ecotech Cooperation for

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CONCERTED UNILATERALISM 8 9

Capacity Building”, available at: . Funabashi, Asia Pacific Fusion, p. 98. Canada-Asia Commentary, November 2001, available at: .

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The formal concept, most frequently known by its acronym (CBM), was first put forward in January 1973 in proposals by Belgium and Italy at the Helsinki preparatory consultations to establish an agenda for the Conference on Security Cooperation in Europe (CSCE). After prolonged discussions and much disagreement, the idea was ultimately agreed upon in the following terms: In order to strengthen confidence and to increase stability and security, the Committee/Sub-Committee shall submit to the Conference appropriate proposals on confidencebuilding measures such as the prior notification of major military manoeuvres on a basis to be specified by the Conference, and the exchange of observers by invitation at military manoeuvres under mutually acceptable conditions.1 At the CSCE negotiations in Geneva that followed between 1973 and 1975, three distinctive approaches to CBMs were set out. The Western bloc states saw CBMs in political rather than military terms. They argued for greater “openness” in military activities in Europe. In contrast, the Warsaw Pact states, in the few submissions they made on the subject, attached military significance to CBMs 87

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and rejected calls for “openness”, seeing it as a means of establishing a form of “legal espionage”.2 A middle path was taken by the neutral and non-aligned states (together with Romania). They endorsed the spirit of the West’s position but advocated additional specific CBMs, including the making of military budgets public; the imposition of constraints on military activities; specific disarmament measures; and the creation of a link between the CSCE and the Mutual Balanced Force Reduction (MBFR) talks. However, most of the Western states and all of the Warsaw Pact members (again, the latter with the exception of Romania) were hostile to the inclusion of disarmament issues, and reference to them was diluted in the final draft.3 The final product of the negotiations, the “Document on Confidence-Building Measures and Certain Aspects of Security and Disarmament”, states that the general objective of CBMs is to eliminate the causes of tension and to strengthen peace and security. More specifically, it recognizes “the need to contribute to the reduction of the dangers of armed conflict and of misunderstanding or miscalculation of military activities which could give rise to apprehension, particularly in a situation where the participating states lack clear and timely information about the nature of such activities.”4 Only two CBMs are explicitly identified in the final draft: the exchange of observers at military exercises; and the requirement for the prior notification of major military manoeuvres — the latter being the key CBM of the Helsinki regime. Cathleen Fisher divides the European confidence-building experience into four distinct phases. She calls these phases “preCBMs”, and then first-, second-, and third-generation CBMs. PreCBMs include the agreements made between the United States and the USSR prior to the Helsinki Accords. The first-generation CBMs, which she calls “the ground breakers”, originated in the Helsinki regime. The second-generation CBMs, which she labels “security-building mechanisms” had their origins in the Stockholm and Vienna Accords. Finally, the third-generation CBMs describes those “cooperative security measures” that were enacted in the twilight and immediate aftermath of the Cold War.5 The “Document on Confidence-Building Measures” makes clear that the participants in the Helsinki Process believed the greatest risk of war in Europe came from the possibility of escalation caused by error or misjudgement. Because the strategic environment in the Asia-Pacific is quite different to that of Cold War Europe, it has been argued by some writers that formal and 88

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intrusive CBMs of the European variety are not appropriate. Yukio Satoh has noted that CBMs originated in an environment where there were clearly identified adversaries. This is not the case in Eastern Asia where the “complex feelings and concerns which Asians hold towards each other are more ambiguous.”6 Satoh has argued in favour of the idea of “measures for reassurance” instead of CBMs, an idea used by the Japanese Government in its preliminary paper to the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF).7 In a similar vein, Paul Dibb has suggested “trust-building measures” (TBMs) as a practical alternative (see the relevant entry). Despite these reservations and proposed alternatives, the term confidencebuilding measures has stuck in the Asia-Pacific security discourse. It has received the endorsement of the ARF, which designated confidence-building measures as the subject of Stage One of its agenda and the focus of one of its inter-sessional meetings.8 In time it was anticipated that CBMs would be followed by a second stage of “preventive diplomacy” and then a third stage dealing with “elaboration of approaches to conflict” a clumsy compromise for the apparently unacceptable term “conflict resolution.” Even if the term CBMs has stuck, some Asian scholars and officials suggest it has a narrower meaning in the Asia-Pacific than elsewhere. An Indonesian paper presented to an ARF InterSessional Meeting (ISM) on CBMs in 1995 suggested that the choice of terminology (CBMs, CSBMs [confidence- and securitybuilding measures], or TBMs) was not particularly important, but noted that CBM has a different meaning in the Asia-Pacific than it does in Europe. It stated “a CBM is not to be conceived as an institution, but rather as a stepping-stone or building block.” The paper also emphasized the importance of personal contacts and relationships in promoting confidence. It went on to say that CBMs “do not include mechanisms for conflict resolution or other attempts to redress or deal with ongoing crises, for which preventive diplomacy is needed”.9 Likewise, in a paper presenting a Chinese perspective on CBMs, Liu Huaquin stressed that while Asian states can draw much from the European experience, what they learn has to be adapted to suit the “unique cultural, historic, political, and economic conditions of [the] region”.10 This, he suggested, strongly supports an incremental approach to confidence-building. Among the specific types of confidence-building measures pursued in Stage One of the ARF agenda were: a dialogue on member states’ security perceptions, including voluntary 89

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statements of defence policy positions; greater transparency through the publication of defence documentation such as Defence White Papers; the encouragement of participation in the United Nations Conventional Arms Register; and the creation of an annual seminar for defence officials and military officers.11 Meetings of the ARF’s CBM Inter-Sessional Support Group (ISG) have discussed numerous new CBMs. The ISG recommended that ARF members should be encouraged to exchange visits of their naval vessels as a useful means of promoting transparency and confidence; they should exchange visits to military establishments; and they should compile national lists of publications and experts on confidence-building measures and circulate them to other ARF members. The ISG also noted that a number of proposed CBMs remained to be considered in the “medium term”. These included proposals for ARF liaison with other regional organizations; a second ARF Senior Officials Meeting (SOM) and a CounterNarcotics/Port Interdiction seminar (all proposed by the United States); preventing and combating the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons (proposed by the EU), and a “Shootfest” among ARF riflemen (proposed by the Philippines). China put forward its own CBM proposals for discussion. These dealt with the use of force against civilian ships or fishermen; defence conversion; military environmental protection exchanges; coordination of mutual legal assistance; and cooperation against international terrorism and crime. More recently the ISG on CBMs has explored the overlap between CBMs and preventive diplomacy (PD) (see the relevant entry), an enhanced role for the ARF Chair, an ARF Register of Experts/Eminent Persons, an Annual Security Outlook, and voluntary background briefing on regional security issues. Voluntary briefings on security issues are now a regular part of the ISG process. Recent inter-sessional meetings have identified an extraordinarily wide range of activities as confidence-building measures. These include meetings of Heads of Defence Colleges, workshops on small arms and light weapons, and various seminars on missile defence, non-proliferation of WMD and cyber-terrorism. The transition from confidence-building measures to a second stage of preventive diplomacy as anticipated in the original ARF Concept Paper has been a slow one. An ISG on CBMs held in Berlin in 2005 agreed on the need to move “further towards preventive diplomacy while continuing with confidence-building 90

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activities”. As one small sign of movement, the group was renamed the ISG on CBMs and Preventive Diplomacy. It remains to be seen how this will affect the substance of discussions. Notes 1

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Paragraph 23 of the “Final Recommendations of the Helsinki Consultations”, cited in Victor-Yves Ghebali, Confidence-Building Measures within the CSCE Process: Paragraph-by-Paragraph Analysis of the Helsinki and Stockholm Regimes (New York: UNIDIR, 1989), p. 3, note 5. As its name suggests, Ghebali’s monograph is a detailed study of the origins and development of confidence-building measures and confidence- and security-building measures. The work also includes an extensive bibliography on the subject. Much of the analysis in the section that follows is drawn from this work. Ghebali, Confidence-Building Measures, p. 5. Ibid., p. 14, note 28. “Document on Confidence-Building Measures and Certain Aspects of Security and Disarmament”, paragraph 4, cited in Ghebali, Confidence-Building Measures, p. 6. Cathleen S. Fisher, “The Preconditions of Confidence-Building: Lessons from the European Experience”, in A Handbook of Confidence-Building Measures for Regional Security, edited by Michael Krepon (Washington, D.C.: Henry L. Stimon Center, 1993). Yukio Satoh, “Emerging Trends in Asia-Pacific Security: The Role of Japan”, The Pacific Review 8, no. 2 (1995): 267–82, 273. See “Japan’s View Concerning the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF)”, in the Summary Record of the ASEAN Regional Forum Senior Officials Meeting (ARF-SOM), Bangkok, 23–25 May 1994, Annex I. The paper referred to the need for “measures to increase mutual reassurance (Mutual Reassurance Measures [MRM])”, saying that “ ‘CBM’ is too narrow a concept to cover all the measures needed.” “ASEAN Regional Forum: A Concept Paper”, para. 8, reproduced in Desmond Ball and Pauline Kerr, Presumptive Engagement: Australia’s Asia-Pacific Security Policy in the 1990s (St Leonards, NSW: Allen & Unwin, 1996), Appendix 2. “Confidence-Building Measures”, Indonesia’s Paper prepared for the ARF Intersessional Support Group on Confidence-building Measures, Jakarta, December 1995, pp. 2–3. Liu Huaquin, “Step-by-Step Confidence and Security Building for the Asian Region: A Chinese Perspective”, in Asia Pacific Confidence and Security Building Measures, edited by Ralph A. Cossa (Washington, D.C.: Center for Streatgic and International Studies, 1995), pp. 119–36, 120. See Ball and Kerr, Presumptive Engagement, p. 29.

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CONFIDENCE- AND SECURITYBUILDING MEASURES

While there is widespread agreement that the aim of confidenceand security-building measures (CSBMs) is to reduce uncertainty, misperception, and suspicion, and thus help lessen the possibility of armed conflict, there is no commonly accepted definition of what constitutes a confidence- and security-building measure. To add to the confusion, the term is also often used interchangeably with confidence-building measures (CBMs) and other similar expressions. For example, a Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific (CSCAP) report on the subject said that CSBMs encompass and embrace “the spirit and intent of proposals calling for trust-building measures, mutual assurance measures, mutual reassurance measures, community-building measures, and other related confidence-building concepts”.1 Like confidence-building measures, the origins of the term confidence- and security-building measures lie in Cold War Europe. Confidence-building measures was first used during the negotiations which culminated in the publication of the Helsinki Final Act (1975). In 1983, the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) states met in Madrid as a followup to the Helsinki Process to discuss convening a Conference on Disarmament in Europe (CDE). The Madrid meeting’s “Concluding Document” first used the term confidence- and security93

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building measures. According to Victor-Yves Ghebali, the genesis of the term lies in a Yugoslav proposal put forward during informal discussions on military issues.2 The proposal suggested that “security-building measures” could be added (as a separate concept) alongside “confidence-building measures.” However, this dichotomy was unacceptable to the West, and it was finally decided to use the consolidated term confidence- and security-building measures to describe the new measures set out in the Madrid Process. These measures were intended to extend the CBMs agreed upon as part of the Helsinki Process. CSBMs, in contrast with Helsinki’s CBMs, were not independent of each other but were supposed to be a series of mutually complementary measures.3 According to Ralph Cossa, definitions of CSBMs vary, “ranging from the very narrow (looking almost exclusively at military measures) to much broader interpretations encompassing almost anything that builds confidence”. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has been described as a “classic” CSBM.4 The CSCAP Working Group on Confidence- and Security-Building Measures put forward its preferred definition of CSBMs as including “both formal and informal measures, whether unilateral, bilateral, or multilateral, that address, prevent, or resolve uncertainties among states, including both military and political elements.”5 A U.S. CSCAP paper on CSBMs used almost exactly the same language, adding that CSBMs included “both military and political elements relevant for the larger and longer-term task of creating a Security Community”. The U.S. report explicitly distinguished CSBMs from other relationships that can generate confidence and security among nations, saying “alliances and security guarantees … are not properly defined as CSBMs.”6 Most accounts stress a number of common elements which are needed if CSBMs are to work successfully in the Asia-Pacific region. First, CSBMs require participants who want to cooperate. Put simply, there must be a shared belief among regional actors that the advantages of taking part in confidence- and securitybuilding measures outweigh any risks or disadvantages. CSBMs must be seen as a “win-win” option for all participants. Second, CSBMs are most effective where they are guided by regional norms. Concepts cannot be simply “parachuted” in from other parts of the world. Particular CSBMs must be consistent with the geopolitical environment and strategic culture of a region. Given the tremendous diversity of the Asia-Pacific, this has led some scholars to suggest that a sub-regional approach to CSBMs might 94

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be the most fruitful. Third, military CSBMs in particular should have realistic, pragmatic, and clearly-defined objectives on which there is common agreement. They should not be too ambitious. Most analysts agree that gradual, incremental, and informal approaches seem to provide for the best chance of building consensus.7 Notes 1

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7

Ralph A. Cossa, “Asia Pacific Confidence and Security Building Measures: A CSCAP Working Group Report”, Paper presented at the Ninth Asia-Pacific Roundtable, Plenary Session Four, Kuala Lumpur, 5–8 June 1995, p. 7. Victor-Yves Ghebali, Confidence-Building Measures within the CSCE Process: Paragraph-by-Paragraph Analysis of the Helsinki and Stockholm Regimes (New York: UNIDIR, 1989), p. 28. Ibid., p. 30. Cossa, “Asia Pacific Confidence and Security Building Measures”, pp. 6–7. Ibid., p. 6. Brad Roberts and Robert Ross, “Confidence and Security Building Measures: A USCSCAP Task Force Report”, in Asia Pacific Confidence and Security Building Measures, edited by Ralph A. Cossa (Washington, D.C.: Center for Strategic and International Studies, 1995), p. 138. Ibid., pp. 7–11; Liu Huaquin, “Step-by-Step Confidence and Security Building for the Asian Region: A Chinese Perspective”, in Asia Pacific Confidence and Security Building Measures, edited by Cossa, pp. 124–25.

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Following the violent disintegration of the coalition government in Cambodia in July 1997, the Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia Anwar Ibrahim called on the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to play a more proactive role in solving the region’s security problems.1 In an article published in Newsweek, he said ASEAN should consider initiating what he called “constructive interventions” and “constructive involvement” before simmering regional problems erupt into full-blown crises.2 He gave as examples of constructive involvement “among other things, direct assistance to firm up electoral processes, an increased commitment to legal and administrative reforms, the development of human capital and the general strengthening of civil society and the rule of law”. He added that he thought ASEAN was already moving towards such an approach, citing its willingness to ensure the conduct of free and fair elections in Cambodia and the engagement of the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) regime in Myanmar.3 Anwar’s comments prompted a great deal of debate and discussion in Southeast Asia, in particular about how to reconcile constructive intervention with ASEAN’s long-held principle of non-interference or non-intervention in the internal affairs of member states.4

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While the Newsweek article fuelled considerable debate, the term constructive intervention is not a wholly new one. In an article published in the New York Times in 1983, the former U.S. ambassador to the Philippines, William H. Sullivan, called for President Ronald Reagan to use a scheduled visit to Manila as “an opportunity for constructive intervention” to facilitate a peaceful and democratic transition in Philippines politics.5 Constructive intervention also has something in common with ideas such as “humanitarian intervention”, “peacebuilding”, and “constructive engagement” that have a more established pedigree in international politics. One report described constructive intervention as a “compromise between constructive engagement and sanctions.”6 In its most recent manifestation, the term seems to have its origins with academics and policy analysts connected to the track two security and strategic studies community in Southeast Asia.7 While Anwar was instrumental in giving the term constructive intervention prominence at the official level in Southeast Asia, it was Thai Foreign Minister Surin Pitsuwan and his deputy, Sukhumbhand Paribatra, who became its strongest advocates. Speaking at the 1998 Asia-Pacific Roundtable in Kuala Lumpur, Surin said the economic crisis offered the region a unique opportunity to rebuild its economic and political foundations. In particular, he suggested that the newer member states of ASEAN might find this “an opportune moment to reassess their respective processes of economic and political development in the face of rapid and far-reaching changes in the global arena”. He asked “whether the time has come for ASEAN to rethink its decades-old policy of non-interference in the internal affairs of member States”, saying “ASEAN members can perhaps no longer afford to adopt a non-commital stance and avoid passing judgement on events in a member country, simply on the grounds of ‘non-interference’. … if domestic events in one member’s territory impact adversely on another member’s internal affairs, not to mention peace and prosperity, much can be said in favour of ASEAN members playing a more proactive role.”8 He continued his championing of the concept in a speech at his alma mater, Thammasat University in Bangkok, on 12 June 1998, saying that when “a matter of domestic concerns poses a threat to regional stability, a dose of friendly advice at the right time can be helpful.”9 Surin’s comments were a personal initiative. He inserted the sentences into the Kuala Lumpur speech without first informing the Thai Foreign Ministry officials.10 After consultations with those 98

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officials, the meaning and use of the term began to evolve. According to the Nation, Surin told a meeting of the ministry’s director-generals on 22 June 1998 that “constructive intervention was needed for Thailand whose government respects an open society, democracy and human rights. … We must be true to ourselves. Our membership in ASEAN and ASEAN’s principle of non-interference should not hamper us from expressing our views on what we respect.”11 Shortly afterwards, however, the language being used to describe the Thai proposal changed. Foreign ministry officials decided that constructive intervention sounded “too radical” and the apparently more palatable term “flexible engagement” was coined.12 This concession was made after concerns were expressed by ASEAN ambassadors in Bangkok and after Thai diplomats in Yangon and Vientiane were called in and quizzed about the new policy.13 Debate about constructive intervention and flexible engagement reached a peak at the Thirty-first ASEAN Ministerial Meeting in Manila in July 1998. Thailand tried to raise the issue at the meeting but was opposed by Malaysia and Singapore. A solution to the impasse was apparently put forward by the then Indonesian Foreign Minister Ali Alatas, who while also strongly opposed to any change in the principle of non-interference, suggested that the compromise wording “enhanced interaction” might be acceptable. A number of the speeches at the subsequent meeting addressed the subject of intervention. Filipino President Joseph Estrada’s opening speech called for the ASEAN member states to be “open to one another” and to “freely and candidly exchange our views no matter how controversial the issue.”14 Surin’s speech at the meeting marked a notable softening from his previous position. Without mentioning either constructive intervention or flexible engagement, he couched his call for change by saying, in today’s globalized world, the issues have become so complex and multi-dimensional that a new vision is needed … it is not a matter of interfering in the internal affairs of another country. Rather it is a matter of being more open with one another on issues that impact on the region. It is rather a matter of taking a more proactive concern about one another and about being supportive of one another whenever needed. It is a matter of enhancing our interactions for the benefit of all.15 99

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In his address, Philippines Foreign Minister Domingo Siazon said, “we should be able to speak more freely on issues occurring in one member country that affect others, with a view to building more solid ground for regional action.”16 While both Surin and Siazon had dropped the use of the terms flexible engagement and constructive intervention, and framed their proposals in less confrontational terms, strong opposition was also expressed at the meeting. The Malaysian Foreign Minister Abdullah Badawi devoted almost his entire address to the issue, arguing that calls for change were mistaken. “To abandon the consensus principle”, he said, “would be to usher in a divided and fractious ASEAN and consequently an enfeebled ASEAN.” However, Badawi also suggested that the association’s traditional injunction on interference was mostly about the style and way in which concerns were expressed. He denied that the norm of noninterference had prevented governments in the past from commenting on the actions of others, observing, we have commented and criticized, we have even expressed reservations when necessary. But we do all of this quietly, befitting a community of friends bonded in cooperation and ever-mindful of the fact that fractious relations undermine the capacity of ASEAN to work together on issues critical to our collective well-being. We do it this quiet way because criticizing more loudly, posturing adversarially and grandstanding bring less results and does more harm than good.17 In yet another linguistic twist, Badawi concluded by saying that “Malaysia believes that the imperatives for constructive interactions are most persuasive and compelling for making changes among us.”18 Singapore Foreign Minister S. Jayakumar also addressed the question of constructive intervention. He said that while “noninterference does not mean indifference to each other’s well-being … internal political developments will remain a particularly sensitive area with the potential to set up centrifugal forces that can pull ASEAN apart.” He called the Thai proposal “the surest and quickest way to ruin for ASEAN”.19 Indonesian Foreign Minister Ali Alatas was also blunt, contrasting Anwar and Surin’s approach with established ASEAN policy. He told one wire service that constructive intervention “is not an ASEAN policy. ASEAN

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continues to pursue the same policy — constructive engagement.” He added, “Don’t make it bigger than it is. It’s only a view expressed by Anwar Ibrahim, not ASEAN.”20 Anwar himself later said he was made to feel he had committed “diplomatic blasphemy”.21 A distinction between Anwar’s use of constructive intervention and constructive involvement was drawn by some regional scholars and officials. In a Straits Times interview, several leading regional politicians and analysts argued that the word intervention should be dropped, as it carried the connotation of forced action.22 This would appear to be in keeping with the intent of Anwar’s original proposal. Despite the use of the term intervention, it assumes that governments facing a serious internal crisis will request help from their ASEAN neighbours. He also implies that such assistance will not take a military form, but will, rather, consist of political and economic support.23 The reluctance to use the term intervention was also reflected in recent debates within ASEAN about the status of Myanmar’s membership. ASEAN leaders have become increasingly frustrated with Myanmar’s domestic political situation, particularly the way it has damaged the organization’s reputation and complicated its relationship with the European Union and the United States. In 2003, following an outbreak of violence against pro-democratic forces in Myanmar, ASEAN leaders made a number of statements commenting on the situation and urging the government in Yangon to make progress towards national reconciliation (see the entry on the ASEAN way). Opposition members of the Malaysian parliament supported a resolution calling for ASEAN to take “constructive intervention” in Myanmar.24 In official discussions, however, the phrase ‘constructive intervention’ received less usage. Rather, the key terms that seem to have survived from the earlier debates were “enhanced interaction” and “flexible consensus”.25 Notes 1

2 3 4

At the time he made the call for constructive interventions, Anwar was officially Acting Prime Minister while Mahathir Mohamad was out of the country. Anwar Ibrahim, “Crisis Prevention”, Newsweek, 21 July 1997, p. 13. Ibid. For a discussion of constructive intervention in the context of ASEAN’s principle of non-intervention, see Amitav Acharya, “Sovereignty, Non-Intervention, and Regionalism”, CANCAPS Paper no. 15, Canadian Consortium on Asia Pacific Security (CANCAPS), York University, Toronto, 1997.

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William H. Sullivan, “Applying to Manila the Lesson of Teheran”, The New York Times, 3 October 1983, p. A23. For a discussion of constructive intervention in the context of ASEAN’s principle of non-intervention, see Acharya, “Sovereignty, Non-Intervention, and Regionalism”. Oon Yeoh, “Myanmar a Test for ASEAN’s ‘Constructive Engagement’ ”, Kyodo News Service, 26 July 1997. According to one regional scholar, Sukhumbhand Paribatra was the first to use the term. Interview with Kusuma Snitwongse, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, 8 September 1998. Surin Pitsuwan, “Currency Turmoil in Southeast Asia: The Strategic Impact”, Speech delivered at the Twelfth Asia-Pacific Roundtable, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 1 June 1998. Surin Pitsuwan, “Thailand’s Foreign Policy During the Economic and Social Crises”, Keynote Address at the Seminar in Commemoration of the Forty-ninth Anniversary of the Faculty of Political Science, Thammasat University, Bangkok, 12 June 1998. Interview with Kobsak Chutikul, Thai Foreign Ministry spokesman, Bangkok, 20 September 1998. “Thais Retract Call for ASEAN Intervention”, The Straits Times, 27 June 1998. “Thailand Opposes ASEAN Non-Interference Policy”, The Nation, 23 June 1998. Interview with Kobsak Chutikul, Thai Foreign Ministry spokesman, Bangkok, 20 September 1998. “Thais Retract Call for ASEAN Intervention”, The Straits Times, 27 June 1998. Kavi Chongkittavorn, “Good Ideas Need Discreet Lobbying”, The Nation, 29 June 1998, p. A4. Joseph Estrada, “Towards an ASEAN Community”, Keynote Address at the Opening Ceremony of the Thirty-first ASEAN Ministerial Meeting, Manila, 24 July 1998. Opening Statement by Surin Pitsuwan, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Thailand, at the Thirty-first ASEAN Ministerial Meeting, Manila, 24 July 1998. Domingo Siazon, Jr., “Winning the Challenges of the 21st Century”, Address of the Chairman of the Thirty-First ASEAN Ministerial Meeting, Manila, 24 July 1998. Opening Statement of Abdullah Badawi, Minister for Foreign Affairs, Malaysia, at the Thirty-first ASEAN Ministerial Meeting, Manila, 24 July 1998. Ibid. Emphasis added. Cited in “ASEAN Ministers Urge Making All Members Prosperous”, Kyodo News Service, 28 July 1997. “Indonesia Says No to ‘Constructive Intervention’ ”, Kyodo News International, 4 August 1997. Anwar Ibrahim, “Destructive Engagement”, The Asian Wall Street Journal, 15 June 2005. Brendan Pereira, “Time for ASEAN to Play a More Active Role in Members’ Affairs”, Straits Times, 24 July 1997, p. 26. Acharya, “Sovereignty, Non-Intervention, and Regionalism”, p. 13; Kusuma Snitwongse, “Thirty Years of ASEAN: Achievements through Political Cooperation”, The Pacific Review 11, no. 2 (1998): 193. Lim Kit Siang, “Parliament should lead ASEAN to demand ‘constructive intervention’ on Burma”, 19 June 2003, statement available online at .

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25

See for examples, Jurgen Haacke, “ ‘Enhanced Interaction’ with Myanmar and the Project of a Security Community: Is ASEAN Refining of Breaking with its Diplomatic and Security Culture?”, Contemporary Southeast Asia 27, no. 2 (2005); also James Ferguson, “ASEAN Concord II: Policy Prospects for Participant Regional ‘development’ ”, Contemporary Southeast Asia 26, no. 3 (December 2004).

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COOPERATIVE SECURITY

Of the security concepts in use in Asia-Pacific security discourse, this is one of the most popular and ambiguous. While the origins of the concept are unclear and the term is used in very different ways around the region, this has not stopped numerous scholars and various government officials from claiming to have coined or “introduced” the concept. An early reference to cooperative security in the Asia-Pacific region appeared in the title of the 1988 Pacific Basin Symposium.1 It used the term as more or less synonymous with security cooperation. In a 1988 article, John Steinbruner offered a more substantive discussion of the concept.2 He consciously used the term cooperative security to differentiate it from common security.3 His article focuses on the need to create strategic stability between the Soviet Union and the United States, and looks almost exclusively at Europe. It does not shed much light on cooperative security as a concept, but instead prescribes security policies to promote stability. The most important of these include the adoption of essentially defensive military postures. Steinbruner claims that the United States has “long promoted abstract ideas of cooperative security” although he provides no specific examples.4 He went on to develop his ideas in a series of workshops and a conference with other leading American 105

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academics and senior officials (see below), leading to the publication of the monograph, A New Concept of Cooperative Security, in 1992. Yet cooperative security was not immediately picked up by Asia-Pacific scholars in the United States.5 Instead, it was a Canadian Government-sponsored project, the North Pacific Cooperative Security Dialogue (NPCSD) which made most of the early running developing the substance of the concept. The NPCSD, which ran from 1990 until 1993, was one of the first “Track Two” unofficial security dialogues in the region. It brought together scholars and officials from across the AsiaPacific to discuss a wide range of traditional and non-conventional security issues.6 The Canadian interpretation of cooperative security set out by Secretary of State for External Affairs Joe Clark reconceptualized security to take into account the end of the Cold War and the new complexity of regional security issues.7 The broad objective of cooperative security was to replace the Cold War conception of security based on bipolarity, deterrence, and the balance of power with a multilateral process and framework based on reassurance, a goal it shares with common security. According to Dewitt and Acharya, there are three ideas at the heart of cooperative security.8 The first is the importance of inclusivity — in terms of both participants and subject matter. In terms of participants, cooperative security argues for the inclusion of both like-minded and non-like-minded actors in security arrangements. This is “regardless of a government’s defining characteristics, its place in the international hierarchy of states, its allegiances to other multilateral fora or processes or its position on any one of a host of international issues”. Similarly, while the concept accepts that states are central to global political life it does not assume they are the only relevant actors. Cooperative security recognizes that non-state actors such as non-governmental organizations (NGOs), businesses, and other transnational entities have a critical role to play in managing and enhancing security. Dewitt and Acharya stress that inclusivity does not simply refer to the question of participants. Cooperative security also requires inclusivity in terms of subject matter. Like comprehensive and common security, it argues security should not be conceived simply in narrow military terms, but should also incorporate less traditional concerns such as environmental degradation, demographic issues, and transnational criminal activities that can exacerbate inter-state relations and potentially lead to conflict.

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Second, cooperative security believes in the importance of establishing habits of dialogue between regional actors. States should take part in regular consultations with one another and, ideally, should acknowledge the long-term benefits of establishing formal processes for discussion. The third ideal at the heart of cooperative security, as its name suggests, is that many contemporary questions of security (such as transnational crime, environmental degradation, and disease) are no longer amenable to unilateral action, but require cooperative action between states, as well as among relevant actors within a state. Cooperative security has also been used by former Australian Foreign Minister Gareth Evans. Evans’ interest in security concepts began with common security, which he used as the basis of his unsuccessful proposal in 1990 for an Asia-Pacific equivalent of the Helsinki process.9 However, by the 1993 ASEAN Post-Ministerial Conference (PMC) in Singapore, Evans had dropped common security and begun to use cooperative security as his concept of preference, mirroring the conceptualization earlier developed in the Canadian-led North pacific Cooperative Security Dialogue. Evans’ address to the United Nations General Assembly in September 1993 described cooperative security as an approach which emphasizes reassurance rather than deterrence; it is inclusive rather than exclusive; favours multilateralism over unilateralism or bilateralism; does not rank military solutions over non-military ones; assumes that states are the principal actors in the security system but accepts that non-state actors have an important role to play; does not particularly emphasize the creation of formal security institutions, but does not reject them either; and which, above all, stresses the value of creating habits of dialogue.10 Evans’ understanding of cooperative security is a conceptual hybrid, embracing “the whole content of both ‘common security’ and ‘collective security,’ neither of which by itself tells the whole story: at the same time, ‘cooperative security’ picks up some of the multidimensional flavour of ‘comprehensive security’ as well”.11 To further complicate matters, two well-connected Australian scholars, Andrew Mack (who helped author Evans’ book, Cooperating for Peace) and Pauline Kerr, have written that “[t]he

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elements of cooperative security which are most relevant at the national level are common security and preventive diplomacy,” although they note that in official Australian policy “neither … has thus far received more than rhetorical attention.”12 Cooperating for Peace further emphasizes the importance of pursuing a multidimensional approach to security, recognizing that factors such as economic underdevelopment, demographic challenges, environmental degradation, transnational crime, and human rights abuses constitute threats deserving attention. The book stresses the centrality of inclusive multilateralism to the cooperative security ideal. Mechanisms ranging from the creation of dialogue processes, transparency, and confidence-building measures as well as more orthodox military exchanges and formal institution building are prescribed as the means to attain cooperative security’s goals.13 The Australian and Canadian notions of cooperative security have a great deal in common. Where Evans’ notion of cooperative security seemed to part ways with the concept used by Canadian scholars and officials, however, was in its early embrace of the individual as security’s referent object. In an essay in the journal Foreign Policy, Evans links cooperative security to the nascent notion of “human security” arguing “security … is as much about the protection of individuals as it is about the defence of territorial integrity of states.”14 Ball and Kerr say, “the extent to which the [Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT)] is guided by and adheres to these conceptualizations of security is sometimes difficult to assess.” However, they note the possibility of tensions existing between the different concepts adopted by Evans, and between DFAT and the more traditional stance of the Australian Department of Defence.15 While the Australian and Canadian notions of cooperative security share much with common security, proponents of cooperative security have argued it is more pragmatic and stresses a more gradualist, incremental approach to the creation of multilateral institutions. Cooperative security allows formal and informal, and bilateral and multilateral means to be used together to deal with a wide range of security concerns. This aspect was particularly important when the concept was first put forward because it meant cooperative security offered a way in which multilateral processes could move forward alongside the bilateral “hub and spokes” system that was important to the United States and some of its key allies in the Asia-Pacific.16 However, while 108

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cooperative security is without doubt pragmatic and gradualist, the sharp distinctions drawn with common security are exaggerated. The Palme Commission referred to common security as “a gradual process” to promote peace and disarmament.17 Geoffrey Wiseman, an authority on common security, has likewise said, “common security is designed to be a long-term and pragmatic process that will eventually lead to peace and disarmament by changing thinking.”18 Proponents of cooperative security are on stronger ground when they claim the concept has the advantage of being “indigenous” to the region. It is not viewed as imported from outside the region and it does not attempt to impose “European” goals or ideas on the Asian strategic environment. Here again, a contrast is often drawn with common security, which was tarnished by its association with controversial Canadian and Australian calls for a “Conference for Security and Cooperation in Asia” (CSCA) in 1990.19 Evidence of cooperative security’s greater acceptance in the region can be seen in the naming of a Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific (CSCAP) Working Group to explore comprehensive and cooperative security, although it is notable that the recent publications of the Working Group have tended to give greater emphasis to comprehensive security. A third interpretation of cooperative security has been offered by scholars at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., developing the ideas first set out by John Steinbruner. While the concept outlined in Janne Nolan’s edited collection, Global Engagement, shares with its Canadian and Australian counterparts the realization that “the character of security has changed in recent years,” its concern is primarily with creating an American global strategy to deal with new security challenges.20 According to the authors, “cooperative security is a model of interstate relations in which disputes are expected to occur, but they are expected to do so within the limits of agreed-upon norms and established procedures.”21 They suggest that cooperative security differs from collective security “much as preventive medicine differs from acute care. Cooperative security is designed to ensure that organized aggression cannot start or be prosecuted on any large scale.”22 In practice, the Brookings Institution’s idea of a cooperative security system is based on “mutual acceptance of and support for the defence of home territory as the exclusive national military objective”. The authors suggest that a fully developed cooperative 109

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security system “would set and enforce appropriate standards for the size, concentration, technical configuration, and operation practices of deployed forces. Reassurance would be the principal objective, as distinct from deterrence and containment.”23 Of particular interest to the authors are regimes and institutions designed to limit the spread of arms, especially weapons of mass destruction and advanced delivery systems; references to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the Nuclear NonProliferation Treaty (NPT), and Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) are ubiquitous.24 In its use of arms control and confidencebuilding measures to achieve the goal of mutual reassurance, the Brookings idea of cooperative security is similar to the notion of common security advanced by the Palme Commission. In his chapter in Global Engagement, “Cooperative Security in the Asia-Pacific”, Harry Harding outlines a concept of cooperative security that is sensitive to both military and non-military security issues.25 Harding applauds the creation of mechanisms for dialogue in the region such as the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) and CSCAP. However, his interpretation of cooperative security differs in important ways from its use by Canadian and Australian scholars and officials. For example, Harding argues that dealing with Asia’s role in international regimes to limit the spread of weapons, especially weapons of mass destruction, is one of the most pressing issues in the region. He claims that securing the full compliance of China and North Korea with arms control regimes such as the MTCR and NPT will be “an important priority” for advocates of cooperative security.26 Similarly, while he endorses the spread of second track dialogue, he also suggests the creation of a “comparable forum” to the ARF for Northeast Asia. Such forum should engage what he argues is the “core issue” in regional security, “the emerging arms race in the Asia-Pacific”.27 This interpretation can be contrasted with the Canadian and Australian notions of cooperative security which at the time stressed a more incremental and gradualist approach to fostering security dialogue in the region.28 They also downplay the kind of formalist approach to institution-building that Harding embraces. In this respect, the Canadian and Australian concepts seem to be more in tune with the strategic culture of the region, one in which there is a widely held antipathy towards dealing with arms control issues.29 Debates about security concepts have become less intense since the mid-1990s, but cooperative security continues to be used

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by a number of regional states. Several Chinese officials and academics have used the term to call for a new approach to security in East Asia. In a 2001 paper, Xia Liping linked cooperative security to Chinese calls to reduce the importance of bilateral alliances and for security concerns to be addressed in a multilateral context. He predicted the development of “East Asian cooperative security mechanisms” that would include multiple levels of overlapping institutions (regional, sub-regional and bilateral) as well as both official and unofficial dialogues. He also argued that cooperative security would become more established as economic interdependence in the region increased.30 In another analysis, Peter Van Ness has argued that Beijing’s response to the Bush administration’s “unilateralist, preventive war strategy” has been a “cooperative security” approach. This, he says, means “seeking to work with potential adversaries, rather than to make war against them” and specifically includes “rulesbased collective action, and conflict-resolution diplomacy”, “positive-sum strategic games, designed to achieve win-win outcomes” and a preference for multilateralism and institutionbuilding.31 Van Ness argues that China’s “new diplomacy” with neighbours in Southeast Asia is one example of this commitment to cooperative security. Van Ness admits that China’s use of cooperative security is “by no means a pacifist design” and is yet to be really tested, for example, in a dispute over serious political or territorial differences, but concludes “when compared with Bush’s record of making war to achieve peace in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Chinese response has substantial appeal, especially among the ASEAN countries, where cooperative security ideas have long been popular.”32 More recently, Chinese use of the term cooperative security has declined in favour of the “new security concept” (see the relevant entry). Notes 1

2

3 4 5

Dora Alves, ed., Cooperative Security in the Pacific Basin: The 1988 Pacific Symposium (Washington, D.C.: National Defense University Press, 1990). John D. Steinbruner, “The Prospect of Cooperative Security”, Brookings Review (Winter 1988/89), pp. 53–62. E-mail communication with the authors, May 2000. Steinbruner, “The Prospect of Cooperative Security”, p. 53. Ashton Carter, William J. Perry, and John D. Steinbruner, A New Concept of Cooperative Security (Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1992).

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6

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For a summary of the activities of the North Pacific Co-operative Security Dialogue, see The Agenda for Cooperative Security in the North Pacific: Conference Report, edited by David Dewitt and Paul M. Evans (Toronto: York University, NPCSD, July 1993). David B. Dewitt, “Common, Comprehensive and Cooperative Security”, The Pacific Review 7, no. 1 (1994), passim. David B. Dewitt and Amitav Acharya, “Cooperative Security and Developmental Assistance: The Relationship between Security and Development with Reference to Eastern Asia”, Eastern Asian Policy Papers no. 16, University of TorontoYork University Joint Centre for Asia Pacific Studies, Toronto, 1994, pp. 9–10. See Gareth Evans and Bruce Grant, Australia’s Foreign Relations in the World of the 1990s, 2nd ed. (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1995), pp. 79–81, 116–17. Compare this with Andrew Mack, “Concepts of Security in the Post-Cold War World”, Working Paper no. 8, Department of International Relations, Australian National University, Canberra, 1993, p. 15, and Dewitt, “Common, Comprehensive and Cooperative Security”, pp. 7–9. Dewitt is obviously the source of the quotation. His work is listed in the bibliography in Cooperating for Peace, although the lengthy paraphrase is not footnoted. See Kerr and Mack, “The Future of Asia-Pacific Security Studies in Australia”, p. 57, note 15. Gareth Evans, Cooperating for Peace: The Global Agenda for the 1990s and Beyond (St Leonards, NSW: Allen & Unwin, 1993), p. 16. Kerr and Mack, “The Future of Asia-Pacific Security Studies in Australia”, pp. 33–59, 38. Indeed, according to Mack, “my view is that the concept was never clearly articulated … On the one hand there was the idea of ‘security with’ other states — on the other the idea of deterrence was preserved. So Australia found itself arming itself against the very states it also sought to cooperate with.” E-mail communication with the authors, 15 June 2000. Evans, Cooperating for Peace, passim. Gareth Evans, “Cooperative Security and Intrastate Conflict”, Foreign Policy, no. 96 (Fall 1994): 3–20. Desmond Ball and Pauline Kerr, Presumptive Engagement: Australia’s Asia-Pacific Security Policy in the 1990s (St Leonards, NSW: Allen & Unwin, 1996), p. 77. For example, in 1992 a Canadian Government official involved in the NPCSD noted that the “application of the concept of cooperative security to the North Pacific is not an alternative to traditional security arrangements (collective and mutual defence arrangements will remain central to the preservation of national sovereignty); it is intended first to address all issues of concern and then to focus on those areas where it is agreed that progress in developing multilateral approaches is possible.” See Stewart Henderson, “Canada and Asia Pacific Security: The North Pacific Cooperative Security Dialogue: Recent Trends”, NPCSD Working Paper no. 1, York University, Toronto, 1992, p. 1. Palme Commission, The Report of the Independent Commission on Disarmament and Security Issues under the Chairmanship of Olof Palme — Common Security: A Blueprint for Survival (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1982), p. xiii. Geoffrey Wiseman, Common Security and Non-Provocative Defence: Alternative Approaches to the Security Dilemma (Canberra: Peace Research Centre, Australian National University, 1989), p. 7. U.S. Senator Alan Cranston (D-CA) also called for an Asian equivalent to the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) process. See his

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21 22 23 24 25

26 27 28

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comments in “U.S. Security Policy in Asia”, Hearings before the East Asian and Pacific Affairs Sub-committee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 30 0ctober 1991. Janne Nolan, ed., Global Engagement: Cooperation and Security in the 21st Century (Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1994), p. 5. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. See especially Chapters 3 and 5. Harry Harding, “Cooperative Security in the Asia-Pacific Region”, in Global Engagement, edited by Nolan, pp. 419–46. Interestingly, Harding says that he was introduced to the idea of cooperative security by David Dewitt and Paul Evans during the NPSCD, p. 419. Ibid., p. 427. Ibid., p. 443. Dewitt, in particular, stresses this difference. See “Common, Comprehensive and Cooperative Security”, pp. 7, 14 note 34. See, for example, the statement by Indonesian Foreign Minister Ali Alatas, “Alatas Denies Buildup Threat”, South China Morning Post, Internet edition, , 3 December 1997. For a critique of the arms race debate, see Panitan Wattanayagorn and Desmond Ball, “A Regional Arms Race?” in Journal of Strategic Studies 18, no. 3 (September 1995), Special Issue on “The Transformation of Security in the Asia/Pacific Region”, edited by Desmond Ball, pp. 147–74. Xia Liping, “Prospects for Cooperative Security in East Asia: Chinese Perspectives”, Paper presented to the Second Collaborative Workshop on East Asia Regional Security Futures, Nautilus Institute-Center for American Studies, Fudan University, 3–4 March 2001, available online at: . Peter Van Ness, “China’s Response to the Bush Doctrine”, World Policy Journal XI, no. 4 Winter 2004–2005, available online at . Ibid.

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According to the Oxford Concise Dictionary, the noun engagement and the verb to engage have several different meanings. Among these, to engage can mean “to employ busily”, “to hold a person’s attention”, “to bind by a promise (usually a marriage)”, or to “come into battle with an enemy”. The noun engagement can mean “the act or state of engaging or being engaged”, an “appointment with another person”, “a betrothal”, “an encounter between hostile forces”, or “a moral commitment”. The gerund engaging means to be “attractive or charming”. In the literature on security in the Asia-Pacific, engagement most commonly refers to policies regarding the People’s Republic of China. However, the term has been used in many different ways leading to a great deal of confusion and uncertainty. A Business Week headline summed up the confusion: “Does ‘engagement’ mean fight or marry?”1 Although one of the most important and ubiquitous terms in the Asia-Pacific security discourse, engagement is generally undertheorized. Most of the literature on the term is either descriptive or prescriptive. There is little agreement about the meaning of engagement and considerable inconsistency in its use. The New York Times noted that “there are many definitions of engagement” and described it as a “moving target”.2 This indeterminacy has prompted a host of scholars and officials to offer their own modified 115

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interpretations of engagement, for example deep engagement or conditional engagement. These, in turn, have arguably made for less, rather than greater conceptual clarity. One theoretical treatment of engagement has been put forward by Alastair Iain Johnston and Robert Ross.3 They argue that engagement has two distinct yet complementary meanings. First, it implies adjustment on the part of status quo powers to the legitimate interests of a rising power. In this approach, conflict is minimized and peace maintained because existing powers recognize that balance of power requires the rising power to be peacefully incorporated into the international system. According to Johnston and Ross, “stability is maintained because the established powers ‘engage’ the interests of the rising power, that is they allocate it enhanced global responsibilities commensurate with its new capabilities.”4 This approach to engagement is based upon two assumptions. First, it assumes that the rising power is engageable — it does not have an insatiable appetite for power. Second, it assumes that there are no irreconcilable differences between the existing powers and the rising power. Johnston and Ross’s second definition stresses the use of multilateral institutions in the engagement of a rising power.5 They argue that engagement potentially can incorporate the rising power into a leadership position in existing international organizations and regimes, including arms control and trade. Established powers thereby seek to accommodate the new power’s demands for a “place at the table”. The membership in international institutions allows international norms to evolve and develop, reflecting the interests of all powers, including the rising power. This process aims to minimize the interest the rising power has in pursuing polices that might destabilize the international order.6 Johnston and Ross suggest this was the policy pursued by the Clinton administration, and conclude that at its simplest, this approach to engagement means two somewhat contradictory things: the first is that policymakers should develop a range of inter-governmental ties such that disturbances in one bilateral or multilateral issue area are offset by stability in another; the second is that the utility of threats to damage one aspect of the relationship are reduced because of the ripple effect on other more profitable aspects.7

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They conclude there is “virtually nothing in the policy that approaches an articulated ‘theory’ of engagement, that is, a logical set of assumptions and propositions about what engagement entails, how it is supposed to affect the decision rules and costbenefit calculus of the engagee, and what criteria one should use to measure the success or failure of the policy.”8 Richard Haas and Meghan O’Sullivan describe engagement as “a foreign-policy strategy that depends to a significant degree on positive incentives to achieve its objectives”.9 They argue that the distinguishing characteristic of American engagement strategies historically, is their reliance “on the extension or provision of incentives to shape the behaviour of countries with which the U.S. has important disagreements”. Like many writers on engagement, Haas and O’Sullivan further distinguish between conditional and unconditional forms of engagement. Conditional engagement “entails a negotiated series of exchanges, such as where the U.S. extends positive inducements for changes undertaken by the target country”. In contrast, engagement may be unconditional if it offers “modifications in U.S. policy towards a country without the explicit expectation that a reciprocal act will follow”. Generally, they say, conditional engagement is aimed at changing a government’s behaviour, while unconditional engagement works with a nation’s civil society or private sector in the hope of promoting forces that will eventually pursue cooperation. In the wider literature on security, engagement is used in a looser sense. First, it is regularly employed to describe a state’s attitude or posture towards the world at large, or sometimes towards a particular region. While this usage most commonly refers to the disposition of the United States, it has also been used to describe other states’ attitudes. In this context, engagement is often defined by what it is not. It is not “isolationism” or “disengagement”. Engagement is closer to the school of American foreign policy that usually falls under the label “internationalism”. John Ruggie has said that American presidents from the turn of the century have “sought to devise strategies of international engagement for the United States. They have differed little about why such engagement was deemed necessary; differences lie in their preferred means toward that end.”10 In this sense, as Ruggie suggests, engagement seems to be a process as well as a goal. One important element of the process part

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of the debate about U.S. engagement — one that is particularly relevant to the Asia-Pacific — has been the question of whether unilateralism or multilateralism should be the “presumptive mode of engagement” for the United States.11 While the United States has accepted the need for multilateral institutions in the region for more than a decade, the use of engagement often seems to be based on assumptions of American primacy. The February 1996 National Security Strategy of Engagement and Enlargement calls for American “leadership and engagement in the world”. It argues that without “active leadership and engagement abroad, threats will fester and our opportunities will narrow”, and concludes that the United States “must remain engaged in the world through U.S. leadership”.12 In this respect, it is interesting to contrast the American use of comprehensive engagement with the Australian policy of the same name set out in 1989, which explicitly stated that engagement was a relationship among equals and partners. Second, engagement is sometimes used in a slightly narrower sense to describe the political relationship between specific states. Here there are two distinctive usages: first, engagement can be described as a kind of loosely defined informal association or relationship. The example that has received the most attention in the literature on Asia-Pacific security is that of the United States’ engagement of China. In this sense, engagement connotes a relationship of dialogue and involvement, and is often contrasted with “containment” or “isolation”.13 Joseph Nye has said “the attitude that ‘engagement’ implies is important.” He claims the United States’ decision to engage China “means that [it] has rejected the argument that conflict is inevitable”.14 A related use of engagement is to describe formal state policies or strategies. For example, the Clinton administration’s “Strategy of Engagement and Enlargement” and policy of “Comprehensive Engagement” with China. Different parts of the government often take very differing attitudes to engagement. Robert Sutter notes that under the George W. Bush administration, there has been “an institutional gap between the Department of Defense and other US departments as far as interaction and engagement with China is concerned”.15 While official policies sometimes go by similar or even identical names they can often be very different in content. For example, contrast the constructive engagement policy of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) as it applies to Myanmar, with some American usages of the term referring to China (see below). 118

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The basic premise that underpins the many different policies of engagement towards China is the assumption that incorporating the country in as many international regimes, institutions, and binding commitments as possible, will minimize its potential for “disruptive” behaviour in the future and will maximize the chances for its smooth integration into the international order.16 Engagement aims to get China to recognize and abide by the existing rules and norms of the international community. Beyond its broad aim, however, there has often been inconsistency when it comes to the policy’s details. Engagement appears in the literature on Asia-Pacific security in numerous qualified forms. A wide range of adjectives precede the word, usually purporting to give it some kind of nuanced meaning. These modifiers include: active engagement;17 ad hoc engagement; adversarial engagement;18 broken engagement; coercive engagement; commercial engagement; Comprehensive Engagement;19 compulsory engagement; conditional engagement; constructive engagement; Cooperative Engagement; deep engagement and deeper engagement; defence engagement; destructive engagement; Dual Engagement; 20 economic engagement; 21 effective engagement; Flexible and Selective Engagement;22 focused engagement;23 full engagement;24 Global Engagement;25 hidden engagement; incomplete engagement; intense engagement; peaceful engagement; Peacetime Engagement; positive engagement;26 presumptive engagement; preventive engagement; proportional engagement; pseudo-engagement; realistic engagement; sceptical engagement; selective engagement; sham engagement;27 Soft Engagement;28 strategic engagement;29 and sustained engagement.30 The use of engagement in the literature on the Asia-Pacific security cooperation covers a diverse range of sometimes contradictory ideas, approaches, and policies. Different ideas of engagement are often used interchangeably by officials or scholars in their writings and speeches. Even concepts that purport to describe specific state policies are often used without consistency or precision. The distinctions drawn below are often blurred in practice. Comprehensive Engagement One of the most commonly used forms of engagement in the AsiaPacific security discourse. It is also one of the most ambiguous. The term’s origins are unclear, and while it is often associated 119

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with the Clinton administration’s policy towards China, President George H. Bush also referred several times to his administration’s China policy using the same language. In a March 1992 letter vetoing the United States–China Act 1991 (HR 2212), Bush described “agreements by the Chinese to protect U.S. intellectual property rights, to abide by the Missile Technology Control Regime guidelines, to accede to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty by April, and to discuss our human rights concerns — after years of stonewalling — [as] clear achievements of my Administration’s policy of comprehensive engagement.”31 He said comprehensive engagement “on several fronts invites China’s leadership to act responsibly without leaving any doubts about the consequences of Chinese misdeeds. Our approach is one of targeting specific areas of concern with the appropriate policy instruments to produce the desired results.”32 In his 1992 election campaign, then-Governor Clinton strongly criticized Bush’s policy towards China. He promised to pursue a tougher line on human rights issues with China if elected. After taking office in January 1993, Clinton announced a change in U.S. policy. A presidential Executive Order of 28 May 1993 linked approval of China’s MFN trading status with progress on human rights issues. The order required the Secretary of State to certify that China had made “overall significant progress” in a number of human rights areas in order to have its MFN status renewed. According to Winston Lord, the Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, immediately following the issuance of the executive order the United States initiated dialogue with China on the steps that would need to be taken in order for MFN to be renewed in 1994.33 By September 1993, however, the Clinton administration became concerned that its strategy was not achieving the desired results. After an extensive inter-agency review the U.S. Government announced an “expanded strategy of comprehensive engagement … designed to engage the Chinese at levels of seniority required to achieve progress in areas of paramount concern”.34 These included “first and foremost” human rights, but also trade and non-proliferation issues. President Clinton’s meeting with Chinese President Jiang Zemin at the first Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leaders’ meeting in Seattle was cited as an example of comprehensive engagement in action.35 While some accounts claim that at this time comprehensive engagement replaced the trade threat as the focus of U.S. policy, it is more 120

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accurate to say that at first comprehensive engagement supplemented the administration’s primary policy of linking MFN status with human rights. The May 1993 executive order remained in force and the United States kept up its threats to deny MFN status in both public and secret diplomacy until May 1994.36 At that point, the strategy collapsed when President Clinton decided to extend MFN status unconditionally and officially delinked human rights with trade. However, despite this significant shift in policy, and the loss of the domestic political consensus in the United States that had supported the tougher Clinton line, comprehensive engagement continued to be used as the principal label to describe U.S. policy towards China. Winston Lord has stated the rationale behind comprehensive engagement is to have a broad agenda with high-level, as well as working-level, negotiations and exchanges, to ensure “that when we run into trouble on some fronts, we have enough positive areas so that the whole relationship would not suffer.”37 To some critics of the policy, however, the result has been that each U.S. official contact with China carries a mixed and sometimes confused menu of missions. An article in the International Herald Tribune in February 1995 commented on the contradictions, noting “Energy Secretary Hazel O’Leary will soon visit China to harvest some contracts for private U.S. business, but will also take up human rights and arms proliferation, issues usually handled by the Secretary of State.”38 In his 1994 mid-term review of MFN status, Lord noted that on visits to China, Agriculture Secretary Espy and Commerce Secretary Ron Brown had “articulated firmly and cogently the need for progress on human rights and other noneconomic issues of concern”.39 As Johnston and Ross have identified, a problem inherent in the comprehensive engagement approach is that the credibility of threats to damage one aspect of the relationship is reduced because of the ripple effect on other, more profitable aspects.40 A Chinese perspective on comprehensive engagement has been advanced by Wang Jisi. In an essay in the Beijing Review entitled “U.S. China Policy: Containment or Engagement?” he argues that the policy announced by the Clinton administration was “tantamount to admitting the failure of sanctions and acknowledging China’s international standing and legitimacy”.41 He does not see comprehensive engagement as a particularly positive contribution to Sino–U.S. relations, however. Instead, engagement is viewed as an attempt by the United States to 121

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influence China’s domestic and foreign policy. “Engagement does not merely mean closer high-level contacts. It is not a friendly gesture but rather an attempt to pervade China with U.S. economic, political, cultural, and ideological influences. Eventually, the United States hopes China will accept Westernled international norms.”42 Australia has also set out its own, quite specific, concept of comprehensive engagement. In a 1989 ministerial statement on regional security, Australia announced that it was adopting a policy of “comprehensive engagement” towards Southeast Asia, along with one of “constructive commitment” to the South Pacific.43 According to the statement, comprehensive engagement was Australia’s “long-term goal” in Southeast Asia. It described the policy as “ ‘comprehensive’ in that there should be many elements in the relationship, and ‘engagement’ because it implies a mutual commitment between equals.” It said the policy “reflects an understanding that our security interests are advanced by policies that develop and reinforce a diverse array of linkages. Through these we should seek to convey a common message: our desire to be a full-fledged partner, and the value of interaction with us.”44 The essential elements of the concept included: building increased linkages with countries in Southeast Asia; continuing to support ASEAN, and working to shape additional regional organizations or arrangements; participating in the development of a regional security community; working for the involvement of Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar in the cooperative framework of regional affairs; and recognizing Australia should pursue its interests in Southeast Asia as “a confident and natural partner in a common neighbourhood of remarkable diversity, rather than as a cultural misfit trapped by geography”.45 Conditional Engagement The term was coined by a Council on Foreign Relations study of U.S.–China relations. In Weaving the Net, James Shinn argues conditional engagement is a “moderate, rules-based” policy that offers a compromise between unconditionally engaging China and containment.46 Conditional engagement welcomes China’s integration into the global trading and financial systems, and proposes ways in which the United States and other Asian states can not only accelerate this integration but amplify its moderating effect on Chinese behaviour. Shinn suggests the concept of

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conditional engagement could be the strategic anchor for the U.S.– China relationship.47 According to Shinn, the general thrust of conditional engagement is “to bring China into the community of nations through an accord on basic rules for international conduct”.48 He advances ten principles which he says will accommodate China’s rise as a world power and protect the vital interests of its neighbours: no unilateral use of offensive military force; peaceful resolution of territorial disputes; respect for national sovereignty; freedom of navigation; moderation in military force buildup; transparency of military forces; non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction; market access for trade and investment; cooperative solutions for transnational problems; and respect for basic human rights. Achieving respect for these principles is the objective of conditional engagement.49 To achieve conditional engagement, Shinn urges the adoption of two parallel strategies: economic engagement and security engagement. Economic engagement seeks to promote the integration of China into the global economy through negotiations on trade liberalization, institution-building, and educational exchanges. While Shinn acknowledges that sometimes a carrotand-stick approach might be necessary, he is opposed to the use of trade sanctions to achieve short-term political goals.50 The second element of the strategy is the use of security engagement. Security engagement includes the use of arms control measures, multilateral dialogues, and what he calls a “looselystructured defensive military arrangement in Asia.”51 This, Shinn argues, should reduce the risks posed by China’s military expansion, its lack of transparency, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and transnational concerns such as crime and illegal migration. Constructive Engagement Origins lie with the Thatcher and Reagan administrations’ policy of maintaining relations with South Africa during the apartheid era. According to the former U.S. National Security Council member Constantine Menges, constructive engagement meant having “normal economic relations [with South Africa] while quietly using the important American economic presence — specifically in American-owned companies — to apply the principles of equal rights for all workers as an example and

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incentive for positive actions by South African business and government”.52 In theory at least, the policy was aimed at changing South Africa through dialogue, influence, and persuasion rather than the policies of isolation and sanctions pursued by most of the international community. The effectiveness and motives behind the U.S. policy of constructive engagement have been questioned by many, leading one scholar to describe it as “incomplete engagement”.53 This association with apartheid South Africa has given constructive engagement a pejorative connotation for many in the West. It is often seen as simply an excuse for pursuing “business as usual” with pariah regimes. In the Asia-Pacific context, the term is commonly associated with Thailand’s and subsequently ASEAN’s policy of maintaining relations with the military government in Myanmar (at the time known as the State Law and Order Restoration Council or SLORC), despite its widely criticized human rights record. According to Leszek Buszynski, the term originated with the Thai Government of Chatichai Chunawan, which was in office from August 1988 to February 1991. Buszynski says the concept was conceived by the Thai Foreign Ministry in the period after the SLORC crushed student demonstrations in Yangon in 1988. He says constructive engagement was designed “to bridge a gap between particular Thai interests in Myanmar on the one hand, and Western condemnation of SLORC on the other. As a political device it was a means of ensuring Thailand’s security as well as economic interests. As a diplomatic device it was designed to deflect international attention from Thailand’s cooperative policy in relation to SLORC, with the explanation that the regime’s behaviour would somehow improve as a result.”54 The term was popularized by then Foreign Minister Arsa Sarasin who used it to defend the Thai policy of dealing with the SLORC in a meeting with the European Economic Community (EEC) officials in Brussels in July 1991. In a speech to the United Nations General Assembly on 2 October 1991, he subsequently called for ASEAN to adopt a policy of “constructive management” of Myanmar.55 Buszynski claims that constructive engagement was elevated to the position of an official ASEAN policy at the 1992 ASEAN Post-Ministerial Conference (PMC) in Manila. He says ASEAN used the term “as a defence against its dialogue partners, especially the U.S and the EU, which had proposed that pressure be brought to bear upon SLORC”.56

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Various definitions link constructive engagement to the “ASEAN way” (see the relevant entry), especially the preference for so-called “quiet diplomacy”. In an article in August 1992, the Singapore newspaper Straits Times defined constructive engagement as meaning the use of “gentle persuasion and quiet diplomacy to prod the regime [in Myanmar] into political liberalization. This means keeping the dialogue going with the SLORC leaders”.57 An Indonesian Foreign Ministry official has defined the policy in the following way: “We are telling them [the regime in Myanmar] very quietly, in a Southeast Asian way, without any fanfare, without any public statements: ‘Look, you are in trouble, let us help you. But you have to change, you cannot continue like this.’ ”58 The official also said it was part of the policy to avoid steps that might “embarrass and isolate” the Myanmar junta, adding “if their pride is hurt, it won’t help. If they don’t want to talk to you it won’t help any of our efforts. So we keep talking to them.”59 Commenting on the Philippine’s position on constructive engagement, an ASEAN official said, “If you talk to [the SLORC] as a friend and advise them, they are more likely to listen than if you lecture from the rooftops as an adversary.”60 A Malaysian official stressed a preference “to do things quietly, the ASEAN way, so as to give face to the other side”.61 In practice, the policy of constructive engagement meant ASEAN not only declined to enforce sanctions against Myanmar but actually encouraged the development of economic, political, and military links to the SLORC regime. Here Thailand has played the leading role. In December 1988, shortly after the SLORC came to power, the Thai Armed Forces Supreme Commander became the first foreign leader to visit Myanmar. The visit was followed by a new economic and security relationship between Thailand and Myanmar. This allowed Myanmar troops to cross the Thai border to attack Karen and Mon guerrillas, and also allowed Thai logging companies to operate along the Myanmar border and Thai fishing companies access to the Andaman Sea. This led some analysts to suggest that the policy of constructive engagement was in effect a quid pro quo between Thailand and Myanmar.62 Thailand also invited Myanmar to attend the 1993 ASEAN Ministerial Meeting as an observer, although the proposal was vetoed by Malaysia. Myanmar’s admission as a full member of ASEAN on 23 July 1997 has also been explained as advancing the

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goals of constructive engagement. Indeed, during Myanmar’s admission, the Philippines Foreign Secretary Domingo Siazon said ASEAN’s policy was no longer limited to simply constructive engagement but rather “full engagement” with Myanmar.63 Critics of constructive engagement, including Myanmar’s opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, argue that rather than encouraging political liberalization in Myanmar, constructive engagement may have delayed it indefinitely by giving the SLORC regime time to consolidate its authoritarian rule. While ASEAN leaders were quick to credit constructive engagement for Aung San Suu Kyi’s release from house arrest in 1995, the Nobel Laureate responded: “The question is for whom has it been constructive? Was it constructive for the forces of democracy? Was it constructive for the Burmese people in general? Was it constructive for a limited business community? Or was it constructive for SLORC?”64 Aung San Suu Kyi has called for ASEAN to extend its policy of constructive engagement to include her National League for Democracy (NLD). “If ASEAN is truly interested in constructive engagement, it should try to engage with both sides, with the SLORC as well as the democratic opposition, and make sure the engagement leads to something constructive, in the way of development towards democracy.”65 Constructive engagement has also been used occasionally to describe relations towards China.66 In a speech on U.S. defence policy in the Asia-Pacific, Secretary of Defence William Perry said one of the four pillars of “U.S. preventive defence policy” in the Asia-Pacific was constructive engagement with China. According to a report in the Straits Times, Perry said constructive engagement had been the consistent policy of the United States for more than twenty years under six presidents from both the Republican and Democratic parties.67 He contrasted constructive engagement with containment, saying “engagement is not only in our self-interest. I believe it is also in China’s self-interest.” He suggested that to be successful, the policy needed to be reciprocated by the Chinese leadership, saying “It takes two to tango; it takes two to engage.”68 More recent statements seem to detect reciprocity. For example, a Joint Statement issued after the meeting of the Australia-US-Japan Trilateral Strategic Dialogue talks in March 2006 “welcomed China’s constructive engagement in the region”.69

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Stephen B. Shepard, et al., “Li Lanquing: ‘Does ‘Engagement’ Mean Fight or Marry?”, Business Week, 6 May 1996, p. 33. David E. Sanger, “China Faces Test of Resolve to Join the Global Economy”, The New York Times, 2 March 1997, pp. A1, A8. Alastair Iain Johnston and Robert S. Ross (eds), Engaging China: The Management of a Rising Power (Routledge, London, 1999). Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Richard N. Haas and Meghan L. O’Sullivan, “Terms of Engagement: Alternatives to Punitive Policies”, Survival 42, no. 2 (Summer 2000): 113–35, 113–14. John Gerard Ruggie, “The Past as Prologue: Interests, Identity, and American Foreign Policy”, International Security 21, no. 4 (Spring 1997): 107. Lake, “From Containment to Enlargement”, p. 18. The White House, A National Security Strategy of Engagement and Enlargement (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1996), pp. 2, 12. For some arguments favouring containment, see Gideon Rachman, “Containing China”, Washington Quarterly 19, no. 1 (1995): 129–39; A shorter version of this article appears under the same title, but without a byline, in The Economist, 29 July 1995, pp. 11–12; Arthur Waldron, “Deterring China”, Commentary 100, no. 4 (October 1995); Charles Krauthammer, “Why We Must Contain China”, Time, 31 July 1995. Joseph S. Nye, “China’s Re-emergence and the Future of the Asia-Pacific”, Survival 39, no. 4 (Winter 1997–98): 65–79, 76. Emphasis added. Robert Sutter, “Bush administration policy towards Beijing and Taipei”, Journal of Contemporary China 36, no. 12 (August 2003) 477–92, 486, 489. For a discussion of the use of the term engagement in U.S. Congressional debates, see Stanley Lubman, “The Dragon as Demon: Images of China on Capitol Hill”, Journal of Contemporary China 30, no. 4 (August 2004): 541–65, especially 551–52. See the speech by the Secretary of State Warren Christopher on U.S.–Russia relations, reproduced in the U.S. Department of State Dispatch, 5 June 1995, p. 474. Nigel Holloway, “Making an Enemy”, Far Eastern Economic Review, 20 March 1997, p. 14. For a historical discussion of the emergence of the U.S. policy of Comprehensive Engagement, see Judith F. Kornberg, “Comprehensive Engagement: New Frameworks for Sino-American Relations”, Journal of East Asian Affairs X, no. 1 (Winter/Spring 1996): 13–44. See James B. Steinberg, Director, Policy Planning Staff, “Dual Engagement: U.S. Policy Toward Russia and China”, in the U.S. Department of State Dispatch, 8 May 1995, p. 392. “Containing China”, The Economist, 29 July 1995, p. 11. National Military Strategy of the United States of America 1995: A Strategy of Flexible and Selective Engagement (Washington, D.C.: Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1995).

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23

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27 28

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39 40 41

42

Ronald N. Montaperto and Karl W. Eikenberry, “Paper Tiger: A Skeptical Appraisal of China’s Military Might”, Harvard International Review XVIII, no. 2 (Spring 1996): 28–31, 31. Speaking after Myanmar had been granted membership in ASEAN, the Philippines Foreign Under-Secretary Rodolfo Severino, was reported as saying ASEAN’s policy is no longer constructive engagement, but “full engagement” with Myanmar. See Isagani de Castro, “Southeast Asia: Despite Its Weight, ASEAN Carries Burma”, Inter Press Service, 28 July 1997; On “full engagement” with China, see the U.S. Under-Secretary of Commerce Jeffrey Garten, quoted in “U.S. Policy is to Engage China, Says Commerce Undersecretary”, The Straits Times, 22 September 1995, p. 2. Department of the Air Force, “Global Engagement: A Vision for the 21st Century Air Force”, mimeographed, November 1996. Richard Lloyd Parry, “EU Fails to Block Burma’s Entry to ASEAN”, Reuters Economic Newswire, 14 February 1997. “Sham Engagement”, Multinational Monitor 15, no. 10 (November 1994): 5. This term was used in the Japanese press in the 1990s to distinguish Japan’s policy of engaging China from that pursued by the United States. We are very grateful to Akiko Fukushima for drawing this to our attention. Carnes Lord and Gary J. Schmitt, “Strategic Engagement: Some Modest Proposals”, Comparative Strategy 13, no. 3 (July–September 1994): 253. Lake, “From Containment to Enlargement”, p. 19. “Text of Letter From President Bush to the House of Representatives”, Federal News Service, 2 March 1992. Ibid. See Winston Lord, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, Statement before the Subcommittee on Trade of U.S. House of Representatives’ Ways and Means Committee on “Mid-Term Review of Most-Favoured-Nation Status for China”, 24 February 1994, reproduced in the U.S. Department of State Dispatch, 7 March 1994. Ibid. Ibid. Daniel Williams and Ann Devroy, “China’s Disbelief of Rights Threat Sank Clinton Ploy”, Washington Post, 28 May 1994, p. A1. Shortly before MFN status extension was granted, the United States dispatched a former senior diplomat, Michael Armacost, on a secret mission to Beijing to try to win some concessions from the Chinese Government. Armacost returned with a pledge to release from jail two prominent dissidents; a list of prisoners; an agreement to permit the emigration of some citizens whose passports had been blocked for political reasons, as well as an agreement to discuss prison labour, and the jamming of the Voice of America. Lord, “Mid-Term Review”. Daniel Williams, “The Fits and Starts of U.S.–China Ties; Relations Face Another Test in Dispute over Copyright”, International Herald Tribune, 14 February 1995. Lord, “Mid-Term Review”. Johnston and Ross, “Engaging China”, p. 6. Wang Jisi, “U.S. China Policy: Containment or Engagement?”, Beijing Review, 21 October 1996, pp. 6–9, 7. Ibid.

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46 47 48 49 50 51 52

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Australia’s Regional Security, Ministerial Statement by Gareth Evans Q.C., Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, December 1989. The Statement is reproduced in full in Greg Fry, ed., Australia’s Regional Security (North Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1991), pp. 165–216. Ibid., 213 paras., pp. 173–75. Ibid., 214 para., p. 176. For a critical analysis of the depth of Australian commitment to comprehensive engagement, see Peter King, “Australia and Southeast Asia: ‘Comprehensive Engagement’ or Marriage of Convenience?”, in Peace Building in the Asia Pacific Region, edited by Peter King and Yoichi Kibata (St Leonards, NSW: Allen and Unwin, 1996), pp. 126–36. Shinn, ed., Weaving the Net, p. 4. Ibid., pp. 4–5. Ibid., p. 8. Ibid. Ibid., p. 9. Ibid. Constantine C. Menges, “Sanctions ’86: How the State Department Prevailed”, National Interest (Fall 1988), p. 66. Alex Thompson, “Incomplete Engagement”, Journal of Modern African Studies 33, no. 1 (March 1995): 83. Leszek Buszynski, “Thailand and Myanmar: The Perils of Constructive Engagement”, The Pacific Review 11, no. 2 (1998): 290–305. Ibid., p. 293. Ibid., p. 294. Straits Times, 23 July 1991, cited in Amitav Acharya, “Human Rights in Southeast Asia: Dilemmas for Foreign Policy”, Eastern Asia Policy Paper no. 11, University of Toronto-York University Joint Centre for Asia Pacific Studies, Toronto, 1995, p. 16. Paul Jacob, et al., “ASEAN Prefers Soft Talk to Threats in Dealing with Yangon”, Straits Times, 26 August 1992, p. 27. Ibid. Unnamed ASEAN official quoted, ibid. Ibid. Acharya, “Human Rights in Southeast Asia”, p. 15. de Castro, “Southeast Asia: Despite Its Weight, ASEAN Carries Burma”. Cited in Acharya, “Human Rights in Southeast Asia”, p. 17. “Engage with Us Too, Suu Kyi Tells ASEAN”, Asia Pulse, 30 May 1997. See for example, Kenneth Lieberthal, “A New China Strategy”, Foreign Affairs no. 6 (November/December 1995): 35–49, 47–49. Felix Soh, “US ‘Committed to Engaging China, Not Containing It’ ”, Straits Times, 15 February 1996, p. 1. Ibid. Similarly, Former Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and the Pacific Stanley Roth called on the Chinese Government to pursue a policy of constructive engagement with the rest of the world. See Stanley Roth, “Scenarios for Ensuring Growth and Stability in East Asia”, remarks at Plenary Session, World Economic Forum, Hong Kong, 15 October 1997. See the “Trilateral Strategic Dialogue Joint Statement”, text of a joint statement by the United States, Japan and Australia, 18 March 2006, Sydney, Australia available online at .

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FLEXIBLE CONSENSUS

A central tenet of the “ASEAN way” or the Asia-Pacific approach to multilateralism. Flexible consensus does not require unanimity on the part of all the members of an organization. According to some accounts, the term was introduced by the former Indonesian President Suharto at the 1994 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders’ Meeting in Bogor.1 It is a way of moving forward by establishing what seems to have broad, rather than unanimous, support. Where there is broad support for a specific measure, the objections of a dissenting participant can be discounted, provided the proposal does not threaten that state’s most basic interests. The term appears in a number of ASEAN documents. The 1995 Bangkok ASEAN Summit Declaration states that “all ASEAN economic cooperation decisions shall be made by flexible consensus so that Member Countries wishing to embark on any cooperation scheme may do so while the others can join at a later date.”2 According to Yoichi Funabashi, in the Bogor Declaration, Indonesia proposed full trade liberalization for all economies in the Asia-Pacific by the year 2020. Malaysia objected and refused to abide by any binding time-frame. Indonesia found a way to get around this by invoking the notion of consensus and carefully distinguishing it from unanimity. While Malaysia did not approve of the use of a formal, fixed deadline, the scheduled target date of 131

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2020 did not threaten its basic interest. Consequently, while Malaysia later announced that it regarded any deadlines for APEC’s trade liberalization as only “indicative” and “non-binding”, it had already planned to make the necessary tariff cuts to meet the target date.3 Thus, in the words of the Pacific Business Forum, flexible consensus allows “economies that are ready to move forward to do so and … other economies, which are not yet ready, to join later”. The process, they claim, promotes “mutual respect” among APEC members.4 This kind of approach will only work in situations where there are no deep or fundamental differences between members.5 There are, however, problems with the use of flexible consensus in practice. One of its weaknesses is its potential for ambiguity. As Funabashi has noted, when Australia was opposed admitting Chile to APEC, Australian officials stated (along with several other members) that there was no consensus on admitting Chile. But Malaysian Trade and Industry Minister Rafidah Aziz responded that “there was no consensus against admitting Chile.”6 Funabashi concludes, “there is no clear definition of the word ‘consensus’ among APEC members let alone the concept of ‘flexible consensus’.”7 Alastair Iain Johnston has noted that this approach to consensus gives the key role to the Chair. It is the Chair who determines when consensus has or has not been reached and it is, therefore, especially important that the Chair is regarded as a legitimate figure by all the participants.8 The term flexible consensus is also used to describe the “10–X principle” of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). This modified consensus is sometimes permissible when one or more states disagree with a position taken by the other members. In such a case, the majority of the ten members may press ahead, provided the new position does not threaten the basic interests of the dissenting state or states. Historically, the general rule is that the use of flexible consensus is reserved for economic matters and does not apply to fundamental political or security decisions. According to Hadi Soesastro, it also “does not apply to AFTA”.9 Recent debates within ASEAN about the organisation’s structure and fundamental norms have called into question this distinction (see the entry on the ASEAN way for more details). For example, a 2003 Indonesian proposal to create an ASEAN Security Community (see the relevant entry) included the suggestion that the ASEAN–X formula could be expanded to new issues. In a paper on the subject, Rizal Sukma argued that while consensus 132

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decision making should be retained for “issues of paramount importance to the association,” flexible decision making should be used in the area of “security cooperation”. He argued that combating terrorism within ASEAN could take two paths, one working collectively as a regional organization, and the other “based on cooperation among member states under the formula of ASEAN–X”.10 Notes 1

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Yoichi Funabashi, Asia Pacific Fusion: Japan’s Role in APEC (Washington, D.C.: Institute for International Economics, 1995), p. 146. Bangkok Summit Declaration of 1995, Bangkok, 14–15 December 1995. The complete text of the declaration is available at . Funabashi, Asia Pacific Fusion, pp. 146–47. The Osaka Action Plan: Roadmap to Realizing the APEC Vision, Report of the Pacific Business Forum 1995 (Singapore: APEC Secretariat, 1995), p. 10. An analogous term in European institutional discourse is “variable geometry”. See Gerald Segal, “Overcoming the ASEMetries of Asia and Europe”, Asia Times (Bangkok), 19 November 1996. Quoted in Funabashi, Asia Pacific Fusion, p. 147. Emphasis added. Ibid. Alastair Iain Johnston, “The Myth of the ASEAN Way? Explaining the Evolution of the ASEAN Regional Forum”, in Imperfect Unions: Security Institutions Over Time and Space, by Helga Haftendorn, Robert O. Keohane, and Celeste A. Wallander (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 299. Hadi Soesastro, “Challenges to AFTA in the 21st Century”, in One Southeast Asia In a New Regional and International Setting, edited by Soesastro (Jakarta: Centre for Strategic and International Studies, 1997), p. 87. Rizal Sukma, “The Future of ASEAN: Towards a Security Community”, Paper presented to the seminar on ‘ASEAN Cooperation: Challenges and Prospects in the Current International Situation”, New York, 3 June 2003.

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HUMAN SECURITY

Since the end of the Cold War, there have been numerous attempts to redefine and re-focus the concept of security. Perhaps the most controversial and complex is the idea of human security. Though operating at the margins of security discourse and practice it has produced an intense debate on a global basis but also within and across regions including Asia and the Asia-Pacific.1 The phrase “human security” surfaced occasionally in the first nine decades of the twentieth century but only after its formulation in the UNDP’s Human Development Report in 1994 did it begin to penetrate academic and policy discourse. Portrayed alternatively as a new theory, concept, paradigm, analytic starting point, world view, political agenda, normative benchmark, and policy framework, it has inspired a shelf of books, scores of journal articles, several governmental reports, and dozens of new seminars and teaching programmes. Human security is based on three fundamental assumptions. First, that the individual (or the individual in a group or community, say ethnic Serbs in Bosnia) is one of the referent points (or in some formulations the referent point) of security. Traditionally, the nation-state has been the primary referent object of security. Security has been concerned with protecting territory, or advancing the national interests or core values of states. Advocates of human 135

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security suggest that this emphasis on securing states has been at the expense of the security of people. “Forgotten [are] the legitimate concerns of ordinary people who sought security in their daily lives. For many of them security symbolize[s] protection from the threat of disease, hunger, unemployment, crime, social conflict, political repression, and environmental hazards.”2 Second, the concept assumes that the security of the individual or the group is subject to a variety of threats of which military threats from outside the state are only one and usually not the most significant. The 1994 UNDP Human Development report identifies seven main categories: economic security, food security, health security, environmental security, personal security, community security, and political security. Third, human security recognizes there is a possible tension between the security of the individual and that of the nation, the state and the regime. Some writers make the argument that historically the enhancement of a state’s security has often come at the direct expense of the security and well-being of its citizens.3 One governmental report claims that “[s]ince the end of the Cold War, security for the majority of states has increased, while security for many of the world’s people has declined.”4 Some advocates describe the concept as having two goals: freeing people from perceived fears, and from material want. Ramesh Thakur makes a similar claim using the language of positive and negative freedoms. Negatively, [human security] refers to freedom from: from want, hunger, attack, torture, imprisonment without a free and fair trial, discrimination on spurious grounds, and so on. Positively, it means freedom to: the capacity and opportunity that allows each human being to enjoy life to the fullest without imposing constraints upon others engaged in the same pursuit. While the first may suggest a restrictive role for a limited state, the second calls for a permissive role for an active state.5 Others suggest human security has three components: “human survival, human well-being, and human freedom”.6 The most developed variant of this broad, holistic or comprehensive approach can be found in the findings of the Commission on Human Security, supported by the Japanese

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government and co-chaired by Sadako Ogata and Amartya Sen. Its final report states that: The aim of human security is to protect the vital core of all human lives in ways that enhance human freedoms and human fulfilment. Human security means protecting fundamental freedoms — freedoms that are the essence of life. It means protecting people from critical (severe) and pervasive (widespread) threats and situations. It means using processes that build on people’s strengths and aspirations. It means creating political, social, environmental, economic, military and cultural systems that give people the building blocks of survival, livelihood and dignity.7 The substantive chapters of the report deal with situations of violent conflict, refugees and internally displaced persons, recovery from violent conflict, economic security, health and human security, knowledge, skills, and values for human security. A second approach to human security has taken a narrower path, paying particular attention to violence and protection especially in situations of intra-state armed conflict.8 The ensuing agenda has concentrated on initiatives related to the anti-personnel landmine campaign, the International Criminal Court, small arms and light weapons, war-affected children, women in conflict zones, and security sector reform in peacebuilding operations.9 The concept of human security has attracted extensive criticism for being imprecise, too broad, analytically fuzzy, and operationally useless. According to Acharya, “many Asian scholars argue that the broad range of threats constituting the human security paradigm is a rehash of the old Asian notion of ‘comprehensive security’ developed by Japan and the ASEAN members.”10 Even advocates note that because the concept has a “broad meaning and is ambiguous … the mere existence of the term provides no guarantee that there is any real meaning behind those words.”11 Despite the criticism and its focus on non-state actors, human security has found support among some governments. Canada, Norway, and the Netherlands have accepted the utility of the human security approach and argued strongly for its adoption. They have played a key role in establishing the Human Security Network, an inter-governmental process involving thirteen

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countries. (Thailand is the only Asian member). Among the specific issues that it has addressed are anti-personnel landmines and illegal trafficking in small arms, the International Criminal Court, preventing the use of child soldiers and exploitative child labour, strengthening international humanitarian law, food security and public health.12 Within Asia, the term human security is used with increasing frequency and has generated a lengthy debate about its meaning and value. Though it has a significant Asian pedigree — the 1994 UNDP report was written by a Pakistani with an Asian audience in mind — the initial response was “hesitant, sceptical and cautious”.13 Human security, as Amitav Acharya notes, is “a distinctive notion, which goes well beyond all earlier attempts by Asian governments to ‘redefine’ and broaden their own traditional understanding of security as protection of sovereignty and territory against military threats”.14 Few Asian governments or intellectuals showed immediate interest in the idea and several commentators immediately concluded that its fundamental premises and action agenda would not find support in a continent where governments felt that states were the best (and perhaps only) providers of security and where they fiercely guarded the principles of sovereignty and non-interference in domestic affairs. The two countries that have promoted the concept most vigorously in East Asia have been Japan and Thailand. Japanese leaders at the prime ministerial and foreign minister levels have used the phrase frequently and devoted considerable financial and human resources to promoting the broad version of the concept. This was reinforced by the appointment of Sadako Ogata as the head of the Japanese International Cooperation Agency and the establishment of a US$200 million Trust Fund for Security for promoting human security, mainly through projects implemented by UN agencies.15 Several Thai officials and academics were attracted to the idea, principally during the previous Democrat government. The government created a Department of Social Development and Human Security with a focus on domestic social safety issues and has been an active member of the Human Security Network.With the Asian financial crisis of 1997, the pattern of discussion on human security began to shift.16 The idea was not as intensely debated as in Europe, Africa and Latin America but the broader approach to human security began receiving a warmer welcome and was championed by several Asian intellectual leaders, among them Tadashi 138

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Yamamoto of the Japan Center for International Exchange, some of the ASEAN ISIS group, and political figures including Obuchi Keizo, Surin Pitsuwan and Kim Dae-Jung. Human security provided a tool for acknowledging that even two decades of economic growth and state building had not eliminated severe vulnerabilities for large numbers of Asians. And it at least hinted at the growing role of non-state actors as (a) alternative service providers when states were unable to provide social welfare and protection for their own citizens and (b) participants in the policy process. Viewed a decade after human security entered the Asian security lexicon, it is evolving in complex ways. In the context of regional governmental institutions, the phrase has been used intermittently by political leaders and bureaucrats and is slowly entering the vocabulary of regional institutions, albeit with several different formulations of what the phrase means. The senior officials in the East Asia Study Group and the ASEAN+3 heads of government have used it since 2001, mainly in the context of the need to address a range of “non-traditional” security issues including environmental degradation, illegal migration, piracy, communicable diseases and transnational crime. After considerable debate, the term was used in APEC, first in officials meetings in 2002 and then as part of the Leaders’ Declaration on 21 October 2003 which committed APEC “not only to advancing the prosperity of our economies, but also to the complementary mission of ensuring the security of our people”. APEC’s prescriptions for “enhancing human security” concentrated on dismantling terrorist groups, eliminating the danger of weapons of mass destruction, and confronting other direct threats to security including communicable diseases, protection of air travellers, and energy security.17 The use of the term merged conventional understandings of human security in its broadest sense and the American-promoted anti-terrorist agenda, producing a politically compelling if conceptually confusing new variant. Support of East Asian governments for the main global initiatives directly tied to human security — the campaign to ban anti-personnel landmines, the International Criminal Court, humanitarian interventions in Kosovo, Haiti, and East Timor — has been mixed but generally cautious. It has been somewhat more robust in a variety of Track-Two regional processes. ASEAN ISIS and CSCAP have used the phrase in both its narrower and broader formulations. The East Asia 139

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Vision Group introduced it into several sections of its final report in 2000. And there were some fifty Track-Two meetings between 1998 and 2004 that had human security as the principal focus or a major theme.18 It is not surprising that the interest in human security has been strongest in some of the new democracies in Asia, especially Thailand, South Korea and the Philippines. And it is not surprising that the most negative reactions have come from North Korea and Myanmar. But the correlation with regime type is far from perfect. Some of the most vehement criticisms of human security, at least in its narrower formulations, have come from Indian officials. In Taiwan where there is a strong civil society and functioning democratic institutions, the concept is only just beginning to get attention and faces some serious constraints considering Taiwan’s exclusion from most of the international institutions where human security is being discussed in a multilateral format.19 East Asian responses to human security have seven key attributes that reveal a particular form of regional adaptation and transformation. First, human security thinking in its broad form connects fairly well to local conditions, is compatible with most formulations of comprehensive security, resonates with the needsoriented approach of many Asian governments, is flexible in including both individuals and communities as the referent of security, connects well to developmental issues, and is easily adapted to indigenous traditions of human dignity.20 It also connects well to thinking in many countries about how to ensure the long-term stability of regimes. The fall of the Suharto government in the aftermath of the economic crisis was emblematic of the costs of not doing so. As argued by an Indonesian author, “While it might be presumptuous to argue that the emphasis on human security will automatically ensure political and economic stability, one can make a reasonably strong claim that ignoring it will definitely serve as a recipe for disaster.”21 Second, the broader conception has been easier to embrace, even if only as an aspiration. This can be seen in a range of publications since 1995 most of which aim to connect human security to developmental issues such as poverty and inequality and a new brand of “transnational” issues such as climate change, cross-border pollution, trafficking in drugs and people, crossborder criminal activity, and communicable disease. Coeval with the discussion of human security has been the related idea of “non-traditional security”. While most analysts find it useful to 140

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distinguish the two concepts, some use them interchangeably.22 [See the entry on “non-traditional security”.] Third, the constituency for human security remains limited, initially centred on officials and political leaders involved in multilateral diplomacy, then academics and only recently civil society organizations. NGOs and political activists in Southeast Asia have begun to use the term in settings like the ASEAN People’s Assembly and other “Track Three” settings. One scholar sees it emerging as “something of a rallying cry for civil society organizations in Southeast Asia because it provides them with a powerful arguments against the state-centred model of economic and political development at the heart of the region in recent decades.”23 By de-linking state and society, the concept “leads quite immediately to the contention that groups and individuals in Southeast Asian societies could well want to define their hopes and priorities in terms of human rights or social welfare, and not in terms set by the states, but through closer reference to global standards…it invites the idea that the state might be called upon to account for its actions on the basis of these supra-national standards.” Fourth, the current anti-terrorism agenda has affected the debate in complex ways. At one level, the fight against terror has focussed new attention on the root causes of violence and the intra-state conflicts that have regional and global consequences. The post-invasion efforts at nation building and reconstruction in Afghanistan and Iraq have already involved the direct participation of Japan and South Korea. At the same time, the strategies for responding to terrorism have generally been framed as strengthening states and regimes and using traditional coercive instruments (the military, police, intelligence agencies) as the main means for achieving the objective. One of the new issues is the complicated relationship between human security and national security that is arising in policy circles in Asia as well as Washington.24 Fifth, while there is some evidence of change in regional norms related to sovereignty, non-interference, and institution building, most Asian states have been very reluctant to focus regional and global attention on the dynamics of intra-state war that are at the heart of the narrower definition of human security focusing on protection. Concepts like preventive diplomacy have been slow to find acceptance. What has been accepted is that domestic instabilities and vulnerabilities need special attention by 141

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the states in which they are occurring. For many analysts, even a bad government can do this better than no government or a government imposed though outside intervention. The resistance to concepts like humanitarian intervention remains strong. Sixth, deep-seated differences in doctrine, instruments and discourse continue to distinguish Southeast Asia from Northeast Asia. Despite the efforts of individuals in Japan, South Korea and China to open the discussion on human security, even ideas about regional responses to non-traditional security issues are making only very slow progress. The level of discussion and tentative governmental and NGO action in Southeast Asia is better developed. These, differences, however, appear to be narrowing, in part because of the emergence of East Asian multilateral institutions. And they appear to be narrowing in the direction of increased support for at least the rhetoric of human security. Finally, though a few academics and NGO activists feel that broadening human rights and promoting democracy are the best ways to promote human security, most of the advocates of both the broad and narrow approaches to human security have restricted themselves to basic protection issues and not tried to use the concept to make the case for new forms of intervention against undemocratic regimes or to argue for regime transformation.25 Notes 1

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Paul Evans, “Human Security and East Asia: In the Beginning”, Journal of East Asian Studies 4, no. 2 (May–August 2004): 263–84. “Redefining Security: The Human Dimension”, Current History (May 1995): 229–36. See, for example, Rudolph J. Rummel, “Power, Genocide and Mass Murder”, Journal of Peace Research 31, no. 1 (February 1994): 1–10. Human Security: Safety for People in a Changing World (Ottawa: Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, April 1999), p. 1. Ramesh Thakur, “Humanizing the Security Discourse: From National Security to Human Security”, Paper presented at the International Conference on Human Security in a Globalized World, Ulan Bator, Mongolia, 8 May 2000, pp. 2–3. The three-part approach belongs to Lincoln Chen, cited by Japan’s State Secretary for Foreign Affairs Keizo Takemi in his keynote address “New Forms of Development Towards the End of the 21st Century Which Focus on the Dignity of the Individual”, presented at the International Symposium on Development, Tokyo, 24 June 1999, p. 2. The full text of the speech can be found at . Human Security Now: Protecting and Empowering People (New York: Commission on Human Security, 2003). Available on-line at . See for example, The Human Security Report 2005 (Oxford University Press, New York), available online at . See

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also, Lloyd Axworthy, “Canada and Human Security: The Need for Leadership”, International Journal LII, no. 2 (Spring 1997): 183–96 and Freedom From Fear: Canada’s Foreign Policy for Human Security (Ottawa: Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, 2000 and 2003). The fact that the Japanese and Canadian governments have been key proponents of the broader and narrower approaches respectively has produced some competing ideas and bilateral tension, especially on the issue of humanitarian intervention. There have also been some useful complementarities. The best comparative account is Akiko Fukushima’s “Human Security: Comparing Japanese and Canadian Governmental Thinking and Practice” (Vancouver: Canadian Consortium on Human Security, August 2004), available online at . Amitav Acharya, “Human Security in Asia Pacific: Puzzle, Panacea, or Peril?”, Unpublished paper, July 2000. Available online at . Takemi’s keynote address at the International Symposium on Development, Tokyo, 24 June 1999, p. 7. Information available online at . Song Yann-huei, “The Concepts of Human Security and Non-Traditional Security: A Comparison”, Paper presented at the Human Security Conference, Taipei, 16 December 2002. Amitav Acharya, “Human Security: East versus West”, International Journal (Summer 2001): 459. See the report by the Japan Center for International Exchange, Human Security in the United Nations (Tokyo: JCIE, October 2004). It is one of several publication by the JCIE based on five conferences it organized on human security between 1998 and 2004. Mely Caballero Anthony, “Human Security in the Asia-Pacific: Current Trends and Prospects”, in The Human Face of Security: Asia-Pacific Perspectives, edited by David Dickens (Canberra: Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University, 2002). See the APEC Leaders’ Declaration, “Bangkok Declaration on Partnership for the Future”, 21 October 2003, and the joint statement from the 16th APEC Ministerial meeting in Santiago, Chile, 19 November 2004. Both are available online at . Dialogue and Research Monitor: An Inventory and Analysis of Multilateral Meetings on Asia Pacific Security, 1994–2004. Available online at . Lee Chyungly, “Human Security: Implications for Taiwan’s International Roles” (Vancouver: Canadian Consortium on Human Security, July 2003). Available online at . Amitav Acharya, “Human Security: East versus West”, op. cit., pp. 444, 451. Rizal Sukma, “Human Security and Political Stability: Should There be a Tension?” in The Quest for Human Security: The Next Phase of ASEAN?, edited by Pranee Thiparat (Bangkok: Institute of Security and International Studies, 2001), p. 62. For example, “Non-Traditional Security Threats in Southeast Asia”, Policy Bulletin (The Stanley Foundation), Report from a conference, 16–18 October 2003, available at . For interchangeable use by officials see the July 2005 Kunming Declaration agreed to by the members of the Greater Mekong Sub-region

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group (China, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar). It declared that “emerging threats to human security [include] terrorism and cross-border crimes, especially drug smuggling and trafficking of human beings.” These are frequently cited by the same states as non-traditional security threats. For the text of the Kunming Declaration, see “Kunming Declaration: A Stronger GMS Partnership for Common Prosperity”, 4–5 July 2005, available online at . Pierre Lizee, “Human Security in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia”, Contemporary Southeast Asia 24, no. 3 (December 2002), p. 509. See P.H. Liotta, “Boomerang Effect: The Convergence of National and Human Security”, Security Dialogue 33, no. 4 (December 2002); and Chu Shulong, China and Human Security (Vancouver: Program on Canada-Asia Policy Studies, North Pacific Policy Paper no. 8, 2002), available online at . See the essays in Thiparat, ed., The Quest for Human Security, op. cit.

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The idea that in certain circumstances it is permissible under international law for a state or states to use military force to intervene in another state’s territory, in order to prevent a humanitarian disaster from taking place, even without the permission of the government of that state. While the idea has developed an extensive literature, it is strongly disputed by some governments. Legal scholars also differ over its scope and substance. According to Peter Malanczuk, “there are numerous and often conflicting definitions of ‘humanitarian intervention’, some of which appear to be mere de facto ‘working definitions’, and others which are meant to be normative in the sense that the definition itself purports to establish criteria of legality or illegality.”1 Legal scholar Wil Verwey attempts to find what he calls an “authentic definition” of humanitarian intervention as a legal concept, but concludes “one is immediately confronted with a major analytical obstacle: it soon appears from a comparative analysis of relevant instruments and literature that there may be few concepts in international law today which are as conceptually obscure and legally controversial as ‘humanitarian intervention’.”2 He attributes this to the lack of consensus on the legal meaning of both the terms intervention and humanitarian. 145

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Sean Murphy uses a working definition which assumes that humanitarian intervention “is the threat or use of force by a state, group of states, or international organization primarily for the purpose of protecting the nationals of the target state from widespread deprivations of internationally recognized human rights”.3 Baxter emphasizes that the force used must be “short term”.4 Verwey argues that to be considered as “humanitarian”, forcible action must be “for the sole purpose of preventing or putting a halt to serious violations of fundamental human rights, in particular threats to the life of persons, regardless of their nationality”. His stipulation that it be solely for preventing these violations is so strict that he does not think there have been any genuine examples so far.5 Other authors stress the importance of form: that any intervention should be multilateral and not unilateral. As Martha Finnemore notes, during the United Nations debates that followed Vietnam’s invasion of Cambodia in December 1978, no states spoke in favour of the existence of a right to unilateral humanitarian intervention, and several states that had previously supported humanitarian intervention arguments in the United Nations voted for the resolution condemning Vietnam.6 Since 1945, it has been possible to argue for humanitarian intervention based on the codification of human rights in the United Nations Charter. The Charter contains a number of principles which are difficult to reconcile. Article 2 stresses the basic principles of state sovereignty and non-intervention. Article 1, on the other hand, emphasizes the fundamental importance of human rights, a focus that is also supported by legal instruments such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and various international treaties. Articles 2(3) and 2(4) call on states to settle their disputes peacefully and also to refrain from the use or threat of use of force against the territorial integrity of any state. With humanitarian intervention, the central question is “how to reconcile the principle of territorial sovereignty of states, still envisaged in legal terms as a cornerstone of international relations, the principle of non-interference into the domestic affairs of states and the prohibition of the use of armed force, stipulated in the United Nations Charter, with the effective protection of human rights in extreme situations of their violation and with international peace and security.” 7 Under what circumstances does sovereignty give way to the need for the protection of human rights? 146

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During the Cold War, numerous cases of intervention were debated by international lawyers. The best-known cases include the British and Belgian intervention in Congo in 1964; India’s war with Pakistan over East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) in 1971; the Belgian intervention in Zaire in 1978; Tanzania’s invasion of Uganda in 1979 to overthrow the regime of Idi Amin; Vietnam’s invasion of Kampuchea in 1978; and the U.S. interventions in Grenada in 1983 and in Panama in 1989.8 In these instances, the interventions were not approved by the United Nations, and were generally unilateral. Tellingly, humanitarian intervention was often not invoked by the parties involved. With each intervention, the legitimacy of the operation depended significantly on perceptions of the intentions of the state carrying out the intervention. Was it acting to save lives, or simply to advance its own national interests? Legal opinion is strongly divided in all the above cases,9 but the potential for ambiguity and misuse led the noted international jurist Ian Brownlie to conclude in 1973 “that humanitarian intervention, on the basis of all available definitions, would be an instrument wide open to abuse.” It would be “a general licence to vigilantes and opportunists to resort to hegemonial intervention”.10 Since the end of the Cold War, humanitarian intervention has featured even more prominently on the international agenda, largely because as East-West tensions declined, it became possible for the United Nations Security Council to play a role in authorizing such interventions. Several scholars also claim that there has been a change or “evolution” in the notion of state sovereignty that has made some interventions more acceptable. Successive Secretaries-General of the United Nations have argued that sovereignty is becoming more narrowly construed. In 1991, Javier Perez de Cuellar wrote that “it is now increasingly felt that the principle of non-interference with the essential domestic jurisdiction of States cannot be regarded as a protective barrier behind which human rights could be massively or systematically violated with impunity.” Boutros Boutros-Ghali declared in his 1992 An Agenda for Peace that “the time of absolute and exclusive sovereignty … has passed; its theory was never matched by reality.” And Kofi Annan has written “the sovereignty of states can constitute an essential bulwark against intimidation or coercion, but it must not be allowed to obstruct effective action to address problems that transcend borders or to secure human dignity.”11 147

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Discussion about humanitarian intervention and the limits of sovereignty has revolved around several key cases, including the Persian Gulf War, the former Yugoslavia, Somalia and Kosovo. Even though there is growing agreement about some of the essential elements of humanitarian intervention, the notion has powerful critics. Chinese President Jiang Zemin and Russian President Boris Yeltsin staunchly opposed the concept, arguing it was simply a “pretext” designed to “destroy the sovereignty of independent states”.12 A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman has said China opposes “using humanitarian intervention as an excuse to interfere in the internal politics of a country. We oppose even more citing humanitarian intervention to use force against a country without first seeking the sanction of the U.N. Security Council.”13 In an interview with French newspaper Le Figaro, Jiang said that “unless a particular country asks the United Nations for help, no countries or international organizations have the right to intervene.”14 The Southern Summit of the Group of 77 developing nations has also condemned humanitarian intervention. A joint declaration said that humanitarian intervention lacked any basis in either the United Nations Charter or general principles of human rights, and insisted on the “clear need to maintain a difference between humanitarian assistance and other United Nations’ activities”.15 Yet Chinese responses in the past six years have been more fluid than often portrayed. There remain vocal proponents of a strict interpretation of the principles of sovereignty and noninterference, stressing the Five Principles of Peaceful Co-existence, emphasizing Article 3(4) of the UN Charter, preferring humanitarian assistance to humanitarian intervention, advocating strict neutrality in peacekeeping, and seeing ulterior motives in the practice of intervention. They echo deeply embedded views in China about past humiliations, fears of potential interventions into Taiwan, Tibet and Xinjiang, and a political philosophy that focuses on the nation rather than the individual and that separates human safety from what now is called human security.16 Some analysts frame the issue differently. Allen Carlson’s points to a “heterogeneity” of approaches and narratives in Chinese policy circles on intervention issues. Despite “deeply embedded misgivings”, a combination of rational calculation of interests, concern about image and reputation, and an embrace of new normative principles has produced a more diverse debate. He 148

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concludes that “many Chinese elites have now come to accept the general legitimacy of multilateral intervention to resolve particularly prominent humanitarian crises” and that “China has become a reluctant participant in the international trend toward questioning the sanctity of state sovereignty and expanding the international community’s right to intervene.”17 Tracing Chinese reactions to recent cases of multilateral interventions for protection purposes and China’s role in various peacekeeping missions, he explains the opposition to Kosovo and the acceptance of East Timor arguing that the internal debates were not so much about principles as about the looseness with which some in’the West referred to humanitarian crises, the selection of targets, and the specifics of implementation. The most important innovation in thinking about humanitarian intervention is found in the work of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) in its final report, The Responsibility to Protect (hereafter R2P) released in October 2001. 18 Against the background of contested humanitarian interventions (and non-interventions) in Somalia, Sierra Leone, Rwanda, Bosnia and East Timor, the ICISS responded to the request by Kofi Annan for the international community to forge a consensus on the principles and processes for using coercive action to protect people at risk. The report explicitly rejected the vocabulary of “humanitarian intervention” and “the right to intervene” and instead focussed on the needs of people requiring assistance by framing the issues of sovereignty and intervention in terms of the responsibility to protect. It identified a series of core principles that connected state sovereignty, obligations under the UN Charter, existing legal obligations under international law, and the developing practice of states, regional organizations and the Security Council. It extended the responsibility to protect to include the responsibility to prevent, to react and to rebuild when faced with human protection claims in states that are either unable or unwilling to discharge their responsibility. And it provided a precise definition of the just cause threshold as well as precautionary principles, right authority and operational principles. The report made a direct connection between the responsibility to protect and the broader conception of human security defined as “the security of people — their physical safety, their economic and social well being, respect for their dignity and worth as human beings, and the protection of human rights and 149

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fundamental freedoms.”19 Treating human security as “indivisible”, it argued that: issues of sovereignty and intervention are not just matters affecting the rights or prerogatives of states, but they deeply affect and involve individual human beings in fundamental ways. One of the virtues of expressing the key issue in this debate as “the responsibility to protect” is that it focuses attention where it should be most concentrated, on the human needs of those seeking protection or assistance…The fundamental components of human security — the security of people against threats to life, health, livelihood, personal safety and human dignity — can be put at risk by external aggression but also by factors within a country, including “security” forces. Being wedded still to too narrow a concept of “national security” may be one reason why many governments spend more to protect their citizens against undefined external military attack than to guard them against the omnipresent enemies of good health and other real threats to human security on a daily basis.20 The list of insecurities from which states should protect their citizens includes hunger, inadequate shelter, disease, crime, unemployment, social conflict and environmental hazard as well as rape as an instrument of war, ethnic cleansing, genocide, and citizens killed by their own security forces. The report moved from the broad conception of threats and “indivisibility” to a specific focus on two types of threat that might warrant outside military intervention: large-scale loss of life and ethnic cleansing. The concept of humanitarian intervention has had a mixed reception elsewhere in the Asia-Pacific.21 One of the founding norms of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is the idea of non-intervention in the internal affairs of its member states. Consequently, the idea of sending an intervention force into East Timor in September 1999 was initially opposed by some ASEAN member states. In discussions that took place at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders’ Meeting in Auckland, several states insisted that any force would first have to be invited in by the Indonesian authorities.22 Chinese officials emphasized the invitation in distinguishing the East Timor operation from NATO’s action in Kosovo.23 A certain degree of 150

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pragmatism is evident in some ASEAN states, however. Malaysian Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar said that he finds the principle of humanitarian intervention “disquietening”. He said that it was especially “worrisome” that the United Nations Secretary-General had called for humanitarian intervention during a session of General Assembly.24 He took a rather different position during the war in Kosovo, however, noting that while “Malaysia has repeatedly stressed the importance of adhering to the especially important principle of non-interference in internal affairs … we do make exceptions to the policy of non-interference in certain extreme situations. The bloody cruelty, genocide, and atrocities perpetrated by the Serbs against the people of Kosovo struck our conscience, and made Malaysia support NATO’s military action.”25 The regional reaction to the “Responsibility to Protect” also has been mixed. In the context of the UN, some Asian member states have stated support for the principles and recommendations of the report, though to date the Security Council has not been moved to endorse the report as a set of guidelines nor has the General Assembly passed even a declaratory resolution of support. Several Asian countries, including Myanmar, North Korea and India have encouraged the G-77 to reject the report on the grounds that it provides a pretext for developed countries to meddle in the domestic affairs of the developing world.26 On the other hand, China has signalled endorsement for the principles of the “Resposnibility to Protect”, albeit with a very precise definition of the threshold and authorization for intervention.27 None of the regional governmental institutions, including ASEAN, ASEAN+3, APEC, ARF or ASEM have made any comment on the report, reflecting the internal debate within these organizations and their formal, if softening, commitment to non-interference principles. Governmental institutions may not be ready to react but the underlying issues and principles have been a frequent topic at academic and Track-II policy discussions. R2P has been a featured subject at meetings including the Asia-Pacific Roundtable, and the ASEAN People’s Assembly. Most commentators read R2P as state enhancing rather than state threatening. After looking carefully at the just cause threshold and the precautionary principles, they conclude that the R2P framework actually makes military intervention less likely and provides safeguards for developing countries against unilateral intervention.28 Critics of R2P have made several arguments: that it is an insidious new form of interventionist doctrine that 151

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misunderstands and erodes the concept of sovereignty; that military intervention under any circumstances is not the best option; that it is too dependent on the Security Council as the preferred mechanism for action; that the threshold criteria are too narrow and too demanding such that they rule out action against a country like Myanmar where the level of killing is low on an annual basis but persistent; that it may give false hopes to those suffering death and injury that external forces will come to their rescue when this is in fact an unlikely prospect; that, in the end, R2P depends upon the powerful being willing to act and that this will only occur when it suits their specific national interests in ways that no guidelines or moral principles can affect, reducing a debate about humanitarian obligations to an exercise in power politics. Memories of the killing fields in Cambodia in the 1970s, East Timor in the late 1990s and recurring armed conflicts inside Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand and Indonesia indicate that intra-state conflict is still part of the regional situation, albeit on a substantially lower scale than twenty-five years earlier.29 While formal institutional responses and doctrinal principles have remained relatively unchanged, the normative framework appears to have shifted. Those supportive of the basic aspects of R2P are aware that the American-led invasion of Iraq has produced a backlash against even well intentioned and principled efforts to delineate the proper grounds for humanitarian intervention. Despite the fact that the Bush administration did not endorse the report and that Gareth Evans, the chair of the ICISS, adamantly denied that the Iraq case meets the conditions for intervention outlined in the report,30 it is seen by many as the slippery slope to legitimating great power intervention and doctrine of pre-emption. Notes 1

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Peter Malanczuk, Humanitarian Intervention and the Legitimacy of the Use of Force (Amsterdam: Het Spinhuis, 1993). Wil Verwey, “Humanitarian Intervention Under International Law”, Netherlands International Law Review, no. 31 (1985), p. 357. Murphy, Humanitarian Intervention, pp. 11–12. Cited in Ian Brownlie, “Thoughts on Kind-Hearted Gunmen”, in Humanitarian Intervention and the United Nations, edited by Richard Lillich (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1973), p. 139. Cited in Oliver Rambotham and Tom Woodhouse, Humanitarian Intervention in Contemporary Conflict (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1996), p. 8.

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Martha Finnemore, “Constructing Norms of Humanitarian Intervention”, in The Culture of National Security: Norms and Identity in World Politics, edited by Peter J. Katzenstein (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), p. 180. Malanczuk, Humanitarian Intervention, p. 1. For a summary of incidents of intervention during and after the Cold War on a case-by-case basis, see Murphy, Humanitarian Intervention, Chapters 4 and 5. A good summary of the arguments for and against intervention prior to the adoption of the United Nations Charter can be found in Malanczuk, Humanitarian Intervention, pp. 10–11. For an assessment of Grenada, see Scott Davidson, Grenada: A Study in Politics and the Limits of International Law (Aldershot: Avebury Press, 1987); on Panama and Grenada, see Max Hilaire, International Law and the United States Military Intervention in the Western Hemisphere (Hague: Kluwer Law International, 1997). For example, on the India–Pakistan conflict over Bangladesh, one of the more widely approved instances of intervention, compare Téson, Humanitarian Intervention, pp. 179–88, with Franck and Rodley, “After Bangladesh”, pp. 275– 305. Brownlie, “Kind-Hearted Gunmen”, pp. 147–48. Kofi A. Annan, “Peacekeeping, Military Intervention, and National Sovereignty in Internal Armed Conflict”, in Hard Choices: Moral Dilemmas in Humanitarian Intervention, edited by Jonathon Moore (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 1998), pp. 58–69. Conor O’Cleary, “Yeltsin and Jiang Reject West Stance on Human Rights”, Irish Times (Lexis-Nexis), 11 December 1999, p. 15. Mary Kwang, “Country’s Sovereignty First”, The Straits Times, 21 November 1999, pp. 38–39. “Jiang Slaps Intervention under the Pretense of Humanitarianism”, Xinhua News Agency, 25 October 1999. “G-77 Criticizes Humanitarian Intervention Rights”, Xinhua News Agency, 10 April 2000. International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, “Rapporteur’s Report on Beijing Roundtable Consultations”, 14 June 2001. Available online at ; and Mao Yuxi, “ ‘Human Intervention’ Dubious”, China Daily, 25 February 2002. Allen Carlson, Protecting Sovereignty, Accepting Intervention: The Dilemma of Chinese Foreign Relations in the 1990s (New York: National Committee on United States-China Relations, China Policy Series no. 18, September 2002), pp. 3, 32, 29. International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, The Responsibility to Protect, Ottawa, November 2001. The Report and the supplementary volume, Research, Bibliography and Background, are available online at and in HTML at . In addition to the English version, it is available in French, Spanish, Russian and Chinese. A Thai translation was completed in 2003 by scholars at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok. R2P, p. 15. Ibid. See Watanabe Koji, ed., Humanitarian Intervention: The Evolving Asian Debate (Tokyo: Japan Center for International Exchange, 2003).

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Allan Thompson, “APEC Meeting Divided over Peacekeepers”, Toronto Star, 9 September 1999; Seth Mydans, “Indonesia Invites a U.N. Force to Timor”, The New York Times, 13 September 1999, p. A1. See “Jiang Slaps Intervention”. “The Malaysian Human Rights Commission — Aims and Objectives”, Address by Datuk Seri Syed Hamid bin Syed Jaafar Albar, Minister for Foreign Affairs, Malaysia, at the Bar Council Auditorium, Kuala Lumpur, 28 October 1999. “Malaysia’s Foreign Policy”, Address by Datuk Seri Syed Hamid Albar, Minister for Foreign Affairs, Malaysia, at the Strategic Issues Forum (SIF) organized by the Asian Strategy and Leadership Institute (ASLI), 22 July 1999. A copy of the speech is available at the Malaysian Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ website at . See Manoranjan Mohanty, “Humanitarian Intervention in an Unequal World — A View from Below”, Paper presented at the International Seminar on Humanitarian Intervention, Beijing, 27–28 August 2002. Position Paper of the People’s Republic of China on the United Nations Reforms, Beijing, 7 June 2005. Available at , “Responsibility to Protect”. Ramesh Thakur, “Intervention Could Bring Safeguards in Asia”, The Daily Yomiuri, 3 January 2003. One of the remarkable changes in East Asia in the past twenty-five years has been the dramatic reduction in the number of armed conflicts and in the number of battle deaths and war-related deaths resulting from civil conflicts. According to a recent study, from 1946 until 1980, East Asia was the site of the three largest internal conflicts in the world (the Chinese civil war, the Korea War and the Vietnam War) with battle deaths of more than 4.5 million and warrelated deaths somewhere in the vicinity of two-and-a-half times that number. But since 1980, the number of battle deaths has been considerably less than 5,000 annually for the entire region. See the Human Security Report 2005 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005) 33. Gareth Evans, “Humanity Did Not Justify This War”, Financial Times, 14 May 2003.

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There is no single definition of what constitutes a middle power. Adam Chapnik argues that “for all its importance, [the term] ‘middle power’ is rarely defined and limited explanations are never specific.”1 According to a major work on the subject, there are at least four distinct approaches to defining a middle power.2 In practice, the term most commonly refers to a state on the basis of its position in an informal international hierarchy. In this view, middle powers occupy the “middle” point on one of several gauges of national power. These include size, geostrategic location, population, gross national product (GNP), military capability, and so on. While measuring precisely what is the “middle” and what is not can be highly problematic; the concept satisfies “the intuitive desire to differentiate between those states which clearly are not great powers but are not minor powers either”.3 A second definition is based on conceptual position. In this view, middle powers are just that — in the middle between major powers. This approach has two variants: one, with obvious Cold War baggage, suggests middle powers are in the middle, between ideologically polarized great powers. An alternative geographic definition argues that middle powers are states that are powerful within their own particular geographic region. A third definition is a normative one. This asserts that middle powers are “potentially 155

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wiser or more virtuous” than either great powers or small states. Middle powers are viewed as somehow more trustworthy members of the international community because they can exert diplomatic influence without resorting to the use of force. Recognizing the limitations of all these approaches, an alternative behavioural formulation was put forward by Andrew Cooper, Richard Higgott, and Kim Nossal in their work, Relocating Middle Powers.4 Rather than focus on the traditional criteria, they identify middle powers on the basis of the diplomatic behaviour they display in common. They focus on the “technical and entrepreneurial capacities” of states, in particular looking at their ability to provide “complementary or alternative issue-oriented sources of leadership and enhanced coalition-building in issuespecific contexts.”5 Former Australian Foreign Minister Gareth Evans described this kind of behaviour as “niche diplomacy”6 and it is often associated with the claim that a particular state “punches above its weight”.7 The definition draws on what John Holmes called “middlepowermanship” — the notion that middle powers prefer multilateral solutions, tend to compromise in international disputes, and embrace notions of “good international citizenship” to guide their foreign relations.8 Chapnik has argued that, at least as far as Canada is concerned, this approach is a “myth” which conceals “a tradition of Canadian rhetoric crafted to justify its disproportionate influence in international affairs”.9 He traces the origins of Canada’s interest in the term middle power back to wartime correspondence between Hume Wrong and Norman Robertson. According to Chapnik, Wrong advanced the notion of the middle power in an attempt to separate Canada from the other non-great powers. The principle helped elevate Canada’s status during World War II, and the Minister for Defence Brooke Claxton sought to extend it in the post-war world. Chapnik cites Dennis Stairs, who argues, “what the Middle Powers held in common was the view that they ought to have more influence in the United Nations than the very small powers, while recognizing (with various degrees of resignation) that they could not reasonably hope to have as much influence as the great powers.”10 Robert Cox has offered a historical analysis to go with this behavioural definition. Using a Gramscian understanding of hegemony, Cox claims the role of middle powers is to play a supportive part in a given hegemonic order. He argues that such powers are not new — examples can be seen in seventeenth 156

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century Netherlands or the fourteenth century Catalan middle class. Both “had a strong interest in a stable and tranquil environment as a condition for the pursuit of goals inherent in their civil societies”.11 Cox contends in modern times the middlepower role has become increasingly linked to the development of international organization. He says that while middle powers are likely to be in the middle rank of material capabilities, such military and economic indicators are not an adequate predictor of a disposition to play it. He concludes: An ability to stand a certain distance from direct involvement in major conflicts, a sufficient degree of autonomy in relation to major powers, a commitment to orderliness and security in interstate relations and to the facilitation of orderly change in the world system are the critical elements for the fulfillment of the middle-power role. With apologies to Pirandello, we can say that the middle power is a role in search of an actor.12 In the Asia-Pacific region, typical examples of middle powers include Australia, Canada, South Korea, and collectively, the states forming the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).13 In addition to Australia, Paul Dibb identifies “the Koreas, Taiwan, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, and Pakistan” as middle powers.14 According to Dibb, “one of the defining characteristics of a middle (or medium) power … is that it will seek to have a credible minimum of defence autonomy or self-reliance.”15 While Japan is usually seen as a potential great power, some Japanese academics have argued that Japan should be considered, and aspire, to a middle power role. Yoshihide Soeya traces Japan’s Middle power diplomacy back to the era of Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida and then Prime Minister Nakasone’s “non-nuclear middle power” approach.16 He says that as a middle power Japan’s approach to “regional security, would be based on the U.S.-Japan security alliance, but also place emphasis on playing a leading role in multilateral cooperative diplomacy”. This kind of diplomacy would help Tokyo, because “[w]hen Japan is able to present a clear picture of itself and its diplomacy along these lines, it will become more independent from the United States.” Soeya argues that it would also dispel fears about Japanese ambitions in Northeast Asia.17 157

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MIDDLE POWER

While Australian officials frequently invoked the term middle power in the 1990s, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer has backed away from the term, perhaps seeing it as having a pejorative connotation. Australia, in his view, is not “a middling nation, we are a considerable power”.18 Notes 1

2

3 4 5 6

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8 9 10

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12 13

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17 18

Adam Chapnik, “The Canadian Middle Power Myth”, International Journal 55, no. 2 (Spring 2000): 188–206. Andrew F. Cooper, Richard A. Higgott, and Kim Richard Nossal, Relocating Middle Powers: Australia and Canada in a Changing World Order (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1993), p. 17. Ibid. Cooper, Higgott and Nossal, Relocating Middle Powers, pp. 19–32. Ibid., p. 7. Pauline Kerr and Andrew Mack, “The Future of Asia-Pacific Security Studies in Australia”, in Studying Asia Pacific Security: The Future of Research, Training and Dialogue Activities, edited by Paul M. Evans (Toronto: University of TorontoYork University Joint Centre for Asia Pacific Studies, 1994), p. 37; for another discussion of this, see Evan H. Potter, “Niche Diplomacy and Canadian Foreign Policy”, International Journal LII (Winter 1996–97): pp. 25–38. See for example, Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), Punching above Our Weight? Australia as a Middle Power, Strategic Insight no. 18, Canberra, August 2005. Ibid., p. 19. Chapnik, “The Canadian Middle Power Myth”, p. 188. Dennis Stairs, “Of Medium Powers and Middling Roles”, in Statecraft and Security: The Cold War and Beyond, edited by Ken Booth (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), p. 272. Robert W. Cox, “Middlepowermanship, Japan, and Future World Order”, International Journal XLIV (Autumn 1989): 823–62. Ibid., p. 827. See, for examples, John McKay, “Australia as an Asian Middle Power: The Search for a New Role”, Korean Journal of International Studies 27, pp. 1, 1–28; John McKay, “Australia, Korea and APEC: Prospects for Middle Power Initiatives”, Journal of Asia-Pacific Studies 5, pp. 433–64. Paul Dibb, Towards A New Balance of Power in Asia, Adelphi Paper no. 295 (London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1995), p. 74, note 6. While he refers here to “the Koreas” as a middle power; elsewhere in the volume he describes South Korea alone as an “important middle power”, p. 72. Ibid., p. 58. Yohihide Soeya, “Diplomacy Should Go Beyond Alliance with the US”, The Asahi Shimbun, 8 June 2003, reprinted in . Also in the Asahi Shimbun Asia Network 2001, . Ibid. Alexander Downer, “This ‘Little Nation’ Packs a Mighty Wallop”, The Australian, 26 November 2003.

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Definitions fall into two different categories. In the first, and most common diplomatic usage, multilateralism refers to “the practice of coordinating national policies in groups of three or more states through ad hoc arrangements or by means of institutions”.1 It is a nominal, or quantitative description referring simply to cooperation among a group of (more than two) actors. Multilateral actions or institutions in this sense, can be clearly contrasted with unilateral, or bilateral, actions. In Keohane’s view, multilateral institutions are simply “multilateral arrangements with persistent sets of rules”.2 John Ruggie takes issue with this minimalist, nominal definition. He argues that multilateralism is a “generic institutional form” and says that the conventional definition does not tell what makes these institutions multilateral. Ruggie argues that multilateralism is not simply a question of numbers: there have been plenty of arrangements in history involving three or more states that have been, in effect, systemic forms of bilateralism.3 Therefore, he concludes, there is an essential qualitative dimension which distinguishes multilateralism from these kind of arrangements or international organizations.4 Ruggie argues multilateral relationships involve three or more states coming together to tackle a specific issue or set of issues on 159

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the basis of specific generalized principles of conduct.5 These principles specify what constitutes “appropriate conduct for a class of actions” irrespective of the particular interests of the participants or the circumstances that may exist.6 He argues there are several clearly identifiable qualities that constitute multilateralism. These principles are indivisibility, non-discrimination, and diffuse reciprocity. For example, “it is GATT [General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs] members’ adherence to the MFN [most-favourednation] norm [of reciprocated non-discrimination] which makes the system of trade an indivisible whole, not some attribute of trade itself.”7 All members agree to treat other members in a similar manner. Analogously, for a collective security arrangement to be multilateral, all its member states are required to respond to aggression wherever and whenever it occurs — not simply when it suits their interests. Ruggie also argues that successful multilateralism must also generate expectations of what Keohane calls “diffuse reciprocity” among members.8 This means that members of a multilateral arrangement can expect to receive roughly the same amount of benefit in aggregate over a period of time. In contrast, bilateral relations require a “specific reciprocity”, or specific quid pro quos between parties.9 Martha Finnemore offers a similar, simpler formulation, stating that, “contemporary multilateralism implies a relationship among partners that is based on rules rather than simple power. Those rules, norms and principles apply regardless of power capabilities, individual country interests, or convenience of circumstances.”10 She says multilateralism requires self-restraint by great powers. This is not out of sense of altruism, but is driven by self-interest as great powers usually write the rules in multilateral arrangements. “This combination of utility and legitimacy has contributed to multilateralism’s rapid spread over the past 50 years.”11 It is also possible to distinguish between different variants of multilateralism. 12 Brian Job argues that the qualities of multilateralism can be arrayed along two dimensions: the first, referring to the nature of commitment undertaken by and for an arrangement’s members, can be characterized as “deep” or “shallow” multilateralism.13 Deeply committed states would promise to go to war if one of their fellow members was attacked or threatened. Shallower commitments might involve an undertaking of aid or consultation, or a pledge to remain neutral. The second dimension, referring to the number of members, can be characterized as “narrow” or “broad”. A narrowly conceived 160

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multilateral arrangement would involve “few states relative to the overall number of states within the region or system with mutual security interests”. Conversely, one that was broadly conceived “would be inclusive of its potential regional or systemic membership”.14 Until comparatively recently, the Asia-Pacific had little experience with multilateralism and few multilateral institutions, particularly when compared with Europe. Before World War II, the Washington Naval Treaties attempted to manage security in the region on a multilateral basis, but with little success. During the Cold War, the great powers in the region generally preferred to deal with political and security issues through bilateral arrangements. One exception to this rule — the alliance known as Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) — was a failure. While it was nominally a multilateral alliance (that is, it had more than two members), in Ruggie’s terms it was not multilateral as it was not based on the assumption that the security of members was indivisible. First, it lacked the “automatic response” provision enshrined in Article V of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which made an attack on any of NATO’s members an attack on all the other members, and which consequently required an automatic response. Article IV of the Manila Pact merely describes such an attack as a threat to peace and safety. Second, U.S. obligations differed from those of other signatories in an additional way. The United States only had an obligation to aid its allies in the event of Communist aggression against them, not in all cases of aggression. Third, SEATO was also not multilateral in that there was no unified command and none of the joint planning arrangements that could be found in NATO.15 The only governmental multilateral institution to thrive in the Asia-Pacific during the Cold War period was the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).16 At the non-governmental level, the Pacific Economic Cooperation Council (PECC) and the Pacific Basin Economic Council (PBEC) were the most successful region-wide economic institutions.17 Over the past fifteen years, however, there has been a significant change in the region’s institutional architecture. In addition to ASEAN, the Asia-Pacific now boasts a significant number of governmental and nongovernmental multilateral fora, including the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), ASEAN Plus Three, the East Asia Summit process, the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) and the Asian Cooperation Dialogue (ACD),18 the Council 161

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for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific (CSCAP), and the Council for Asia-Europe Cooperation (CAEC). According to the annual regional survey conducted by Dialogue and Research Monitor, in 2005 there were more than 130 multilateral meetings related to Asia-Pacific security and community-building issues at the Track One level, and more than 215 at Track Two.19 There has been considerable debate about the factors that allow for the creation of multilateral institutions. Some theorists argue that a powerful hegemonic leader is needed in order to set down the rules of the international system and to allow institutions to develop.20 Others argue that multilateral institutions are more likely to form when a hegemon is in decline — when the shrinking gap in power between states changes the incentives for cooperation.21 The vastly different institutional structures of postwar Europe and post-war Asia would seem to suggest that the mere existence of a hegemon is not sufficient for the creation of multilateral institutions. Similarly, explanations based on hegemonic decline cannot explain why multilateralism in the AsiaPacific did not take off until 1989, when decline theorists had identified a diminution in America’s relative power since the mid1960s. The inadequacy of these approaches has led some scholars to speculate that cultural or ideational factors are more important than the distribution of power in determining the creation of multilateral institutions.22 For example, Ruggie argues that it is not hegemony itself that matters, but whose hegemony. He links the spread of multilateralism after World War II to a set of ideas which he says have their roots in American political history.23 Notes 1

2 3

4

5 6 7

Robert Keohane, “Multilateralism: An Agenda for Research”, International Journal XLV (Autumn 1990): 731–64, 731. Ibid. John Gerard Ruggie, “Multilateralism: The Anatomy of an Institution”, International Organization 46, no. 3 (Summer 1992): 565–66. He gives as examples the trading system established by Hjalmar Schacht, which regulated trade between Nazi Germany and states in East Central Europe, the Balkans and Latin America, and the League of the Three Emperors. William Diebold describes this as the difference between “formal” and “substantive” multilateralism, see William Diebold, Jr., “The History and the Issues”, in Bilateralism, Multilateralism and Canada in U.S. Trade Policy, edited by William Diebold, Jr. (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Ballinger, 1988). Ruggie, “Multilateralism”, p. 567. Ibid., p. 571. Ibid.

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Robert Keohane, “Reciprocity in International Relations”, International Organization 40, no. 1 (Winter 1986): 1–274. Ruggie, “Multilateralism”, p. 572. Martha Finnemore, “Fights about Rules: The Role of Efficacy and Power in Changing Multilateralism”, Review of International Studies 31 (2005) 187–206, 195–96. Finnemore, p. 196. Brian L. Job, “Matters of Multilateralism: Implications for Regional Conflict Mechanisms”, in Regional Orders: Building Security in a New World, by David A. Lake and Patrick M. Morgan (Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997), p. 169. Ibid. Ibid. George Modelski, “SEATO: Its Functions and Organizations”, in SEATO: Six Studies, edited by Modelski (Melbourne: F. W. Cheshire, 1962). Amitav Acharya, “Ideas, Identity, and Institution-Building: From the ASEAN Way to the Asia-Pacific Way?” The Pacific Review 10, no. 3 (1997): 323. For a discussion of the history of the PECC and PBEC, see Lawrence T. Woods, Asia-Pacific Diplomacy: Nongovernmental Organizations and International Relations (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1993), pp. 66–125. The Asia Cooperation Dialogue (ACD) was created in June 2002 in Cha-Am, Thailand. It describes itself as “a continent-wide forum” that aims to “constitute the missing link in Asia by incorporating every Asian country and building an Asian Community without duplicating other organizations or creating a bloc against others”. Its “core values” are informality and non-institutionalization, whilst “focusing on positive thinking”. See for more information. Current members are Bahrain, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Iran, Japan, Kazakhstan, the Republic of Korea, Kuwait, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Mongolia, Myanmar, Oman, Pakistan, Philippines, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan, Thailand, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan and Vietnam. This almost certainly under-estimates the number of official meetings. ASEAN alone is understood to have several hundred meetings annually, although many of these are not at a senior level. For the full list, see . See, for example, Charles P. Kindleberger, The World in Depression 1929–39 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973). Donald Crone, “Does Hegemony Matter? The Reorganization of the Pacific Political Economy”, World Politics 45, no. 4 (July 1993): 501–25. Acharya, “Ideas, Identity and Institution-Building”. John Gerard Ruggie, “The Past as Prologue? Interests, Identity, and American Foreign Policy”, International Security 21, no. 4 (Spring 1997): 89–125.

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MUTUAL SECURITY

Its origins lie in the Cold War confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union. In the late 1980s, scholars and officials from both superpowers came together to form several working groups on the topic and in 1990, they published a joint study entitled Mutual Security: A New Approach to Soviet-American Relations.1 As its name suggests, mutual security shares much with the concept of common security first set out by the 1982 Palme Commission. According to Richard Smoke, for much of the 1980s the terms mutual security and common security were used synonymously.2 There is also some similarity to other concepts of security. Smoke and Viktor Kremenyuk add, “the mutual security approach could also be called a ‘cooperative security’ approach.”3 They contrast it with competitive, unilateral, or zero-sum approaches to security. According to Smoke and Kremenyuk, mutual security is an approach particularly relevant for parties that are, or might be, in conflict with one another. These groups can be states, or alliances made up of several states, such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) or the Warsaw Pact. Mutual security “calls for each of [the parties] to seek to gain security by seeking more

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security for both of them”.4 Mutual security assumes that both sides to a conflict can take actions that make them feel more secure within the same time period. These actions include the use of defence strategies, and trust-building, arms reduction, and verification policies. Within the broad framework set out above, Smoke discusses three kinds of mutual security. The first is technical mutual security. This minimalist approach to mutual security acknowledges the inter-relationship between the security of one party and that of another. It endorses a moderate range of confidence- and securitybuilding measures to try and prevent crises from arising. It focuses its efforts on preventing the danger of “inadvertent escalation” between opponents — the idea that a developing crisis will escalate to levels neither side wants. Specific policies given by Smoke include the use of the “hotline” between Washington and Moscow, and the promotion of security dialogue. Technical mutual security advocates, however, do not believe that more far-reaching measures are realistic or practicable. They believe that arms racing and political competition is inherently linked to the nature of the profound differences between the opponents.5 The second concept of mutual security, the “threat-reduction” conception, argues that much more must be done than simply removing the risk of inadvertent escalation. Its advocates argue that steps must be taken to reduce, in both degree and kind, the various threats between opponents. They suggest that the superpowers could “defuse (and perhaps disengage from)” potential crisis areas such as “Europe, the Persian Gulf, and the Korean Peninsula”. They support deeper cuts in nuclear weapons than those called for under the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) agreement as well as “vigorous” negotiations on the reduction of conventional forces in Europe.6 The third approach is the “supportive” conception of mutual security. In this conception, the security of one side is diminished and perhaps endangered by a wide range of dangers to the other side. Thus, for example, if one side were threatened with economic collapse, societal breakdown, or ongoing terrorism, such dangers could not help but diminish the other side’s security as well. To protect its own security, the latter, therefore, has an interest in forestalling the emergence of such dangers. At the time the book was published, supporters of this third conception were calling for economic cooperation between the West and the Soviet Union

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in order to prevent the collapse of perestroika. They also favour exchanges of scientists, artists, and other groups and advocate East-West cooperation in order to cope with environmental and ecological dangers facing both sides.7 In the Asia-Pacific region, there has been an increase in the use of the term mutual security. For example, according to Chinese officials the founding document for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) the 1996 Shanghai Agreement, signed between China, Russia, the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, and Kazakhstan is based on the concept of mutual security. This agreement focuses on force reduction and building confidence in the border area between these states.8 According to one Chinese scholar, mutual security begins with the recognition that security is a right: “all countries involved are on an equal footing and enjoy the same rights to the maintenance of their respective national security.”9 Second, mutual security recognizes that security is also interdependent and demands that no state pursue its national security at the expense of another state’s security, “nor should it keep or seek unilateral military superiority beyond its reasonable needs.” Third, mutual security calls for the use of unilateral and bilateral confidencebuilding measures (CBMs), or a combination of the two. In this respect, the country in the “superior” position bears a greater obligation to reassure its neighbours. China’s preference for bilateral CBMs was reinforced in a paper to the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) Inter-sessional Support Group (ISG) on CBMs held in Brunei in November 1997, where mutual security was described under the heading of “related spirit and principles.”10 In many respects the Chinese interpretation of mutual security resembles common security. The formal requirements for force reductions and confidence-building along the border area set out in the Shanghai Agreement bear a striking resemblance to proposals for non-threatening and nonprovocative defence mooted by the Palme Commission for Cold War Europe, as well as some of the specific initiatives pursued under the Helsinki, Stockholm, and Vienna (Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe or OSCE) confidencebuilding regimes. Some American writers have recently tried to connect the idea of mutual security to U.S. and Japanese treatment of Taiwan and to closer cooperation or even an alliance among democracies in the Asia-Pacific region.11

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MUTUAL SECURITY

Notes 1

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4 5 6 7 8

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Richard Smoke and Andrei Kortunov, Mutual Security: A New Approach to Soviet-American Relations (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1990). Richard Smoke, “A Theory of Mutual Security”, in ibid., p. 59. Viktor Kremenyuk and Richard Smoke, “Joint Introduction to Mutual Security”, in Mutual Security, by Smoke and Kortunov, p. 6. Smoke and Kortunov, Mutual Security. Ibid., pp. 78–79. Ibid., pp. 79–81. Ibid., p. 82. “Agreement between the Russian Federation, the Republic of Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, the Republic of Tajikistan, and the People’s Republic of China on Confidence Building in the Military Field in the Border Area”, a translation of which is reproduced in “The ASEAN Regional Forum: ConfidenceBuilding”, a background paper circulated by the Canadian Government at the March 1997 ARF ISG on CBMs in Beijing. This definition is based on notes given to the author by a member of the Chinese delegation to the inaugural Canada-China Seminar (CANCHIS) held in Toronto in January 1996. Keynote Statement, “Chinese Paper at the ARF-ISG-CBMs in Brunei”, mimeographed, 3–5 November 1997, pp. 3–4. Ellen Bork, “Asia Awaits America’s Vision for Cooperation, Financial Times, 29 July 2005.

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NEW SECURITY APPROACH

Also known as new security concept, the term is the product of an evolving process of thinking about security concepts in China.1 The essence of the concept is the idea that security is indivisible and that states must work cooperatively to reduce threats. Specifically, it stresses the need to resolve territorial and border disputes peacefully, to reform international economic and financial institutions to promote common prosperity, cooperate against nontraditional security threats and “conduct effective disarmament and arms control …in line with the principle of justice, comprehensiveness, rationality and balance”.2 In contrast to China’s traditional preference for bilateral ties, when the the new security concept was unveiled in the late 1990s, it suggested a “recently acquired enthusiasm for multilateralism in Asia”.3 Prior to January 1997, Chinese officials, academics, and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) representatives used the nomenclature of “mutual security” to describe China’s preferred approach to regional security cooperation, offering the 1996 Shanghai Agreement as an example of this concept in practice.4 Mutual security (see the relevant entry) as it was used then, incorporated many of the same ideas that now appear in the new security approach. But at a meeting with American academics in Beijing in March 1997, PLA representatives referred to the need 169

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for “an entirely new concept of security”. According to Ronald Montaperto and Hans Binnendijk, the new concept they outlined was based on three overlapping principles of common, cooperative, and comprehensive security. It rejected bilateral military alliances and emphasized the need for the gradual building of regional consensus through dialogue.5 The new concept received the blessing of senior military and political figures and was publicized by Chinese officials in speeches in 1997 and 1998. In December 1997 Qian Qichen explained the concept to an ASEAN meeting in Kuala Lumpur and Defence Minister Chi Haotian also used the term in an address to the Japanese National Institute for Defence Studies in February 1998.6 He repeated it in a speech in Singapore in November 1998, saying the “correct way to safeguard security is to enhance trust through dialogues, to seek through cooperation, to respect sovereignty mutually and solve disputes peacefully so that common development could be pursued.”7 In a speech at the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva on 26 March 1999, President Jiang Zemin described the central aspects of the new security concept as mutual trust, mutual benefit, equality and co-operation. Later the same year the Chinese envoy to the United Nations, Shen Guofang, told the Fifty-fourth United Nations General Assembly that China opposed the “old security concept based on military alliances and arms build up.” He linked the new security concept to China’s opposition to the development of missile defences and the use of military action for “humanitarian interventions”.8 Some sceptics claim that “nothing in the concept seemed very new or extraordinary” arguing it is “merely a repackaging of China’s time-honoured ‘Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence’.”9 In a close examination of the concept, however, Wu Baiyi argues that the new security concept contains two major breaks with past Chinese thinking. First, it stresses a wider range of interests. “For the first time, economic security is treated as equally important as those of ‘high politics’.” Second,’the new security concept “focuses on the interactiveness of external and internal security challenges. On the one hand, the concept reflects China’s increased awareness of risks in accommodating the world’s regimes. On the other hand, as its economy and society rapidly open up, the boundaries of Chinese national interests are increasingly blurred.”10 Russ Howard agrees. While he acknowledges the influence of the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, he says “what is new…is the leadership’s recognition that the economic foundation of China’s 170

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security policy is not just important — it is essential for the survival of the Party and possibly the state.”11 The influence of the new security concept on Chinese diplomacy can be seen in Beijing’s decision to sign border agreements with Russia and its Central Asian neighbours, its willingness to take part in multiparty discussions over the South China Sea and China’s growing involvement in multilateral arrangements like ARF, NEACD and CSCAP.12 In addition, Chinese military figures have attempted to give the concept a military dimension. An article in the PLA’s daily Jiefangjun Bao argued that in addition to “defending a state’s territorial sovereignty” the new security approach would require the military to take part in peacekeeping activities; security dialogues; confidence-building measures; security consultations and “security agreements based on mutual benefit”. It noted that military cooperation should be based on the principle that it is “not aimed at any third party”.13 Other officials point to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the ASEAN Regional Forum as examples of the new security concept in practice.14 According to Michael Yahuda, the development of the new security concept is part of a reassurance strategy by Beijing. He says it showed awareness on the part of the Chinese leadership of the need to allay concerns about the PRC’s assertiveness as evinced over the Mischief Reef in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait in 1995–96. Yahuda argues that it can also be seen as a response to three broad developments: “first the continued emphasis on stability and economic development at home; second, the emergence of a less hostile international environment that was more welcoming to China’s integration in the international economy; and third, the experience of multilateral consultative security arrangements in both continental and maritime Asia.”15 Finkelstein agrees that the concept is part of a “concerted effort to present a kinder, gentler face within the region” but also notes that it is symbolic of “China’s desire to be viewed as a serious world player”. He believes the concept helps provide a theoretical framework for thinking about how Beijing’s preferred “multipolar world” might be brought about.16 Notes 1

For a discussion of the evolution of Chinese concepts of security from 1949 to 1991, see Wu Baiyi, “The Chinese Security Concept and its Historical Evolution”, Paper prepared for the Stanley Foundation conference ‘New Generation, New Voices: Debating China’s International Future’, San Francisco, 13–14 August

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NEW SECURITY APPROACH 2

3

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1999, pp. 1–3. All the conference papers are available online at . Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs “China’s Position Paper on the New Security Concept”, 31 July 2002, available online at . David Finkelstein and Michael McDevitt, “Competition and Consensus: China’s ‘New Concept of Security’ and the United States Security Strategy for the East Asia-Pacific Region”, PacNet Newsletter, 8 January 1999 available online at . The 1996 Shanghai Agreement created the Shanghai Five grouping, the predecessor to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. For more information on the SCO, see the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s paper “Shanghai Cooperation Organization”, available online at . Ronald N. Montaperto and Hans Binnendijk, “PLA Views on Asia Pacific Security in the 21st Century”, Strategic Forum no. 114, National Defense University, June 1998. A summary of the meetings is also available online at . “Chi Haotian Introduces ‘New Security Concept’ ”, FBIS Daily Report, FBISCHI-98-035, 4 February 1998. See also David M. Finkelstein, “China’s ‘New Security Concept’ ”, available online at . “Chinese Defence Minister in Singapore Calls for New Security Concept”, Xinhua News Agency, 26 November 1998. “U.N. Envoy Calls for New Global Security Concept”, Xinhua News Agency, 14 October 1999. Finkelstein, “China’s ‘New Security Concept’ ”, op. cit., p. 8. Wu Baiyi, “The Chinese Security Concept and its Historical Evolution”, op. cit. Russ Howard, “Chinese Security Strategy and its Historical Evolution: A Discussion of Wu Baiyi’s Paper”, Paper prepared for the Stanley Foundation conference ‘New Generation, New Voices: Debating China’s International Future’, San Francisco, 13–14 August 1999, pp. 1–3. Available online at . Wu Baiyi, “The Chinese Security Concept”, op. cit. Li Qinggong and Wei Wei, “The World Needs a New Security Concept”, Jiefangjun Bao, 24 December 1997, cited in David M. Finkelstein, “China’s ‘new security concept’ ”, available online at . “China’s Position Paper”, op. cit. For articles linking the new security concept to the SCO, see Xu Tao, “Promoting the ‘Shanghai Five’ spirit for regional cooperation”, Contemporary International Relations 11, no. 5 (May 2001) 14–24; and Xia Yishan, “The Shanghai Cooperation Organization as I see it”, Foreign Affairs Journal, no. 61 (December 2001): 8–13. Michael Yahuda, “Chinese Dilemmas in Regional Security Architecture”, The Pacific Review 16, no. 3 (2003): 189–206, 190. Finkelstein, op. cit., pp. 7–8.

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NON-TRADITIONAL SECURITY

Similar to the concepts of comprehensive security, cooperative security and human security, non-traditional security emphasizes threats to security of states and individuals that extend beyond ”traditional” military threats to the territorial integrity of the state. As with the broader concept of human security, there is a very long list of what these threats to security can be. In the mid-1990s, several writers in Europe and North America used the term non-traditional security in an effort to widen the scope of security studies and alert governments and publics to new and emerging threats to states and peoples. The fact that the very term designates what something is not rather than what it is has posed special analytical problems for academics trying to employ it. In Asia, “non-traditional security” has been used by ASEAN and several regional governments. The state most active in developing and promoting it has been China. China’s “new security concept” [see the relevant entry] did not use the phrase in its formulation in 1997 and 1998 but did lay the foundation for its explicit use later in the context of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.1 In May 2002, China issued a position paper on cooperation in the field of Non-Traditional Security, identifying seven areas that deserved attention and emphasizing prevention 173

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and respect for sovereignty and non-interference and the principles of mutual trust, mutual benefit, equality and coordination. According to Zhang Yunling, “the concept of ‘security’ is traditionally relevant only to states and the security threats to states are mostly external and military in nature.” In contrast, “non-traditional security covers broader areas, ranging from the political, economic and social to the ecological, environmental and cultural issues.” In addition, “while traditional security threats come from [outside] the state, non-traditional security comes from both within and [outside] the state (mostly from within).”2 In 2003, Lu Zhouwei’s edited volume On Non-Traditional Security, described 17 different phenomena that could be regarded as non-traditional security issues.3 A conference on “NonTraditional Security and China” organized by the journal World Economics and Politics in December 2003 came up with nearly thirty different issues. According to Wang Yizhou, these include “the shortage of water resources, fishery conflicts, drug and human trafficking, extinction of species, relief difficulties, interruption of optical fibre cable, identity and language standardization loss.” He notes that “it seems that almost all issues can be included in the big basket of non-traditional security once they are, or are regarded as, serious enough.”4 Not surprisingly, Chinese officials and academics “find it very difficult to prioritise in solving or easing NTS threats given so many different needs and the relatively limited resources that are readily available.”5 Non-Traditional Security has also been embraced by some regional organisations. At the 8th ASEAN Summit and the 6th ASEAN+3 Summit in Phnom Penh, ASEAN and China signed a joint declaration on “Cooperation in the Field of Non-Traditional Security Issues.” It outlined the priority areas of trafficking in illegal drugs, people smuggling including trafficking in women and children, sea piracy, terrorism, arms smuggling, moneylaundering, international economic crime and cyber crime. The means it laid out were to deepen existing bilateral and multilateral mechanisms to strengthen information exchange, personnel exchange and capacity building, practical cooperation and joint research. And, in an explicit effort to underscore traditional concepts of sovereignty and non-interference, the declaration noted that these new activities “should be conducted on the basis of observing the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence…the Charter of the United Nations and the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in

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Southeast Asia.”6 In March 2005, the ARF held a seminar on “enhancing cooperation in the field of non-traditional security issues”. Participants agreed that these included terrorism, “illicit drugs, infectious diseases, HIV/AIDS, people smuggling and human trafficking, corruption, money laundering, cyber crime, piracy, environmental degradation and illegal logging”. The meeting concluded that non-traditional threats “were more diversified and had both intrastate and interstate implications and propagated more rapidly than traditional ones and their effects were increasingly complex”. In order to address these threats, ARF members recommended a range of actions, including strengthening intelligence exchanges among members, the publication of an ARF annual Non-Traditional Security Outlook, and “early warning mechanisms particularly in the area of major natural disasters and infectious diseases”.7 There is continuing debate about the analytical and political utility of connecting the ideas of non-traditional and human security. While there is considerable overlap, especially in the broader conceptions of human security, the two ideas differ in several respects. After carefully analysing the Japanese and Canadian approaches to human security and comparing them to Chinese positions on non-traditional security, a Taiwanese scholar concludes that they differ in four ways. First, the non-traditional security approach concentrates exclusively on the state, government and society at large (as opposed to the individual and sub-national groups). According to Ralf Emmers, “the state has usually been described as the only actor capable of responding effectively to non-traditional security issues.”8 Second, it aims to protect against indirect violence, especially economic and criminal activities, and makes no mention of the possibility of states being a threat to their own citizens. Third, in responding to threats “non-traditional security” emphasizes state instruments and cooperative action with neighbouring governments. There is no mention of non-state actors or civil society as actors in building security. Fourth, it emphasizes principles of sovereignty and noninterference and avoids human rights, humanitarian intervention and democracy.9 In some formulations this amounts to addressing new issues by old means. In academic circles, the concept has spawned considerable interest, generating more activity within Asia than the concepts of either cooperative or human security. Of the approximately sixty

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papers completed between 1999 and 2002 by authors in Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia and South Asia in the first phase of a Ford Foundation research and conference project on non-traditional and human security, only seven dealt directly with issues of violence and intervention. And only ten paid attention to nonstate actors as policy players and not just the targets of policy.10 Academics seem increasingly comfortable looking at the connection between at least the broader definition of human security and a generic category of non-traditional security concerns. Scholars like Tsueno Akaha argue that even in Northeast Asia the idea of non-traditional security can effectively open up new areas for research and policy advocacy. The distinction between traditional and non-traditional security remains a recognized and significant divide in the security culture of the region. There are a growing number of non-military concerns (cross-border, transnational, and human security concerns), which the state and its institutions cannot ignore. Further, states retain central roles in domestic and foreign affairs as both a source and target of security threats. He concludes that “an exclusive focus on human security would ignore many non-traditional issues that affect in important ways the interests of the state and its institutions, as well as their response to those issues.”11 Though it is still a fraction of the research and attention devoted to traditional security issues, work on non-traditional security has expanded substantially. The primary clusters looking at environment, migration, communicable disease, and terrorism.12 And new research has begun on the role of non-governmental and civil society actors as actors in responding to these issues.13 Some analysts of non-traditional security have used a securitization perspective to consider a broadened-range of security issues.14 One Chinese scholar concludes that “this should be the focus of our academic research on NTS.”15 States in East Asia are addressing a range of pressing concerns that are being treated as having security implications. The processes by which issues like bird flu, SARS and transnational crime are securitized and the implications of this securitization are a key aspect of the second phase of the Ford Foundation’s project that has more than fifty researchers working across Asia working on case studies of transnational issues that have implications for regional security, among them terrorism, transnational crime, environment and security, illegal immigration, food security, poverty, health, corruption, and stateless populations.16 176

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Notes 1

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See generally, He Xiangqi “Cooperating for Common Security: China’s Approach to Non-Traditional Security Issues”, Centre of Asian Studies, Hong Kong University, China-ASEAN Occasional Paper Series, 2005. Zhang Yunling, “Understanding Non-Traditional Security in East Asia: Managing New Challenges in a Changing State, Society and Region”, in Emmers, et al., Studying Non-Traditional Security, p. 129. Lu Zhouwei, ed., On Non-Traditional Security (Beijing: Situation and Trends Press, 2003). Wang Yizhou, “China Facing Non-Traditional Security: A Report on Capacity Building”, in Ralf Emmers, Mely Caballero-Anthony and Amitav Acharya, eds., Studying Non-Traditional Security in Asia: Trends and Issues (Singapore: Marshall Cavendish, 2006), pp. 58–81, 60–61. Wang Yizhou, “Defining Non-Traditional Security and Its Implications for China”, China and World Economy (Beijing) 12, no. 5 (September–October 2004), p. 60. Available online at . In the fall of 2003 a group of researchers associated with the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations published an edited volume on several non-traditional security issues in China and how they connect to enduring national security concerns. See Lu Zhongwei, On Non-Traditional Security (Beijing: Current Affairs Publishing House, 2003). Chair’s Summary Report, ASEAN Regional Forum Seminar on Enhancing Cooperation in the Field of Non-traditional Security Issues, Sanya, China, 7–8 March 2005. Ralf Emmers, Non-Traditional Security in the Asia-Pacific: The Dynamics of Securitisation (Singapore: Marshall Cavendish, 2005), p. 82. Cf. Wang Yihou, who says “in non-traditional security, the entity of security are individuals and groups consisting of human beings.” In Emmers, et al., Studying Non-Traditional Security, p. 70. Song Yann-huei, “The Concepts of Human Security and Non-Traditional Security: A Comparison”, Paper presented at the Human Security Conference, Taipei, 16 December 2002. Most of these essays have been published in one of the following: P.R. Chari, ed., Security and Governance in South Asia (Colombo: Regional Centre for Strategic Studies, 2001); AbdurRob Khan, ed., Globalization and Non-Traditional Security in South Asia (Colombo: Regional Centre for Strategic Studies, 2001); Zhang Yunling, ed., Stability and Security of Socio-Economic Development in East Asia (Beijing: China Social Sciences Press, 2001); Andrew Tan and Kenneth Boutin, eds., Non-Traditional Security Issues in Southeast Asia (Singapore: Select Publishing, 2001). Tsueno Akaha, “Non-traditional Security Cooperation in Northeast Asia”, Paper presented to the University of Hong Kong-UNU Workshop on Non-traditional Security in Northeast Asia, Singapore, 25–26 May 2001. See for example, the essays in Mely Caballero-Anthony, Ralf Emmers, and Amitav Acharya, eds., Studying Non-Traditional Security In Asia: Dilemmas in Securitisation (Marshall Cavendish, Singapore, 2006). For example, see Melissa Curley, “The Role of NGOs in Non-Traditional Security in Northeast Asia” (Hong Kong: Centre for Asian Studies Working Paper, 2002). Available online at .

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14

15 16

One example is Emmers, op. cit. On securitization, see Barry Buzan, Ole Waever, Jaap de Wilde, Security: A New Framework for Analysis (Boulder, Colorado: Lynne Rienner, 1998). Wang Yizhou, “Defining Non-Traditional Security”, op. cit. Information on the project is available at .

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OPEN REGIONALISM

One of the earliest principles agreed upon for the founding of an Asia-Pacific community. The term’s origins trace back to discussions about regional economic co-operation in the late 1970s. It became more prominent when it was cited as an ideal for the future economic development of the region by the first Pacific Economic Cooperation Council (PECC) in Canberra, in September 1980 and subsequently by the first Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Meeting in Canberra in 1989.1 Put simply, open regionalism “involves regional economic integration without discrimination against economies outside the region.”2 As defined by Ross Garnaut and Peter Drysdale, it includes the use of integrative processes and regional co-operation to mutually reduce trade barriers within the Asia-Pacific region without discriminating against outsiders.3 Garnaut contrasts it with what he calls “discriminatory regionalism” which describes arrangements such as customs unions, free trade areas, and preferential trade areas, where trade barriers at members’ borders are lower for trade with members than with non-members. He identifies the European Union and the North American Free Trade Area (NAFTA) as examples of discriminatory regionalism.4 According to Andrew Elek, under open regionalism “regional trade liberalization is to be promoted, provided it is consistent 179

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with GATT [General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs] principles and not to the detriment of other economies.” Writing in 1992, Elek said that open regionalism was “unique” to the Asia-Pacific region and “radically different from the discriminatory nature of the EC [European Community]”.5 According to Garnaut, there are three analytic elements of open regionalism. First, it involves the adoption of open policies in relation to official barriers to trade. Second, open regionalism requires that regional cooperation should be pursued with the goal of reducing non-official barriers to trade and increasing the volume of regional trade without any element of discrimination against outsiders. Third, it requires regional market integration. This can take place “as a result of governments getting out of the way of profit-maximizing patterns of trade; or through the dynamics of private discovery of profit maximizing patterns without any change in the policy stance of governments.”6 The first formal discussion of open regionalism in the AsiaPacific took place at the inaugural PECC meeting in 1980. The principles agreed upon by the meeting included “that EEC-type discriminatory trading arrangements are inappropriate in the Pacific”; that there was a need to “ensure that existing bilateral, regional, and global mechanisms for cooperation are not undermined by any new regional arrangements”; and the need “to ensure an outward-looking arrangement.”7 According to Hadi Soesastro, the background to the concept came from PECC’s socalled San Francisco Declaration on “Open Regionalism: A Pacific Model for Global Economic Cooperation.” This document was based on three premises. First, that openness was one of the main reasons for the economic dynamism of the Asia-Pacific. Second, that this openness was complementary with the global multilateral system; and third, that by making an explicit commitment to a model for open regionalism, the Asia-Pacific region could continue its own progress and make an important contribution to a stronger, more open global economic system.8 APEC formally adopted the idea of open regionalism in its Seoul Declaration in 1991 and it set out its specific interpretation of the concept in the Osaka Action Agenda in November 1995. According to this document, open regionalism goes beyond the traditional notion of free trade areas which espouse nondiscrimination within a regional grouping, stipulating that “the outcome of trade and investment liberalization in the Asia-Pacific region will be the actual reduction of barriers not only among 180

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APEC economies but also between APEC and non-APEC economies.”9 According to Yoichi Funabashi, “this commitment makes APEC more open than any other trade liberalization body thus far, including the GATT, which restricts its most-favoured-nation (MFN) status only to member countries.”10 In a detailed critique of the concept, Fred Bergsten has described open regionalism as “an attempt to … achieve compatibility between the explosion of regional trading arrangements around the world and the global trading system”. He says the concept seeks “to assure that regional agreements will in practice be building blocks for further global liberalization rather than stumbling blocks that deter such progress”. Bergsten argues, however, that while open regionalism has been adopted as “a fundamental principle of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation organization since its creation in 1989 … neither APEC or any other official body has defined” the term.11 He argues there are at least five competing definitions of open regionalism and claims “all have been seriously advanced by participants in the APEC process or students of it.” Bergsten’s five possible interpretations of open regionalism are first, “open membership”.12 This interpretation means that any country willing to accept the rules of the institution would be invited to join. This approach would convert a regional arrangement into a much larger grouping, perhaps ultimately causing it to give up its regional character altogether. Bergsten notes that no regional arrangement has ever taken such course. His second definition is “unconditional MFN”. He says that this concept of open regionalism is viewed by its advocates as “the pure, indeed only faithful definition”.13 One of the original advocates of this approach called for APEC to become an “Open Economic Association” based wholly on unilateral liberalization. This, it was assumed, would generate additional openness among members and non-members on the basis of peer pressure and demonstration effects. The downside of this approach, says Bergsten, is that by “giving away” APEC’s liberalization to outsiders, it gives up the opportunity to use its leverage to press for greater global liberalization. The risk of major “free riders” also might make APEC’s liberalization politically unacceptable in some member states.14 A third definition — and one designed to counter some of the risks of unconditional MFN — is “conditional MFN”. Under such model, APEC would extend its reduction of trade barriers to any non-members that agreed to take similar 181

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steps. Bergsten suggests that APEC has flirted with this option in the past, notably at the Seattle Leaders’ Meeting in 1993, when it was hinted that if the GATT Uruguay Round failed, APEC might create a huge new regional trading bloc that would become a focal point of future liberalization efforts, perhaps on a preferential basis. He also notes that at the Leaders’ Meeting in the Philippines in 1996, APEC sent a similar signal to the upcoming World Trade Organization (WTO) Ministerial Conference in Singapore to globalize the Information Technology Agreement. On both occasions, however, the outsiders responded positively and the threat of conditional MFN status remained no more than a implied suggestion.15 Bergsten’s fourth definition is “global liberalization”. In essence, this would mean the APEC members simply continuing to reduce their barriers on a global basis while pursuing their regional goals. He says, “this could be done by continuing the past practices of unilateral liberalization and multilateral negotiations in the WTO. Both approaches avoid creating new discrimination so could be viewed as faithful renditions of ‘open regionalism’.”16 Unlike the previous four interpretations, Bergsten’s fifth possible definition, “trade facilitation”, focuses on facilitating trade through non-tariff and non-border reforms. He suggests these initiatives could be small, such as customs harmonization and recognition of common standards, or they could be wideranging, including the enforcement of national competition policies and the deregulation of key markets. He says, “steps of both kinds are being discussed within APEC.”17 Bergsten concludes that APEC has pursued a course of “constructive ambiguity” when it comes to its interpretation of open regionalism. It has “espoused ‘open regionalism’ in principle, but it has never defined it. It has implicitly threatened to insist on reciprocity but never explicitly done so.” He notes that it is conceivable that this situation could continue “for some time, or even indefinitely”.18 Finally, Bergsten notes that the APEC Eminent Persons Group (EPG) — which he chaired — offered its own suggested definition of open regionalism in its second report, Achieving the APEC Vision. This document set out a four-step formula for the implementation of open regionalism, calling for “the maximum possible extent of unilateral liberalization”; “a commitment to continue reducing its barriers to non-member countries while it liberalizes internally on an MFN basis”; “a willingness to extend its regional liberalization to non-members

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on a mutually reciprocal basis”; and “recognition that any individual APEC member can unilaterally extend its APEC liberalization to non-members on a conditional or unconditional basis”. The report added that while “in principle, any one of these elements by itself could effectively implement the principle of open regionalism … we believe that all four will be needed to do so.” Bergsten claims that this formula is a combination of all his five definitions except “open membership.” He concludes that this definition “represents the best way to define and operationalize open regionalism in APEC.” Finally, some scholars and officials have gone further, suggesting that there is a “spirit” of open regionalism. This incorporates broad notions of being inclusive, outward-looking, trade liberalizing, and GATT-consistent. Mohammed Ariff has argued that ASEAN’s model of regional cooperation fits the definition of open regionalism.19 In the words of a minister from Singapore, open regionalism “signals a collective commitment to a dynamic vision of openness in all facets of economic relationships”. Acharya has extended open regionalism to the security context, identifying it as one of the key norms underpinning what he calls the “Asia-Pacific way” of multilateralism.20 The rise of regional cooperation on an East Asian basis has raised questions about the continued relevance of open regionalism. The absence of the United States and Canada from the inaugural East Asian Summit led some to characterize it as an “exclusive model”.21 However, many regional governments insist that East Asian cooperation is compatible with the notion of open regionalism. Japan, in particular, has stated that “regional cooperation in East Asia has developed as ‘open’ cooperation with the involvement of partners within the region and beyond” notably India, Australia and New Zealand. Japan considers that the “future philosophy and basic principles of regional cooperation should be confirmed at the First EAS. Specifically, it deems that regional cooperation in East Asia should proceed … based on the principle of open regionalism.”22 One official, Takio Yamada, argues that open regionalism is the Japanese Government’s “first principle” when it comes to East Asian cooperation. He says, “the stability and prosperity of East Asia depend not only on intraregional relations but also on maintaining friendly ties with countries outside the region. […] Accordingly, regional cooperation

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to realize the concept of an East Asian community should be advanced as open regionalism, based on the principles of openness, transparency and inclusiveness.”23 Chinese officials have also argued that East Asian cooperation does not contradict open regionalism. In a speech to the East Asian Summit in December 2005, Wen Jiabao said “China is opposed to self-enclosed or exclusive East Asian cooperation or cooperation targeted to any particular party. China insists to keep open-minded and advocate open regionalism in the process of regional cooperation in a bid to promote common progress and development of the various countries.”24 Notes 1

2 3

4 5

6 7

8 9

10

11

12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19

20

21

Ross Garnaut, “Open Regionalism: Its Analytic Basis and Relevance to the International System”, Journal of Asian Economics 5, no. 2 (1994): 273–90, 273. Ibid., p. 273. Ross Garnaut and Peter Drysdale, eds., Asia Pacific Regionalism: Readings in International Economic Relations (London: Harper Collins, 1994). Garnaut, “Open Regionalism”, p. 273. Andrew Elek, “Trade Policy Options for the Asia-Pacific Region in the 1990s: The Potential of Open Regionalism”, American Economic Review 82, no. 2, Papers and Proceedings of the 104th Meeting of the American Economic Association, May 1992, pp. 74–78, 74. Garnaut, “Open Regionalism”, p. 280. Hadi Soesastro, “Open Regionalism”, in Europe and the Asia Pacific, edited by Hans Maull, Gerald Segal, and Jusuf Wanandi (London: Routledge, 1998), pp. 84–85. Ibid., p. 85. “The Osaka Action Agenda”, in Selected APEC Documents 1995 (Singapore: APEC Secretariat, 1995), p. 5. Emphasis added. Yoichi Funabashi, Asia Pacific Fusion: Japan’s Role in APEC (Washington, D.C.: Institute for International Economics, 1995), p. 8. C. Fred Bergsten, “Open Regionalism”, Institute for International Economics, Working Paper no. 97-3, available online at . Ibid., pp. 4–5. Ibid., p. 6. Ibid. Ibid., p. 7. Ibid., p. 8. Ibid., pp. 8–9. Ibid., p. 9. Mohammed Ariff, “Open Regionalism à la ASEAN”, Journal of Asian Economics 5, no. 1 (1994): 99–117, 94–95. Amitav Acharya, “Ideas, Identity, and Institution-Building: From the ASEAN Way to the Asia-Pacific Way?” The Pacific Review 10, no. 3 (1997): 319–46. See for examples, Ralf Emmers, “The Future of East Asia’s New Institutions”, Straits Times, 20 December 2005, Agence-France Presse, “US Concerned about ‘exclusive’ nature of upcoming EAS”, 25 February 2005.

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22

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Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “General Information on the East Asian Summit”, November 2005, available online at . Takio Yamada, “Towards a principled integration of East Asia: Concept of an East Asian community”, CAEC Commentary, 18 November 2005, available online at . Account of Wen Jiabao’s speech to the East Asian Summit, 14 December 2005, reproduced on the Chinese Foreign Ministry website, .

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PEACEFUL RISE

Term apparently coined by Zheng Bijian, the chairman of the Beijing-based think-tank the China Reform Forum.1 It was originally conceived in late 2002, “as an attempt to answer Western proponents of the ‘China threat theory’ ”.2 He intended to show that “unlike past rising powers, which upset the international order either to facilitate their rise or as a result of it”, China seeks to integrate itself into the present international order.3 According to Zheng, “the only choice for China under the current international situation is to rise peacefully, namely, to develop by taking advantage of the peaceful international environment, and at the same time to maintain world peace through its development.”4 In an article in Foreign Affairs, he described the rise taking place in three phases. “In the first stage — 2000 to 2010 — total GDP is to be doubled. In the second stage, ending in 2020, total GDP is to be doubled again, at which point China’s per capita GDP is expected to reach $3,000. In the third, from 2020 to 2050, China will continue to advance until it becomes a prosperous, democratic, and civilized socialist country. By that time, China will have shaken off underdevelopment and will be on a par with the middle rung of advanced nations. It can then claim to have succeeded in achieving a ‘peaceful rise’.”5

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Beginning in late 2003, senior Chinese leaders and prominent analysts began promoting the notion of “peaceful rise” [heping jueqi] as “the new pathway” [xin daolu] and the basis for a new Chinese grand strategy.6 However, the term quickly provoked debate within China. According to Evan Medeiros, opposition came from three groups. First, some Chinese scholars and analysts questioned the accuracy of the new expression. “Many opposed the use of the term ‘rise’ [jueqi] arguing that China is not rising and will not rise given the myriad of economic and social problems complicating its transition from a planned to a market economy.” These critics argue that any talk about China rising is premature and “a far too optimistic a characterization of China’s current socio-economic evolution”.7 A second group objected to the use of the word “rise” because it had potentially confrontational connotations. They worried that it would only lead to concern and fear among China’s neighbours.8 Finally, a smaller third group opposed any commitment to an exclusively peaceful rise. These critics, including some in the military, argued that “committing to a peaceful rise could undermine China’s ability to deter Taiwan from moving towards formal, legal separation from the Mainland.”9 Despite concerns that some neighbours might be alarmed by the term, it was welcomed by some influential Asian leaders. Singapore’s Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew said the doctrine “shows that China is aware that its rapid growth is creating enormous pressures in the international system, and they need to craft a development strategy that will avoid conflict. No one can be certain if peaceful solutions can always be found when nations interact and jostle in a rapidly changing world. However, China’s expressed intention to pursue a peaceful strategy for development is promising.”10 Similarly, Indonesian Trade Minister Mari Pangestu said “the peaceful rise message was meant to be one where the rise of China should be seen as mutually beneficial for its neighbours and that China intends to be just that, a good neighbour.” She says the “peaceful rise notion was demonstrated by the initiative announced in 2001 for China to enter into a free trade area with ASEAN.”11 A crucial turning point in the debate came in May 2004 during a meeting of the Boao Forum for Asia on Hainan Island. In a speech to the forum, Hu Jintao avoided the term “peaceful rise”, using the expression “peaceful development” [heping fazhan] instead. This articulation likely set the marker on the official 188

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expression. According to Medeiros, “Hu’s non-use of the term ‘rise’ indicates his agreement with analysts who favored a less confrontational phrase.”12 The term “peaceful development” has continued to gain in traction since 2004. President Hu used the phrase in his speech to the inaugural East Asian Summit in Kuala Lumpur in December 2005 and on 23 December 2005, the Chinese Foreign Ministry published a White Paper entitled “China’s Peaceful Development Road”. In its opening paragraphs, the White Paper states that it “completely and systematically clarifies the Chinese government’s and people’s theory and practice”, presumably closing the debate about “peaceful rise” for good. Notes 1

2

3 4

5

6 7 8

9 10

11

12

John Thornton, “Foreword”, in China’s Peaceful Rise: Speeches of Zheng Bijian 1997–2004 (Brookings Institution, Washington, 2005), p. v, available online at . The term is used in the title of Zheng’s speech to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington D.C., 9 December 2002. Ibid, p. vi. Cited in Evan S. Medeiros “China Debates Its ‘Peaceful Rise’ Strategy”, YaleGlobal, 22 June 2004, available at . Zheng Bijian, “China’s Peaceful Rise”, Foreign Affairs 18, no. 5, September/ October 2005. Ibid. Ibid. As Wang Gungwu notes, “the phrase ‘rise of China’ is the key, and it is that which governs the significance of China’s culture for its neighbours and beyond. If China were not rising, China’s cultural problems would only have been of interest to the Chinese themselves.” Wang Gungwu, “The Fourth Rise of China: Cultural Problems”, China: An International Journal 2, no. 2 (September 2004): 311–22. Ibid. Lee Kuan Yew, “Win-win Approach for China’s ‘Peaceful Rise’ ”, Speech at the Boao Forum for Asia, Hainan, 23 April 2005, available online at . Minister of Trade, Mari Pangestu, speech to the seminar on Sino-Indonesian Relations, CSIS Jakarta, 9 May 2006, available online at . Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, China’s Peaceful Development Road, State Council Information Office, Beijing, December 2005, available online at .

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PRE-EMPTION AND PREVENTIVE WAR

On 1 June 2002, President George W. Bush delivered one of the most remarked upon speeches of the first term of his presidency. Speaking to new graduates at the West Point military academy in New York, he announced what he would later call a “new doctrine” underpinning U.S. national security policy.1 While containment and deterrence had been the bedrock of American strategy for much of the last century, Bush argued that, “new threats … require new thinking. Deterrence means nothing against shadowy terrorist networks with no nation or citizens to defend. Containment is not possible when unbalanced dictators with weapons of mass destruction can deliver those weapons on missiles or secretly provide them to terrorist allies.” Rather than rely solely on these approaches, the president announced that the war on terror required America to “take the battle to the enemy, disrupt his plans, and confront the worst threats before they emerge…. Americans [must be] ready for pre-emptive action when necessary to defend our liberty and to defend our lives.”2 Bush’s call for “pre-emptive action” was reaffirmed and expanded upon in the National Security Strategy of the United States of America (NSS) released on 20 September 2002. The NSS discusses pre-emption in the context of international law, saying that legal scholars have long “recognized that nations need not suffer an 191

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attack before they can lawfully take action to defend themselves against forces that present an imminent threat of attack.” However, the report goes on to argue the United States “must adapt the concept of imminent threat” to the capabilities and objectives of today’s adversaries. The potential for terrorists to attack using weapons of mass destruction means “the greater the risk of inaction — the more compelling the case for taking anticipatory action to defend ourselves, even if uncertainty remains as to the time and place of the enemy’s attack. To forestall or prevent such hostile acts… the United States will, if necessary, act preemptively.”3 While the West Point speech and the publication of the National Security Strategy gave new prominence to the idea of pre-emption, there has been confusion about the term’s precise meaning. In particular, there has been a tendency to confuse the term “preemption” with “preventive war”. Although the terms are often used interchangeably, “preventive war” and “pre-emption” are distinct strategic concepts, with the key difference relating to the nature of the perceived threat. For an action to be pre-emptive, there is a consensus that the threat has to be perceived to be imminent. In their book Strategic Terminology, Schwarz and Hadik describe a “pre-emptive strike” as “an armed attack motivated by the conviction that an enemy attack is under way or is irreversibly imminent”,4 sometimes called a “forestalling blow” or “anticipatory attack”.5 Wirtz and Russell describe pre-emption as “nothing more than a fast draw. Upon detecting evidence that an opponent is about to attack, one beats the opponent to the punch and attacks first to blunt the impending strike. States that fear preventive war often adopt pre-emptive strategies.”6 Pre-emptive strikes should not be confused with surprise attacks, “the latter implying only the target had little or no warning”. While pre-emptive attacks are often surprise attacks, not all surprise attacks are pre-emptive, they could be carried out for expansionist or aggressive reasons.7 According to Dan Reiter, actual examples of pre-emption are extremely rare. Writing in 1995 he concluded that “of all the interstate wars since 1816, only three are preemptive: World War I, Chinese intervention in the Korean War, and the 1967 Arab-Israeli War.”8 Pre-emption can be contrasted with preventive action, which occurs when a state “is motivated to attack first, or otherwise suffer increasing inferiority in capabilities vis-à-vis the opponent over time”. A preventive war is launched to prevent the enemy 192

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from “making gains he might be expected to make if he were allowed to initiate the war, or that he might make without resorting to war if not forcibly opposed in good time”.9 Put simply, if preemptive wars are motivated by a sense of imminent threat and fear, preventive wars are wars of choice. They are based on the assumption that war is inevitable and that it is better to fight now while the costs are low rather than later when the costs are high. Wirtz and Russell note the danger in this kind of thinking, however, saying it “can turn out to be a self-fulfilling prophecy, since treating war as inevitable can help make it inevitable. It can also lead to unnecessary conflict because few things are inevitable.”10 One reason for the confusion surrounding the Bush administration’s use of the term is that it seems to blur deliberately the lines between the two concepts, particularly in the way the NSS calls for the adaption of the concept of “imminent threat”. While the report suggests it is no longer tenable to wait for specific information about an impending attack, it does not provide any further information or criteria for when a threat might warrant action. This leads some analysts to conclude that the administration is “broadening the meaning [of preemption] to encompass preventive war as well, in which force may be used even without evidence of an imminent attack to ensure that a serious threat to the United States does not ‘gather’ or grow over time.”11 How important “pre-emption” has become to U.S. strategy remains unclear. While President Bush has referred to a “new doctrine” of pre-emption, then Secretary of State Colin Powell said, “there is no such strategy of pre-emption. There is an option called pre-emption that fills a couple of paragraphs in a thirtyone-page national security document.” Then National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice also sought to downplay its significance, saying, “the number of cases in which it might be justified will always be small. Pre-emptive action does not come at the beginning of a long chain of effort.” Whether pre-emption should be seen as a core principle or an option to be used rarely, there is no doubt that the National Security Strategy “elevates pre-emption in importance, and visibility, within the tool kit of U.S. foreign policy”. Despite this new attention, reserving the right to use preventive military action is not new in American strategy in the Asia-Pacific region. In the 1940s and 1950s, the U.S. Government considered attacking Soviet nuclear forces while they were still in their infancy, and in the 1960s there were also discussions about attacking Chinese nuclear facilities.12 In 1994, Secretary of Defence William 193

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Perry stated publicly that the United States would not allow North Korea to develop a nuclear arsenal. According to President Clinton, “we actually drew up plans to attack North Korea and to destroy their reactors and we told them we would attack unless they ended their nuclear program.” Assessments of the efficacy of preventive war are mixed. Examples sometimes given include the 1983 invasion of Grenada and, less successfully, the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961.13 Jack Snyder has argued that preventive war has usually been a counter-productive strategy for major powers. He says “it often sparked endless bushfire wars at the edges of the empire, internal rebellions, and opposition from powers not yet conquered or otherwise subdued. Historically, the preventive pacification of one turbulent frontier of empire has usually led to the creation of another one, adjacent to the first.”14 According to William Safire, “preventive war is still a phrase looked on with revulsion by most Americans; pre-emptive strike, however, lost much of its pejorative connotation when it was used to describe the Israeli thrust against the Arabs following Gamal Abdul Nasser’s closing of the Gulf of Aqaba in 1967 and its surgical strike against the Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981.”15 The English writer Harold Nicholson put it in simpler terms, saying, “a preventive war is always evil.”16 Perhaps because of this connotation, American officials have historically been reluctant to associate themselves with the idea of pre-emption. When General John Tilelli, then commander of U.S./ UN forces in South Korea, was asked if the United States should take pre-emptive action against North Korean nuclear facilities, he replied “I would not use the term ‘preemptive,’ but I do not believe that we should allow North Korea’s nuclear program to come to fruition.”17 Several other Asia-Pacific governments have spoken of the right to launch pre-emptive strikes, including comments that predate the September 2001 attacks. In March 1999, the director of the Japanese Defence Agency, Hosei Norota, responded to a question in the Diet about North Korean missiles by stating that Japan has a “constitutional right to conduct a preemptive strike if the circumstances so warrant”. This prompted a response from South Korea’s defence minister, Chun Yong Taek, who criticized Norota for promoting what he called “a dangerous idea”.18 In January 2003, Japans Defence Agency Director General Shigeru Ishiba said “If North Korea expresses the intention of turning Tokyo into a 194

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sea of fire and it begins preparations [at attack] for instance by fueling [its missiles] we will consider [North Korea] is initiating [a military attack].”19 He later added that even with Japan’s pacifist constitution “Just to be on the receiving end of an attack is not what our constitution had in mind…. Just to wait for another country’s attack and lose thousands and tens of thousands of people, that is not what the constitution assumes.”20 In October 2004, a Japanese defence ministry panel again revisited the issue and urged that the Japanese Self Defence Forces be given the capability to launch pre-emptive strikes.21 North Korea has also argued it has the right to act preemptively. In March 2006, the Korean Central News Agency stated that the DPRK has the right to launch a pre-emptive attack because it is technically still at war with South Korea and the United States.22 Australian officials have also asserted a right to use preemptive action. In June 2002, Defence Minister Robert Hill said he agreed with the newly announced U.S. strategy, saying “we are not waiting for attacks any longer. That is the lesson of September 11 … we share the US view that as a threat develops it’s important that it be responded to at that time rather than wait to be attacked and then respond afterwards.”23 Prime Minister John Howard agreed, even suggesting that there was a need to change the UN Charter to reflect the new international situation. Howard said, “it stands to reason that if you believed that somebody was going to launch an attack on your country… and you had the capacity to stop it, and there was no alternative other than to use that capacity, then of course you would have to use it.”24 The Australian plan reportedly envisaged “flying squads” of police, deploying to Southeast Asian states to strike terrorist cells. Howard’s comments prompted an angry response from Australia’s neighbours in ASEAN. Malaysian Defence Minister Najib Razak said Malaysia was capable of handling any terrorist threat on its own and did “not need any foreign interference…. We have stated our position that Australia… must respect the sovereignty of Malaysia.” Then Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammed responded more bluntly, saying Howard was behaving “as if these are the good old days when people can shoot Aborigines without caring for human rights”.25 Malaysian opposition figures were also critical, calling Howard’s proposal “a most dangerous form of state terrorism, as it would make a nonsense out of the UN Charter.” 195

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Philippines Foreign Secretary Blas Ople described it as an “exuberant proposal”, adding “we cannot allow the fundamental doctrine of sovereignty to be set aside in the name of terrorism.”26 National Security Adviser Roilo Golez said it was “arrogant” and argued the Philippines Government should “go slow” on a proposed anti-terrorism agreement with Australia, because Canberra might use it to bolster “their own pre-emptive strike agenda”. Notes 1

2

3 4

5 6

7 8

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10 11

12

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14 15

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George W. Bush, remarks at Texans for Rick Perry Reception, Houston, Texas, 14 June 2002, available online at . Remarks by President Bush at the 2002 Graduation Exercise of the United States Military Academy, West Point, New York, 1 June 2002, available online at . National Security Strategy of the United States of America, p. 15. Urs Schwarz and Laszlo Hadik, Strategic Terminology: A Trilingual Glossary (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1966), p. 130. Ibid. James Wirtz and James Russell, “US Policy on Preventive War and Preemption”, The Non-Proliferation Review (Spring 2003): 113–23, 115. Reiter, p. 7. Dan Reiter, “Exploding the Powder-keg Myth: Preemptive Wars almost Never Happen”, International Security 20, no. 2 (Fall 1995): 5–34, 6. Urs Schwarz and Laszlo Hadik, Strategic Terminology: A Trilingual Glossary (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1966), p. 130. Wirtz and Russell, op. cit., p. 115. Michael O’ Hanlon, Susan Rice and James Steinberg, The New National Security Strategy and Preemption, Brookings Institution Policy Brief no. 113, Brookings Institution, Washington D.C., December 2002. William Burr and Jeffrey Richelson, “Whether to ‘Strangle the Baby in the Cradle’: The United States and the Chinese Nuclear Program, 1960–64”, International Security 25, no. 3 (Winter 2000/2001): 54–99. Jack Snyder, “Imperial Temptations”, The National Interest (Spring 2003): 29–40, 30. Ibid. William Safire, Safire’s New Political Dictionary: The Definitive Guide to the New Language of Politics (Random House, New York, 1993), p. 613. Harold Nicholson, ed., Diaries and Letters 1945–1962 (Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1968), p. 155 (entry dated 29 November). James R. Asker, “Washington Outlook”, Aviation Week and Space Technology, 8 March 1999. “South Korea Rejects the Idea of Preemptive Strikes on North Korea”, Dow Jones Newswires, 5 March 1999. “Ishiba: Japan to ‘Counterattack’ if N. Korea Prepares to Attack”, The Yomiuri Shimbun, 25 Janaury 2003. James Brooke, “Japanese Official Wants Defense Against Missiles Expanded”, The New York Times, 17 April 2003.

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Reuters, “Japan Raises First-strike Question”, 1 October 2004; More comments along these lines were made following North Korean missile tests in mid-2006. See also the comments of LDP Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe and the head of Japan’s Defence Agency, Fukushiro Nukaga, cited in Martin Fackler, “Japan Steps up Pressure against North Korea”, The New York Times, 11 July 2006. Ralph Cossa, “Let Freedom (and Democracy) Ring!” Comparative Connections 8, no. 1 (April 2006): 18. Craig Skehan, “We Back US First Strike on Iraqis: Hill”, The Sydney Morning Herald, 19 June 2002; “Pre-emptive Gambit: A Case of Caution”, The Sydney Morning Herald, 20 June 2002. Dan Murphy, “Terror-preemption Talk Roils Asia”, Christian Science Monitor, 5 December 2002. “Malaysia Rejects Australia’s Pre-emptive Principle”, The Sydney Morning Herald, 15 October 2004. “Malaysia, Philippines Slam Howard’s Preemptive Strike Talk”, The Sydney Morning Herald, 2 December 2002.

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Coined by the second Secretary-General of the United Nations, Dag Hammarskold, in 1960. According to Simon Tay, the concept is based on public international law, in particular the United Nations’ goal to “take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to peace” set out in Article 1 of the United Nations Charter.1 In the context of the Cold War, Hammarskold saw preventive diplomacy principally as a means of keeping regional and local conflicts isolated from the superpower stand-off. He urged the creation of hotlines, risk-reduction centres, and transparency measures with the goal of avoiding “action by one or other of the superpowers that might lead to escalation and nuclear confrontation”.2 As it is used today, however, the concept of preventive diplomacy is more closely identified with another United Nations Secretary-General, Boutros Boutros-Ghali. In his 1992 book, An Agenda for Peace, Boutros-Ghali revived and reconceptualized preventive diplomacy for use in the post-Cold War world. He defined the concept as “action to prevent disputes from arising between parties, to prevent existing disputes from escalating into conflicts and to limit the spread of the latter when they occur”.3 His report distinguished preventive diplomacy from other types of diplomatic action, including peacebuilding, peacekeeping, and 199

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peacemaking, because of its emphasis on solving disputes before they turn into actual conflict. According to one description, preventive diplomacy differs from ordinary diplomacy in that “it signifies active, rather than reactive, responses to situations that threaten peace. Its scope is more ambitious and immediate.”4 Preventive diplomacy remains a strongly contested term, however, and as one report published in Singapore on the subject noted, “there is no consensus on the meaning, scope and purpose of [preventive diplomacy] or how it would apply to security-related issues in the Asia-Pacific region.”5 A key area of dispute about the meaning of preventive diplomacy revolves around the question of the means to be used to prevent conflict from breaking out or spreading. Does preventive diplomacy include acts that go beyond traditional diplomatic methods, such as the use or threat of use of military force? The answer to this question seems to hinge on whether the analyst puts greater emphasis on the preventive or the diplomacy component of the definition. In one analysis of the concept in the Asia-Pacific context, Amitav Acharya offers a broad interpretation of preventive diplomacy, which he says is derived from Boutros-Ghali’s definition. He says preventive diplomacy is diplomatic, political, military, economic, and humanitarian action undertaken by governments, multilateral (the United Nations as well as regional groups) organizations and international agencies (including non-governmental actors) with the aim of: (1) preventing severe disputes and conflicts from arising between and within states; (2) preventing such disputes and conflicts from escalating into armed confrontation; (3) limiting the intensity of violence resulting from such conflicts and preventing them from spreading geographically; (4) preventing and managing acute humanitarian crises associated with (either as the cause or the effect of) such conflicts; (5) as part of the immediate response to a crisis or pre-crisis situation, initiating measures that might contribute to the eventual resolution of the dispute. He says these measures can vary from “a simple telephone conversation during a crisis” to the “deployment of military units”.6 Acharya further argues there are two categories of preventive diplomacy: peacetime measures and crisis-time measures. 200

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Peacetime measures include confidence-building measures (CBMs); institution-building and the construction of norms of acceptable behaviour; early warning; and preventive humanitarian action.7 He says these instruments are not just channels for the state or United Nations action, but can also include participation by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and regional organizations. Crisis-term measures include fact-finding missions; good offices and goodwill missions; crisis management; and “preventive deployment” which Acharya distinguishes from peacekeeping, arguing it “involves the dispatch of units to trouble spots to prevent the widening or escalation of a conflict with or without the mutual consent of the rivals. Thus, preventive deployment unlike peacekeeping, might not be a strictly neutral exercise. It could be undertaken with a view to support the likely victim by deterring the actions of the likely aggressor.”8 In contrast, Tay advances a narrower definition that focuses more on the diplomatic component of the concept. He argues that “the practice of preventive diplomacy relies on non-coercive diplomatic methods”, adding that “acts that require military action or the use of force lie outside the scope of preventive diplomacy. The diplomatic and peaceful tools of preventive diplomacy include negotiation, enquiry, mediation, and conciliation. These are best employed at a relatively early stage of the dispute, before violence has resulted.” Tay argues that because preventive deployment is a “military response, not a diplomatic effort”. It and similar military approaches “seem to move beyond the essential idea of preventive diplomacy”.9 Like Acharya, however, he also makes a distinction between what he calls “early” (or “pre-crisis”) and “late” (or “crisis”) preventive diplomacy (terms apparently first used by Australian Foreign Minister Gareth Evans).10 Japanese scholars also differ on the question of the use of force. Tay’s narrower approach is supported by a definition used by the Japanese National Institute for Research Advancement (NIRA). NIRA has defined preventive diplomacy as “all noncoercive activities by all parties to keep all disputes between whatever parties from turning violent, escalating, and spreading and to keep all armed conflicts from endangering international peace and order”.11 On the other hand, a paper written by the Japan Forum on International Relations (JFIR) describes the NIRA definition as “very narrow” and notes that “coercive action and even the use of military deterrence is an accepted diplomatic means for the United Nations and international coalitions.”12 The 201

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paper argues that “while there are those who argue that military action has no place in preventive diplomacy, this is fallacious reasoning.” The JFIR paper goes on to argue that “preventive diplomacy has a very high probability of success when it is coupled with a clearly demonstrated willingness to resort to military means and that the two aspects of preventive diplomacy and military deterrence are not mutually exclusive, but should be seen as highly complementary.” The paper concludes, however, that “the fact remains that the emphasis in preventive diplomacy must generally be more on non-military than on military means.”13 Recognizing the intractability of the definitional question, Dino Patti Djalal makes the argument that “preventive diplomacy is context bound. Different cases of conflict require different methods and doses of preventive diplomacy. There is no panacea, no fixed formula, no set procedures, no single strategy….”14 On the question of the participants in preventive diplomacy, there is more agreement. Acharya argues that while “preventive diplomacy need not be an exclusively multilateral enterprise, multilateralism enhances the appeal and legitimacy of preventive diplomacy efforts and hence their prospects for success.” He says the United Nations remains the “chief multilateral framework for preventive diplomacy” although it can also be undertaken by regional organizations.15 Tay suggests that the concept “more often presupposes a multilateral setting. While the parties to the dispute can themselves take initiatives for prevention, it is usually a third party that acts to prevent conflict between two or more parties to a dispute.”16 He also distinguishes preventive diplomacy from policies that address issues such as poverty, social inequality, and ethnic and cultural discrimination. He argues that while it is necessary to address these problems, it is important to distinguish such efforts as being forms of what may be called “crisis prevention” rather than preventive diplomacy. Preventive diplomacy, he argues, “is more narrowly focused to those situations where the risk of violence is closer at hand. It selectively targets vulnerable situations where risks of violence are not just possible, but probable or even incipient.”17 A Chinese perspective on preventive diplomacy was put forward by Shi Chunlai at a 1997 ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) Track Two seminar in Singapore. His paper noted that preventive diplomacy was “a concept of recent vintage in Asia” and said that “some more water has still to pass under the ARF bridge before the real utility of preventive diplomacy becomes apparent.” 202

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Despite these reservations, Shi identified some Chinese initiatives in the Asia-Pacific that he implied were preventive diplomacy measures. These included the interim settlement of border issues with Vietnam and India; the 1996 Agreement on ConfidenceBuilding in the Military Field in the Border Area with Russia and three Central Asian states; the annual security consultations between China and Japan; and China’s participation in Indonesiaorganized workshops regarding the South China Sea. Shi said that “measures taken by China in the preventive diplomacy field have been successful and effective” and said that together, the initiatives constitute a “new security concept” (see the entry on “New Security Approach”).18 Shi argued that preventive diplomacy in the region should be underpinned by seven fundamental principles. These were: (1) state-to-state relations should be conducted according to the norms set out in the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation (TAC), the United Nations Charter, the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, and other universally recognized international laws; (2) mutual respect for sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity; (3) non-interference in other countries’ internal affairs or directing security cooperation against any third country; (4) “mutual consent by parties directly relevant to an issue” should be one of the most important prerequisites to preventive diplomacy; (5) settlement of international disputes through peaceful means and refrainment from use or threat of force; (6) implementation and maintenance of national defence policies of a defensive nature and not threatening or undermining the security and stability of other countries with one’s military forces; and (7) promotion of mutually-beneficial cooperation among countries and friendly exchanges among peoples. In contrast to Simon Tay’s definition, Shi said that “China regards bilateral cooperation as the basis of preventive diplomacy” although he added that “in many cases bilateral cooperation does not go against multilateral dialogue and cooperation.”19 The ARF agreed that the “development of preventive diplomacy” would constitute the second of its three-stage agenda for building trust and security cooperation in the region (coming as a “natural follow-up” to confidence-building measures and before “elaboration of approaches to conflicts”). According to Desmond Ball and Pauline Kerr, this second stage is guided by “three existing sets of preventive diplomacy principles contained within the United Nations Charter, the Treaty of Amity and 203

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Cooperation, and (with respect to the Spratly Islands) the ASEAN Declaration on the South China Sea”.20 An annex in the 1995 ASEAN Concept Paper calls for the development of a “set of guidelines for the peaceful settlement of disputes” based on those principles. Specific proposals raised included the idea of appointing Special Representatives (SRs) to undertake “factfinding missions” and “offer their good services” and to investigate the possibility of constructing a Regional Risk Reduction Centre (RRRC). The Concept Paper specially mentioned the importance of the Track Two process in aiding the transition from Phase I to Phase II, saying it would be useful for it “to consider and investigate a variety of preventive diplomacy and conflict-resolution mechanisms.”21 Towards this end, the ARF organized a number of Track Two seminars on preventive diplomacy. In these seminars, the definitional issue has “proved controversial” although most participants have agreed that the conceptualization provided by Boutros-Ghali in Agenda for Peace provided a useful starting point.22 The ARF seminars have revealed some interesting interpretations of the concept; interpretations in keeping with some ARF members’ wariness about the use of formal dispute resolution mechanisms. An ARF seminar held in Seoul in May 1995 agreed that preventive diplomacy “constitutes one end of a continuum that passes from preventive measures to peacemaking, peacekeeping, and peacebuilding”. In particular, the meeting gave broad support to the notion that preventive diplomacy should emphasize “tools to ensure latent disputes do not break into open conflict”23 and concluded that efforts at preventive diplomacy should remain “where they will likely prove most effective: on the prevention of latent conflicts from developing into open hostility, and on the prevention of some conflicts from escalating out of control.”24 The meeting also stressed that preventive diplomacy measures depend on consensus-building among parties and noted “[i]mposed solutions were … unworkable”.25 In contrast with Acharya’s definition above, the Seoul seminar also expressed the view that preventive diplomacy “is not the same thing as crisis-management”. Some concrete suggestions for preventive diplomacy measures have been agreed upon by the ARF track two seminars. The Seoul meeting discussed the creation of a regional conflict prevention or risk-reduction centre, saying such a centre “could gather, analyse, and disseminate information, as well as lend its 204

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good offices to any attempt to facilitate dialogue, open thirdparty mediation, and assist in the post-settlement monitoring of mutually agreed solutions”.26 Other suggested measures include the establishment of a register of experts by the ARF; official discussion on the principles of peaceful dispute settlement; appointment of a High Commissioner for Maritime Affairs; and establishment of permanent and ad hoc committees or working groups on the subject.27 A subsequent seminar in Paris also endorsed the BoutrosGhali definition as a good conceptual starting point while noting “that there were various other understandings of preventive diplomacy”. It also offered some additional proposals for specific preventive diplomacy measures. These included “an ARF role in preventive diplomacy through the expansion of the good offices of the Chair, guided by the principle of consensus amongst ARF members”. The seminar agreed on the need for an “annual security outlook” and decided this was an activity appropriate for track two consideration, noting in particular the potential use of the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia-Pacific (CSCAP). It also specifically recommended that the ARF members circulate simultaneously among themselves, information about their contributions to the United Nations Arms Register. All these measures, the seminar stressed, were to be “subject to the strict maintenance of consensus amongst all ARF members.”28 A third ARF Track Two conference on preventive diplomacy was held in Singapore in September 1997. According to a summary of the meeting, while the usefulness of the work completed at the two previous seminars was noted, some participants were cautious about pressing ahead with specific preventive diplomacy measures. Instead, “it was accepted that the different circumstances and actual conditions in the Asia-Pacific would often call for different approaches from those employed in other parts of the world. With that in mind, some felt that CBMs, as one element of preventive diplomacy, had the best prospects of success in the immediate future and efforts should be focused on them.”29 China, in particular, has stressed the view that “bilateral and multilateral CBMs should be explored and exploited more fully by states in the region.”30 The meeting noted what it called “ongoing preventive diplomacy efforts in the region”, discussing, in particular, the disputes in the South China Sea and Cambodia and specifically referred to “the contribution of the Indonesia-organized workshop on the South China Sea”.31 205

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CSCAP conducted a Track Two workshop on preventive diplomacy in Bangkok from 28 February to 2 March 1999. The workshop debated a number of definitions and concluded that it was important “not to be held captive to overly-specific definitions”. The meeting agreed on a “broadly endorsed” working definition. It stated that as a general rule, preventive diplomacy is “consensual diplomatic and political action” with the aim of “preventing severe disputes and conflicts from arising between States which pose a serious threat to regional peace and stability; preventing such disputes and conflicts from escalating into armed confrontations; and limiting the intensity of violence and humanitarian problems resulting from such conflicts and preventing them from spreading geographically”. The workshop noted that while there was “some overlap between Preventive Diplomacy and Confidence Building Measures (CBMs)”, this was natural and said, “there appears to be little to be gained by trying to precisely define where CBMs stop and Preventive Diplomacy begins. Suffice it to say that Preventive Diplomacy goes well beyond traditional CBMs in attempting to prevent conflicts and/or to limit their escalation, spread, or recurrence.”32 In a statement prepared for the ARF, the workshop noted seven general principles of preventive diplomacy. These included the principle that preventive diplomacy is about diplomacy. It relies on diplomatic and peaceful methods such as persuasion, negotiation, enquiry, mediation, and conciliation. It is voluntary. Preventive Diplomacy practices are to be employed only at the request of the parties or with their consent. It is a non-coercive activity. Acts that require military action or the use of force, or other coercive practices, such as sanctions, are outside the scope of Preventive Diplomacy. … It is based upon respect for sovereignty and non-interference in the internal affairs of a State. This includes the principles of sovereign equality and territorial integrity. These recommendations were passed on to the ARF InterSessional Support Group (ISG) on CBMs which deliberated them at a meeting held in Singapore in April 2000. An ASEAN draft paper provided to participants included many of the recommendations from the various track two meetings mentioned above. It stated that there appeared to be a “general consensus 206

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that PD [Preventive Diplomacy] is consensual diplomatic and political action with the aim of: (1) preventing severe disputes and conflicts from arising between States which pose a severe threat to regional peace and stability; (2) preventing such disputes and conflicts from escalating into armed conflicts; and (3) preventing such disputes and conflicts from spreading geographically.”33 The paper also restated the CSCAP principles for preventive diplomacy: preventive diplomacy is about diplomacy; it is non-military and non-coercive; it is based on respect for sovereignty and noninterference; it works on the principles of consultation and consensus; it is voluntary; it requires trust and confidence; it rests upon international law; and it requires timeliness.34 Some responses to the ASEAN draft paper took issue with aspects of the definition. Several ARF members argued that the use of the words severe and serious were unnecessarily restrictive in describing the kinds of disputes that might require preventive diplomacy.35 Australia suggested, “the criterion for a dispute or conflict which warrants preventive diplomacy efforts is properly based on the degree of threat posed to regional peace and security.” Australia, New Zealand, the United States, and Japan also raised concerns about the requirement that consultations about any preventive diplomacy response to a conflict should be “extensive”, questioning how that related to the principle of timeliness, and noting that the requirement to achieve consensus among all ARF members could be onerous.36 The U.S. paper added, “when we define ‘consensus’, not now but some day in the future, we may wish to consider modified consensus approaches taken by other multilateral groups.”37 Another concern raised by Canada and others, was the reference in the draft that implied preventive diplomacy only applied to disputes among states. The Canadian submission argued that the concept also needed to be able to deal with intra-state conflicts that have transnational effects, as well as forms of domestic behaviour that threaten peace and stability, for example, “support of criminal activity, damage to a shared environment”.38 It also said preventive diplomacy should address what is to be done in the case of an “egregious example of serious mistreatment of people by their own government or by non-state actors”, and suggested revising the aims of preventive diplomacy to include “addressing gross violations of human security and dignity, [and] causing substantial suffering to innocents”.39 The Japanese submission likewise suggested that “the definition and meaning 207

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of ‘internal affairs of a state’ should be discussed in accordance with the evolution of international law.”40 The United States and New Zealand also made the case that declaring that preventive diplomacy was inherently “non-military” as well as “non-coercive” was unnecessary. The U.S. paper asked, “would this preclude the use of military helicopters to help provide food and medical assistance in a disaster scenario?”41 Preventive diplomacy has continued to evolve slowly within the ARF. In late 2005, a meeting of the (newly renamed) ISG on CBMs and Preventive Diplomacy noted that “non-traditional security challenges are among the most amenable issues for the application of Preventive Diplomacy in the ARF context.” Among these, it listed the risk of pandemic influenza, as well “trafficking in persons, arms smuggling, and drug trafficking, money laundering, smuggling of goods as well as illegal fishing and illegal trade in natural resources.”42 In an effort to actually move out of the CBM phase, the meeting also discussed the possibility of “moving … further on Preventive Diplomacy, starting with a ‘soft approach’, which could include tasking the ARF Unit in the ASEAN Secretariat to ‘undertake studies on PD, and … compiling a list of best practices including on traditional/non-traditional security issues, drawn from other bilateral/multilateral experiences’.” Participants at the ISG agreed to come to the next meeting of the ISG CBM/PD to discuss issues related to preventive diplomacy, “recognizing that any future proposals must take full account of the sovereignty of individual countries and that any future implementation of these proposals will take place at a pace comfortable to all.”43 Notes 1

2

3

4 5

Simon Tay, “Preventive Diplomacy and the ASEAN Regional Forum: Principles and Possibilities”, in The Next Stage: Preventive Diplomacy and Security Cooperation in the Asia-Pacific Region, edited by Amitav Acharya and Desmond Ball, Canberra Papers on Strategy and Defence no. 131 (Canberra: Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University; Singapore: Institute for Defence and Security Studies, Nanyang Technological University, 1999), p. 120. Quoted in Amitav Acharya, “Preventive Diplomacy: Concept, Theory, and Strategy”, Paper prepared for the International Conference on Preventive Diplomacy for Peace and Security in the Western Pacific, Taipei, 29–31 August 1996, p. 4. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, An Agenda for Peace: Preventive Diplomacy, Peacemaking and Peacekeeping (New York: United Nations, 1992). Tay, “Preventive Diplomacy and the ASEAN Regional Forum”, p. 120. CSCAP Singapore, “Review of Preventive Diplomacy Activities in the AsiaPacific Region”, in The Next Stage, edited by Acharya and Ball, p. 294.

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9 10

11

12 13

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17 18

19 20

21 22

23 24 25 26 27 28

29 30 31

Amitav Acharya, “Preventive Diplomacy: Background and Application to the Asia-Pacific Region”, in The Next Stage, edited by Acharya and Ball, pp. 19–20. He suggests these norms might include the use of multilateralism, noninterference and non-intervention, and the peaceful settlement of disputes. Ibid., p. 21. Ibid., p. 6. For more of a discussion of “preventive deployment” see Michael Lund, Preventing Violent Conflicts (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Institute for Peace, 1996). Tay, “Preventive Diplomacy and the ASEAN Regional Forum”, p. 121. For Evans’ use of the distinction, see his essay in The Next Stage, edited by Acharya and Ball, pp. 44–45. Japan Forum in International Relations, “Preventive Diplomacy and Japan’s Role: An Action Menu”, in The Next Stage, edited by Acharya and Ball, pp. 215– 77, 220, note 1. Emphasis added. Ibid. Ibid., pp. 224–25. While there is little accord on the question of the use of force, it is interesting to note that the separate term coercive diplomacy has traditionally been used to describe the combination of diplomacy with the willingness to use military measures. See the entry on “Coercive Diplomacy”. Dino Patti Djalal, “The Indonesian Experience in Facilitating a Peace Settlement between the Government of the Republic of the Philippines and the Moro National Liberation Front”, in The Next Stage, edited by Acharya and Ball, p. 207. Amitav Acharya, “Preventive Diplomacy: Concept, Theory and Strategy”, in The Next Stage, edited by Acharya and Ball, pp. 93–115, 103. Tay, “Preventive Diplomacy and the ASEAN Regional Forum”, p. 120. For a detailed description of a case of preventive diplomacy in action in the AsiaPacific, see Djalal, “The Indonesian Experience”, pp. 199–207. It is notable, however, that Djalal does not seem sure whether the case is better decribed as preventive diplomacy or conflict resolution. (p. 199). Tay, “Preventive Diplomacy and the ASEAN Regional Forum”, pp. 121–22. Shi Chunlai, “Preventive Diplomacy and the Asia-Pacific Region”, in The Next Stage, edited by Acharya and Ball, pp. 173–86, 176–78. Ibid., p. 178. “ASEAN Regional Forum: A Concept Paper”, para. 14, see also Annexes A and B, reproduced in Desmond Ball and Pauline Kerr, Presumptive Engagement: Australia’s Asia-Pacific Security Policy in the 1990s (St Leonards, NSW: Allen & Unwin, 1996), Appendix 2. “ASEAN Regional Forum: A Concept Paper”, para. 13. Chairman’s Summary, ASEAN Regional Forum Seminar on Preventive Diplomacy, Seoul, Republic of Korea, 8–10 May 1995, para. 4. Ibid. Ibid., para. 6. Ibid., para. 7. Ibid., para. 14. Ibid. See the ARF statements on preventive diplomacy, reproduced as Chapter 13 of The Next Stage, edited by Acharya and Ball, p. 285. Ibid., p. 288. Ibid. Ibid.

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32

33

34

35

36

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39 40

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Chairman’s Summary, CSCAP Workshop on Preventive Diplomacy, 28 February–2 March 1999, available online at (under the heading “meeting 5"). “Comments from Non-ASEAN ARF Countries on the ASEAN Draft Paper on Concept and Principles of Preventive Diplomacy”, ASEAN Regional Forum Inter-Sessional Support Group on Confidence-Building Measures, Singapore, 5–7 April 2000 (hereafter referred to as “ARF ISG on CBMs”) (author’s copy). ASEAN Draft (6 November 1999) “ASEAN Regional Forum Concept and Principles of Preventive Diplomacy”, Paper prepared for the ARF ISG on CBMs, pp. 3–4. See for example, the comments of Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and the United States. China by contrast, argued that the reference to “preventing severe disputes” should be deleted, as “disputes … often … naturally arise due to [the] existence of differences, [and] they could also refer to argument, debating in non-violent means. It is therefore neither realistic nor appropriate to set such ambitious mandates of ‘prevent[ing] them [from] arising’; besides, conflicts usually refer to armed actions, hence are not at the same level as disputes.” “China’s Comments on the Draft of the ARF: Concept and Principles of Preventive Diplomacy”, Paper prepared for the ARF ISG on CBMs, p. 1. “ASEAN Regional Forum: Concept and Principles of Preventive Diplomacy — Australian Comments on Singapore Draft Paper”, Paper prepared for the ARF ISG on CBMs, pp. 1–2. See also the Japanese, New Zealand, and American submissions. “ASEAN Regional Forum: Concept and Principles of Preventive Diplomacy — United States Comments on Singapore Draft Paper”, Paper prepared for the ARF ISG on CBMs, p. 2. Letter from Paul Heinbecker, Assistant Deputy Minister, Global and Security Policy, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, to Bilahari Kausikan, Deputy Minister (Southeast Asia), Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Singapore, 11 February 2000, p. 3. See also the submissions of New Zealand. Ibid. “ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) Japan’s Comments on ‘Concept and Principles of Preventive Diplomacy’ ”, Paper prepared for the ARF ISG on CBMs, p. 1. “ASEAN Regional Forum: Concept and Principles of Preventive Diplomacy — United States Comments on Singapore Draft Paper”, Paper prepared for the ARF ISG on CBMs, p. 2. Co-Chairs’ Summary Report of the First Meeting of the ASEAN Regional Forum Inter-Sessional Support Group on Confidence-Building Measures and Preventive Diplomacy, Honolulu, Hawaii, 17–19 October 2005, available online at . Ibid.

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SECURITY COMMUNITY

Initially developed by Karl Deutsch and his co-authors in their 1957 study Political Community and the North Atlantic Area.1 Put most simply, a security community exists when a group of states have forged a sense of community or collective identity, meaning they will settle their differences without resorting to force. A security community is not the same as an alliance or a collective defence grouping, although security communities can potentially grow out of and co-exist with these kind of military relationships.2 Deutsch identified two distinct categories of security communities: amalgamated and pluralistic. An amalgamated security community exists when there is a “formal merger of two or more previously independent units into a single larger unit, with some type of common government after amalgamation”.3 An example would be the United States, in which the fifty states have united under a single federal government. In a pluralistic security community, by contrast, the members of the community “retain the legal independence of separate governments.”4 Examples of a pluralistic security community include the relationship between the United States and Canada, Western Europe, and the Baltic States region. Most applications of Deutsch’s concept assume that a security community must meet several requirements. The first, and most 211

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important, is there must be a total absence of armed conflict, or prospects for such a conflict among the members who make up the community. This is not to suggest that these states will be without disagreements or disputes. Rather, it means some way has been found to prevent the governments involved from resorting to the use or threat of force. According to Deutsch, the community of states must share “dependable expectations of peaceful change” in their mutual relations and rule out the use of force as a means of problem solving. A second, and closely related, requirement for a security community is the absence of a competitive military build-up or arms race involving community members. Not only must the use of force no longer be considered within a security community, but preparations for it should also no longer be acceptable. More specifically, states must forego offensive weapons systems and must not engage in contingency planning or resource mobilization for war against other actors within the community. The third requirement is the existence of “formal or informal institutions and practices” which serve to reduce, prevent, manage, and resolve conflicts. This is a stringent requirement. As Amitav Acharya notes, “few regional groupings have performed this task with distinction and stood the test of time.” To meet this prerequisite, the institutions and practices must be sufficiently well established and durable enough to be able to assure peaceful change among members of the group, with “reasonable certainty” over a long period. Finally, a security community requires a “high degree of political and economic integration as a necessary pre-condition of peaceful relationships”. This does not necessarily mean any kind of supranational political authority, but could involve political cooperation on a range of issues or economic and functional integration, such as that found in free trade areas, customs unions, and economic unions. This requirement is based on the assumption that a high degree of economic and political interdependence increases the costs and reduces the benefits of using force between states, and will consequently promote the cooperative handling of security issues. In a book revisiting Deutsch’s concept, Adler and Barnett offer a three-stage model of how security communities develop.5 They argue that security communities begin in a “nascent” phase in which the peoples and/or governments of two or more states explore how they can coordinate their relations to increase their 212

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mutual security.6 In the process, they often create “third party” organizations or institutions to monitor and facilitate closer relations. Sometimes closer ties will be prompted by a cataclysmic event or by the prospect of war or a common threat, but where states develop close security ties, they also often develop other institutional and transactional linkages that bind them together (for example, in the areas of economics or the environment). Through these ties they come to accept the interdependence of their security. The development of a shared identity in turn can lead to the creation of more organizations and institutions, and may even create the desire to forge a security community. The second “ascendant” phase is marked by “increasingly dense networks, new institutions, and organizations that either reflect tighter military coordination and/or decreased fear that the other represents a threat”, and the growth of a shared belief in a collective identity and dependable expectations of peaceful change.7 As the linkages among the states become more intensive and more extensive, there is a concomitant growth in mutual trust. This can be seen in various institutions and organizations that reflect diffuse reciprocity, but according to Adler and Barnett, the key indicators of trust are found in the security sphere. They argue that growing evidence of trust in military matters can be found in those instances when military procurement decisions reflect interdependent military postures, and states begin to share intelligence information.8 In this phase, some of the monitoring and verification mechanisms established during the “nascent” phase of the community become less important and are even dropped. In the third or “mature” phase, Adler and Barnett expect to see evidence of a high degree of trust, the development of a belief in a collective community identity, dependable expectations of peaceful change, and multiple and diverse mechanisms and patterns of interaction that reinforce and reproduce the security community. In this phase, however, they distinguish between “loosely” and “tightly” coupled security communities.9 In the case of a loosely coupled community, they expect to see indicators of trust including: the increased use of multilateral decision-making mechanisms; unfortified borders between community members; changes in military planning, where contingency planning now excludes other members of the community; common definitions of threat; and the development of a discourse by the state that reflects the norms and the language of the community as a whole.10 213

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SECURITY COMMUNITY

In a tightly coupled security community, by contrast, while Adler and Barnett also expect to see many of these characteristics, they also anticipate a high level of military integration; the development of “cooperative security” policies with other community members and a “collective security” approach with respect to external threats;11 policy coordination against “internal” threats; the free movement of populations; and the growing “internationalization” of authority, decision-making, law, and public policy. There are few groupings of states that meet all the requirements of a pluralistic security community. The most frequently cited is the relationship between the United States and Canada. Despite sharing a 8,000-kilometre land border, there has been no expectation of war between Canada and the United States for almost a century. The border is undefended and the last contingency plans for a conflict go back to 1931. 12 Other well-established security communities include the relationship between Australia and New Zealand, the Baltic States, as well as the states of Western Europe.13 Andrew Hurrell has also argued that a “loosely coupled, if still imperfect” security community is emerging in the Mercado Commun del Sur (MERCOSUR) region of South America, which is based around a core relationship between Brazil and Argentina.14 In East Asia, discussion about security communities has focused on ASEAN. ASEAN’s traditional concept of regional order has centered on the creation of a security community in Southeast Asia, yet it has been the subject of some debate whether ASEAN constitutes a security community in the Deutschian sense of the word. Acharya notes that ASEAN’s experience also does not sit easily with the pathway suggested by Adler and Barnett.15 On the one hand, promoting a security community was undoubtedly the primary objective of the ASEAN founders when it was created in 1967. ASEAN can make the claim that no war has been fought between any of its members in the nearly forty years since then. The association has adopted a sophisticated discourse of regional community and there is also a high degree of economic and political interaction among the member states (at least at the élite level). While military-to-military ties are much more uneven, the ASEAN member states have “extensive arrangements for intelligence liaison, exchange, and cooperation,” ties that have increased since the 2002 Bali bombings.16 On the other hand, ASEAN does not meet many of the important indicators set out by Adler and Barnett. The regional community has come about despite the fact that for most of ASEAN’s history, its member 214

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states have had divergent threat perceptions. ASEAN has not had intense intra-community transactions that Deutsch would have expected to see; intra-ASEAN trade is significantly lower than trade with non-ASEAN states. The member states continue to emphasize the importance of their individual sovereignty. More seriously, bilateral tensions persist in Southeast Asia. There are high levels of arms expenditure and long-standing territorial disputes.17 Furthermore, the relatively young multilateral securitybuilding dialogues in the region may not meet the requirement of a durable conflict-resolution institution. These doubts were strengthened with the expansion of ASEAN to include Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar.18 While these factors raise questions about ASEAN’s qualification to be a security community, the existence of disputes and latent conflicts should not outrightly disqualify ASEAN’s claim. As Acharya notes, “the distinguishing feature of a security community is its ability to manage any conflicts within the region peacefully, rather than the absence of conflict per se.”19 While ASEAN’s experience does not conform to many of the expectations set out by Deutsch, and does not meet some of the more stringent requirements in Adler and Barnett’s typology, Acharya argues it can be reasonably described as a “nascent” security community.20 The language of security communities briefly appeared in U.S. security strategy in the Asia-Pacific during the Clinton administration. In his testimony before the U.S. Senate’s Armed Services Committee on 7 March 2000, the then Commander in Chief of U.S. Pacific Command, Admiral Dennis Blair, said that his “vision of the way ahead for military cooperation in the AsiaPacific is the promotion of … security communities.” He defined these in an orthodox fashion, as “groups of nations that have dependable expectations of peaceful change. They genuinely do not plan to fight one another. They are willing to put their collective efforts into resolving regional points of friction; contribute armed forces and other aid to peacekeeping and humanitarian operations to support diplomatic solutions; and plan, train, and exercise their armed forces together for these operations.” Blair went on to say security communities may be “alliance signatories, participants in a non-military organization such as the ASEAN Regional Forum [ARF], or groups of nations joined by geographic considerations or common concerns. They are committed to policy coordination, including combined military cooperation on specific regional security issues, to 215

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advance peaceful development over time without major conflict.” He later added that the U.S. approach to the conflict in East Timor “showed the potential of security communities”.21 In a speech to the Pacific Basin Economic Council (PBEC) in Hawaii on 21 March 2000, Blair expanded on his thinking. He said, “security communities are appropriate for the Asia-Pacific region since the members of a security community need not be signatories to a security treaty. They can be based on a nonmilitary organization such as ASEAN or the ARF. They can simply be groupings of nations who share a common geographic concern or functional concerns as they work together.” He said there were a number of key attributes that security communities all share. “They require a shared interest and a basic level of trust. Successful transactions benefit both parties. They are not zero sum, and success builds confidence and encourages more cooperation. I think this commercial model is important to keep in mind as we apply the idea of security communities, where much of our thinking in the past has been ‘great power’, ‘national power’, ‘division’, ‘zero sum’, and ‘my gain is your loss’.”22 Just as the use of the term appeared to be developing momentum in U.S. policy, it disappeared from official speeches. National Security Council officials apparently opposed use of the term for two reasons.23 First, they argued that the best example of an existing security community — Western Europe — was created because of the perception of a common threat, something which is not the case in the Asia-Pacific. Second, they claimed that the term security community was linguistically unacceptable to regional states because of its connotations of Western institutions. An alternative phrase “enhanced regional cooperation” began to be used by the Pacific Command towards the end of 2000, but quickly fell out of use. Ironically, given the NSC’s concerns, the term “security community” was resurrected most recently by Indonesian scholars and officials. In June 2003, Indonesian academic Rizal Sukma gave a paper to a conference in New York entitled ”The Future of ASEAN: Towards a Security Community”, which noted growing frustrations with ASEAN’s performance. To overcome these difficulties, Sukma prescribed a “new political and security blueprint” calling for ASEAN to set itself the goal of becoming a “security community within the next 20 years or so”. He argued that ASEAN should relax some of its central norms, for example by permitting the use of the “ASEAN-X” 216

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formulation for security as well as economic decisions and by strengthening its institutional machinery. The proposal also called for the creation of a number of new regional bodies under the ASEAN umbrella, including an ASEAN Peacekeeping Training Centre, an informal ASEAN Defence Ministers Meeting (ADM), an ASEAN Maritime Surveillance Centre, and an ASEAN Centre for Combatting Terrrorism. The paper called on the Indonesian government to develop a plan of action that could make such a community a reality.24 Many of these proposals were included in an Indonesian Foreign Ministry paper that was put before the 36th ASEAN Ministerial Meeting (AMM) in Cambodia. The paper called on ASEAN to “explore innovative ways to into conflict resolution, for sharpening ASEAN cooperation in human security and defence cooperation, for building national and regional capacity in dealing with internal conflicts and for building a more integrated security and defence institution.” Some of this language subsequently found its way into “Bali Concord II”, an agreement endorsed by ASEAN Leaders at their 9th Summit in Bali in 2003. Bali Concord II says the ASC proposal “is envisaged to bring ASEAN’s political and security cooperation to a higher plane to ensure that countries in the region live at peace with one another and with the world at large in a just, democratic and harmonious environment.”25 It calls on all ASEAN members “to explore innovative ways to increase its security and establish modalities for the ASEAN Security Community” offering a suggestions “norms-setting, conflict prevention, approaches to conflict resolution and post-conflict peace building.” Other than these rhetorical references, however, the declaration does not identify any specific initiatives that could help build a security community. As one commentator notes, Bali Concord II “is a very conservative document… there is no significant movement beyond existing norms and approaches.”26 Following Bali Concord II, ASEAN produced an “ASEAN Security Community Plan of Action” with an attached list of activities for moving towards the ASC goal. The “Plan of Action” states that it seeks to promote “ASEAN-wide political and security cooperation in consonance with the ASEAN Vision 2020 rather than a defence pact, military alliance or a joint foreign policy”. It calls for actions in six areas: “political development, shaping and sharing of norms, conflict prevention, conflict resolution, postconflict peace building, and implementing mechanisms”. In terms of implementation, it does not lay out any particular institutional 217

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reforms, but says the ASEAN Ministerial Meeting should take the “necessary follow-up measures to implement this Plan of Action including consultation and coordination with other relevant ASEAN ministerial bodies; to set up ad-hoc groups as appropriate; and to report annually the progress of implementation to the ASEAN Summit; as well as to introduce new measures and activities to strengthen the ASEAN Security Community as appropriate”.27 In an attached Annex, a wide range of specific activities are identified, ranging from statements of principle (for example calling for the “strengthening [of] democratic institutions and popular participation”) through to regional legal measures (the creation of an ASEAN Extradition Treaty and an ASEAN Convention on Counter Terrorism).28 ASEAN has formally set itself the target of becoming a security community by 2020. In the words of ASEAN Secretary-General Ong Keng Yong, “It may not be smooth sailing, but the end goal is on the horizon. ASEAN’s socialisation and family attributes will brace us up and facilitate our way forward.”29 Notes 1

2

3 4 5

6

Karl Deutsch, et al., Political Community and the North Atlantic Area: International Organization in the Light of Historical Experience (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1957). According to both Ronald J. Yalem and Donald J. Puchala, Richard Van Wagenen was the first to use the term security community in his book, Research in the International Organization Field (Princeton, New Jersey: Center for Research on World Political Institutions, 1952): see Ronald J. Yalem, “Regional Security Communities and World Order”, in The Year Book of International Affairs 1979, edited by George W. Keeton and George Scharzenberger (London: Stevens and Sons, 1979), pp. 217–23; see also Donald J. Puchala, International Politics Today (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1971), p. 165. Amitav Acharya, the leading authority on security communities in Southeast Asia, argues that the term was “developed most systematically” by Deutsch and his colleagues. See Amitav Acharya, “A Regional Security Community in Southeast Asia?”, Journal of Strategic Studies 18, no. 3 (September 1995), Special Issue on “The Transformation of Security in the Asia/Pacific Region”, edited by Desmond Ball, pp. 175–200, 176, 192–93, note 5. For a discussion of the differences between alliances, security communities, and defence communities, see Amitav Acharya, “Association of Southeast Asian Nations: Security Community or Defence Community?”, Pacific Affairs 64, no. 2 (Summer 1991): 159–78. Deutsch, et al., Political Community, p. 6. Ibid., p. 5. Emanuel Adler and Michael N. Barnett, eds., Security Communities (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998); see also their “Governing Anarchy: A Research Agenda for the Study of Security Communities”, Ethics and International Affairs 10 (1996): 63–98. Ibid., p. 86.

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7 8 9 10 11

12

13

14

15

16

17 18

19 20

21

Ibid., p. 89. Ibid., p. 91. Ibid., p. 92. Ibid., pp. 92–93. Here Adler and Barnett’s external focus suggests they are using collective security as a synonym for collective defence. For a discussion on the theoretical differences between the two, and the decline of conceptual clarity around collective security, see the entry on “Collective Security” in this volume. See Sean M. Shore, “No Fences Make Good Neighbours: The Development of the U.S.–Canadian Security Community, 1871–1940”, in Security Communities, edited by Adler and Barnett, pp. 333–67; see also Kalevi J. Holsti, International Politics: A Framework for Analysis, 6th ed. (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: PrenticeHall, 1992), p. 391. See the chapters by Richard Higgott and Kim Richard Nossal on Australia and Ole Waever on Western Europe in Security Communities, edited by Adler and Barnett; see also Emanuel Adler, “Europe’s New Security Order: A Pluralistic Security Community”, in The Future of European Security, edited by Beverly Crawford (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), pp. 287–326. Andrew Hurrell, “An Emerging Security Community in South America?” in Security Communities, edited by Adler and Barnett, pp. 228–64, 260. Amitav Acharya, “Imagining a Security Community: Collective Identity and Conflict Resolution in Southeast Asia”, Unpublished manuscript prepared as a chapter for “Security Communities in Comparative and Historical Perspective”, edited by Emanuel Adler and Michael Barnett, p. 5. Desmond Ball, “Building Blocks for Regional Security: An Australian Perspective on Confidence and Security Building Measures (CSBMs) in the Asia/Pacific Region”, Canberra Papers on Strategy and Defence no. 83, Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Research School of Pacific Studies, Australian National University, 1991, p. 35; on military-to-military ties see Amitav Acharya, A New Regional Order in Southeast Asia: ASEAN in the Post-Cold War Era, Adelphi Paper no. 279 (London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1993), pp. 69–73. The debate about an ASEAN security community was given a new twist when a line in the 1997 Indonesian Defence White Paper noted that while “ASEAN was not intended to be a joint security organization current conditions encourage the expansion of ASEAN cooperation to include a security dimension.” While some analysts claimed that this could mean the future creation of an ASEAN military pact, Indonesian officials denied the suggestion. One senior Indonesian Defence Ministry official quoted in the Far Eastern Economic Review said the line referred to the fact that ASEAN had become “a security community in the widest sense”. See John McBeth, “Secure Community”, Far Eastern Economic Review, 14 August 1997, p. 23. Acharya, “A Regional Security Community”, p. 191. For a discussion of some of the problems and challenges facing an expanded ASEAN, see Sukhumbhand Paribatra, “From ASEAN Six to ASEAN Ten: Issues and Prospects”, Contemporary Southeast Asia 16, no. 3 (December 1994): 243–58. Acharya, “Imagining a Security Community”, p. 20. For a more detailed evaluation of the pros and cons of this debate, see ibid., pp. 25–27. Statement of Admiral Dennis C. Blair, U.S. Navy Commander in Chief, U.S. Pacific Command, before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Fiscal Year 2001 Posture Statement, 7 March 2000. See also Dennis Blair and John Hanley,

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23

24

25

26

27

28

29

“From Wheels to Webs: Reconstructing Asia-Pacific Security Arrangements“, Washington Quarterly 24, no. 1 (Winter 2001). In a speech in Malaysia in 1999, Blair used the term “strategic communities” seemingly in place of security communities. Remarks by Admiral Dennis C. Blair, U.S. Navy Commander in Chief, U.S. Pacific Command, at the Institute of Strategic and International Studies, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 8 September 1999. These views were apparently raised with Blair at a meeting in Hawaii on 17 July 2000. Rizal Sukma, “The Future of ASEAN: Towards a Security Community”, Paper presented to the conference on “ASEAN Cooperation: Challenges and Prospects in the Current International Situation”, New York, 3 June 2003. Available online at . “Declaration of ASEAN Concord II”, Bali, 7 October 2003, available online at . Amitav Acharya, “The Role of Regional Organizations: Are Views Changing?” Paper prepared for the Pacific Symposium 2004, National Defense University, Washington, D.C., 22–23 April 2004. ASEAN Secretariat, “ASEAN Security Community Plan of Action”, available online at . ASEAN Secretariat, “Annex for ASEAN Security Community Plan of Action”, available online at . Ong Keng Yong, “Achieving Security: The ASEAN Way”, Pointer: Journal of the Singapore Armed Forces 31, no. 1 (2005).

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TERRORISM

Terrorism is now one of the most frequently used terms in the contemporary Asia-Pacific security discourse. It is also strongly contested, with little international consensus on what constitutes either an act of terrorism or a terrorist group. It is clear that terrorism involves some sort of violent activity, but what kind of violence is to be labelled terrorism is a key question.1 Unhelpfully, interpretations range from “any violent threat to existing order” to the assertion that the term “terrorism” is merely a pejorative label with no substantive meaning.2 The origins of the word “terrorism” are usually traced to the French Revolution. In 1792 the Jacobins came to power and launched a bloody purge of counter-revolutionaries that came to be known simply as “the terror”. Led by Robespierre, the terror was described as “nothing but justice, prompt, severe and inflexible” and thousands were executed at the guillotine. Edmund Burke’s 1795 condemnation of the revolutionaries as “those hellhounds called terrorists [who] are let loose on the people” is the first recorded use of the term.3 Attempts to define terrorism for legal purposes go back at least as far as the League of Nations. An international convention debated by the League in 1937 described “terrorism” as “all criminal acts directed against a State and intended or calculated to 221

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create a state of terror in the minds of particular persons or a group of persons or the general public”. However, the convention never came into force because of a lack of ratification by member states.4 Despite ongoing disagreement, there have been a number of attempts to define terrorism by international bodies such as the United Nations. Most of these modern definitions have a common core, namely that terrorism involves the use of violence, usually against civilians or non-combatants, for the purpose of provoking a state of terror in order to advance a specific political, religious or ideological cause. A small sample of national and international definitions is offered below. In 1994 the UN General Assembly adopted resolution 49/60, Measures to Eliminate International Terrorism. This declared that: Criminal acts intended or calculated to provoke a state of terror in the general public, a group of persons or particular persons for political purposes are in any circumstance unjustifiable, whatever the considerations of a political, philosophical, ideological, racial, ethnic, religious or any other nature that may be invoked to justify them.5 The International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism, which came into force in April 2002, defines terrorism as an “act intended to cause death or serious bodily injury to a civilian, or to any other person not taking an active part in the hostilities in a situation of armed conflict, when the purpose of such act, by its nature or context, is to intimidate a population, or to compel a Government or an international organization to do or to abstain from doing any act”. Since the attacks of September 2001, a number of Asia-Pacific governments and regional institutions (both at the track one and track two level) have offered their own definitions. In its annual Patterns of Global Terrorism report, the U.S. State Department acknowledges that, “no one definition of terrorism has gained universal acceptance.” For the purposes of its analysis, however, the report uses a definition of terrorism contained in Title 22 of the United States Code, Section 2656f(d). It says, “terrorism means premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by sub-national groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience.”6 Interestingly, the

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report says that “terrorist acts are only one part of a larger phenomenon of politically inspired violence and, at times, the line between the two can become hard to draw.”7 In Executive Order 13224, the U.S. Government takes a broader approach, defining terrorism as a crime not simply against life, but also against “property, or infrastructure; [that] appears to be intended (a) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (b) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (c) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, kidnapping, or hostage-taking”.8 In Southeast Asia, attempts to forge a common definition of “terrorism” have met with mixed success. Many regional agreements and statements stress that terrorism is a serious threat and pledge to cooperate to prevent, disrupt and defeat it, but the same agreements usually side-step the tricky question of how to define terrorism. As Singaporean Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong noted, “there is no overarching strategic consensus on the threat of terrorism and the means to combat it.”9 Then-Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Badawi hinted at some of the challenges in a speech in 2002, saying it was a “great irony that the world still cannot define one of the greatest enemies of humankind today: terrorism”, adding that “the politics of language dictates that this stalemate persists. […] There are definitions of terrorism that will implicate perpetrators of state terror such as the Israeli regime. This is politically unacceptable to some. There are also definitions that will identify freedom fighters and heroes of wars of liberation as terrorists. This, too, is politically unacceptable to some.”10 Despite these difficulties, there is abiding interest in finding a common definition. In a speech in June 2004, Malaysia’s Foreign Minister Syed Albar said “a universally accepted definition of terrorism is important to enable the international community to take concerted and targeted action against those who have been defined as terrorists.”11 Singapore and the Philippines have reportedly expressed caution about a common definition, apparently worried it could limit their ability to respond to act against new forms of terrorism in the future.12 A representative from Myanmar described the discussions within ASEAN over a definition as “very controversial”, but said Myanmar would follow the consensus.13

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TERRORISM

While consensus on a common meaning has proven illusive at the governmental level, the Track-Two Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia-Pacific (CSCAP) has put forward what it calls a “useful working definition” of terrorism. It says it is: The use of violence, often against people not directly involved in a conflict, by parties which generally claim to have high political or religious purposes, and believe that creating a climate of terror will assist attainment of their objectives. Terrorism of this kind almost always appears to be non-governmental, but terrorism can also be conducted by states. Movements engaging in terrorism may also have a degree of clandestine support from governments.14 Some scholars, particularly those writing since 11 September 2001, have distinguished between what they call “new terrorism” and “old terrorism”. According to Jonathon Stevenson, “the 11 September attacks drew a bright line between the ‘new terrorism’ practised by al-Qaeda and the ‘old terrorism’ exemplified by groups like the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), Euskadi ta Askatasuna (ETA) and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eeelam.” One aspect often associated with “new terrorism” is the assumption that it “is not amenable to political negotiation”.15 Consequently “whereas political approaches to representatives of ‘old’ terrorist groups could sometimes help tame them, only hard counter-terrorist measures such as law-enforcement and intelligence cooperation could contain the threat of new terrorism.”16 Singaporean Deputy Prime Minister Tony Tan has drawn the same distinction in slightly different language, saying “the terrorism we face today is totally different in scope and nature from the terrorist threats faced by nations in previous years. … What confronts the world today is an unprecedented terrorist threat that is ideological in nature, protracted in duration, global in scope, sophisticated in method, and catastrophic in outcome. … The terrorism we face today is a force that has already killed thousands of innocents. It is a movement whose tactics and trajectories will constantly change, evolve and mutate. To prevail, we need a comprehensive yet sustainable approach backed by clear thinking and long term planning.”17

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In addition to complex debates about how best to define the term, the Asia-Pacific has also seen robust debate and discussion about the causes of terrorism. Some have argued that terrorism is primarily motivated by religious or political ideologies, while others have stressed socio-economic deprivation and grievances. Speaking at the 2004 Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, the Japanese Defence Minister Shigeru Ishiba said “when I give my thoughts to the nature of terrorism, I believe that it lies in the denial of freedom and democracy. Unlike some people argue, terrorism is not born from poverty.”18 This view can be contrasted with the analysis of Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Razak, who said a critical factor in Malaysia’s defeat of militant extremists [was its] success in balancing economic growth with social equity. […] It is no surprise that terrorism has taken root in some of the poorest regions in the Muslim world. It is therefore in the interests of the most advanced economies of the world, to ensure that these countries are able to achieve balanced, sustained economic growth on the back of an industrious, skilled population with middle class sensibilities. Only then can we begin to extinguish the fire of extremism in these societies.19 In a visit to Washington in May 2003, Philippines President Arroyo argued, if we are going to fight terrorism successfully and achieve peace, what is important is that we … have a comprehensive approach. Because terrorism will spread like a contagion, it will spread like SARS, if we don’t address the poverty that represents the breeding grounds for terrorism. In the Philippines, terrorism thrives and gets its recruits, not coincidentally, in the provinces that are the poorest, in the region that is the poorest in our country. That is why I appreciate the support of President Bush not only for the security assistance in the war against terrorism, but also in the efforts to fight poverty and the socio-economic ills that plague southern Philippines especially.20

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TERRORISM

Former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir, on the other hand, has put more emphasis on political grievance, saying, “the terrorists of today are not wild-eyed, illiterate fanatics who merely obey the orders of their evil leaders. They are educated, well-off, normal people with wives and families to love and look after. […] Their known leaders and their group may be eliminated but until the causes are removed there is no guarantee new groups will form to commit acts of terror.”21 He added, “many Muslims are involved in acts of terror simply because presently Muslims and the Islamic countries are being oppressed most. In Bosnia-Herzegovina, Palestine, Iraq, Somalia, Sudan, Libya, Iran, India and Chechnya, it is the Muslims who are the injured parties. In fact their terrorism is their reaction to what is to them acts of terror against them.”22 The 11 September attacks provoked debate about the meaning of terrorism among Chinese thinkers. According to one account, “there is a general consensus [in China] that Western definitions and studies of terrorism tend to focus solely or mainly on the phenomena of violence, especially individual retaliatory actions in developed countries.”23 This is at the expense of attempts to “explore the deep roots of terrorism, neglecting the antagonisms generated by the deep-seated implications of cultures, religions and international institutions”.24 Notes 1

2 3 4

5

6

7 8

9

10

11

J. Bower Bell, “Trends on Terror: The Analysis of Political Violence”, World Politics (1984): 476–88, 478. Ibid. Edmund Burke, Letters on a Regicide Peace (1795) iv. Wks. IX. 75. A Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of Terrorism, adopted on 16 November 1937 by the League of Nations’ International Conference on the Repression of Terrorism. United Nations General Assembly Resolution 49/50, “Measures to Eliminate International Terrorism”, 9 December 1994. Part I, Sections 2 and 3. Patterns of Global Terrorism 2003 (Department of State, Washington, D.C., 2004), p. xii. Patterns of Global Terrorism 2003, p. x. Executive Order 13224, signed by President Bush on 23 September 2001, text available online at the Department of State website . Singaporean Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong, “Keynote Address at the Third International Institute of Strategic Studies Asia Security Conference”, Singapore, 4 June 2004. Asian Political News, “ASEAN Ministers Begin Talks on Combating Terrorism”, 27 May 2002. Speech by the Hon. Datuk Seri Syed Hamid Albar, Minister Of Foreign Affairs Of Malaysia on the Foreign Policy Of Malaysia at the XII General Assembly of

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the Organization of the Asia-Pacific News Agencies (Oana), Istana Hotel, Kuala Lumpur, 8 June 2004. Agence-France Presse, “ASEAN Security Ministers to Explore Anti-terror Pact”, The Daily Times [date unclear]. Ibid. The definition was taken from a report by CSCAP’s International Terrorism Study Group that met in Kuala Lumpur, 25–26 March 2002. It is available in “Terrorism in Southeast Asia: Perspectives from the Region”, Issues and Insights 3 no. 2 (Pacific Forum: CSIS, Honolulu, 2003) Appendix D. Jonathan Stevenson, “Pragmatic Counter-terrorism”, in Survival 43, no. 4 (Winter 2001): 35–48. Stevenson, “Pragmatic Counter-terrorism”, op. cit. Dr Tony Tan Keng Yam, Singaporean Deputy Prime Minister and Coordinator for Security and Defence, Speech given at the Shangri-La Dialogue in June 2004. Speech by Japanese Minister of State for Defence, Shigeru Ishiba, at the IISS Asia Security Conference, Singapore, 5 June 2004. Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defence for Malaysia, Yab Data Stri Najib Tun Razak, “Defence Intelligence and the Campaign against Terrorism”, a speech given at the Shangri-La Dialogue Plenary Session, 6 June 2004, Singapore. Transcript of Joint Press Conference between President Arroyo and President Bush, East Room, White House, Washington, D.C., 19 May 2003, available online at . Dr Mahathir bin Mohamad, Prime Minister of Malaysia, “Islam, Terrorism and Malaysia’s Response”, New York, 4 February 2002. Ibid. Li Dongyan, “Kongbu zhuyi wenti guojishehui mianlin de zhongda nanti” [The issue of terrorism — a serious problem facing the international community], in Guoji Xingshi Huangpishu [Yellow Book of World Situation], edited by Li Shenming and Wang Yizhou (Beijing, Social Sciences Documentation Publishing, 2002)], pp. 126–47 cited in Joseph Y. S. Ching, “Broadening the Concept of Security in East and Southeast Asia: the impact of the Asian Financial Crisis and the September 11 Incident”, Journal of Contemporary China 15, no. 46 (February 2006): 89–111, 104–05. Ibid.

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TRACK ONE

Refers to the official governmental channel for political and security dialogue in the region. Participants in Track One meetings attend as representatives of their respective governments. Discussions, though often informal in terms of style or setting, are assumed to be official statements of national policy. In East Asia and the AsiaPacific, Track One meetings and organizations include the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), the ASEAN+3 (or Ten+3) Process, the Shanghai Cooperation Organizations, the Six-Party Talks, Asian Cooperation Dialogue (ACD) and Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC). In December 2005 the first East Asian Summit (EAS) also brought together leaders from around the region. In Northeast Asia, the Trilateral Coordination and Oversight Group (TCOG) manages relations between the Republic of Korea, Japan, and the United States at the official level.1 The principal region-wide Track-One security forum is the ARF, which held its first meeting in Bangkok in 1994.2 It involves an annual ministerial-level discussion, and member states are usually represented by their foreign minister and two senior officials. As the forum’s name suggests, ASEAN retains a special position within the ARF. The Chairman’s Statement issued after the Brunei ARF meeting in 1995 noted that “ASEAN undertook to 229

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be the driving force.” The ARF has no permanent secretariat but is supported by an ARF Unit located within the ASEAN Secretariat in Jakarta.3 The chair of the ARF rotates annually through the ASEAN capitals in alphabetical order. The ARF has a number of smaller track one sub-groups under its auspices, including an annual inter-sessional Senior Officials Meeting (SOM) which prepares the agenda and meeting arrangements for the ARF. In addition to the SOM, the ARF sponsors Inter-Sessional Meetings (ISMs) on Counter-Terrorism and Transnational Crime, Disaster Relief, and an Inter-Sessional Support Group (ISG) on Confidence-Building Measures and Preventive Diplomacy. It also holds a wide range of workshops on topics ranging from peacekeeping to small arms and light weapons.4 Lower in profile than the ARF meetings are the many multilateral governmental channels that bring together military officials from the region. These include the Western Pacific Naval Symposium (WPNS) and the Pacific Armies Management Seminar (PAMS) for military officers. Similarly, annual “quadrilaterals” bring together representatives of policy planning staffs from the so-called like-minded foreign ministries of Australia, Canada, Japan, and South Korea. Notes 1

2

3

4

TCOG was the term given to this grouping during the Clinton administration. These meetings have become less common as relations between the ROK and Japan have grown cooler. Ralph Cossa notes that the term TCOG seems to have fallen out of official use. Ralph Cossa, “Let Freedom (and Democracy) Ring!” Comparative Connections 8, no. 1 (April 2006). For ARF documents and information, see . For a statement of the ARF Unit’s Terms of Reference, see . For a calendar of ARF meetings, see .

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TRACK ONE-AND-A-HALF

A term coined by Paul Dibb, then head of the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre (SDSC) at the Australian National University in Canberra. It was originally used in the context of a seminar sanctioned by the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) on regional confidence-building that took place in Canberra in November 1994. There are, however, at least two interpretations of the term’s meaning operating in the region: one focusing on the content of the agendas, the other based on the background of the participants. Based on content, the key question is “who sets the agenda?”1 According to this definition, Track One-and-a-half meetings are non-official meetings usually attended by officials (acting in their private capacities) and academics, where the agenda is set by the officials to focus on specific issues of concern to the official track (Track One). Examples of this include the Northeast Asia Cooperation Dialogue (NEACD) process and (confusingly) meetings that are often referred to as coming under the ARF’s Track Two. To further complicate matters, at a meeting between Chinese and Canadian officials in 1998, one Chinese participant stated his view that the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific (CSCAP) was a Track One-and-a-half institution. This approach perhaps suggests that regional security institutions have no fixed “track identity”. Whether CSCAP, for example, is a Track 231

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Two or a Track One-and-a-half institution, would presumably be a question of the content of the agenda at a given meeting.2 A second meaning of the term hinges on the background of a meeting’s participants. In this context, a Track One-and-a-half meeting is an unofficial meeting dominated by officials participating in their private capacities. For example, while the Canberra seminar mentioned above was unofficial (the channel usually referred to as Track Two), most of the participants were military personnel or government officials from ARF member states, not academics, journalists, or analysts from regional policy institutes. The fact that they were mostly, although not exclusively, officials attending a seminar sanctioned by a Track One organization (the ARF) meant that the seminar was closer to the official channel of dialogue than most Track Two meetings. Indeed, it was as close as it could be to the official track without becoming Track One. A slightly different interpretation along these lines was put forward in an article in Jane’s Defence Weekly. This suggested that “ ‘Track Two’ events include the participation of academics and non-governmental organizations, while ‘Track One-and-a-half’ events see some government officials added.”3 This interpretation does not quite square with the participation at the Canberra seminar, however, which was made up mostly of foreign ministry officials and defence practitioners and included only “selected academics”. As a practical matter, the difference between these definitions may be only a question of emphasis. Presumably when the majority of participants at a meeting are officials (even if they are there in their private capacities), then it will be very likely that the meeting’s agenda will also be determined by officials. Moreover, the proliferation of “ARF Track Two” meetings (a non-official channel of dialogue directly orchestrated by the ARF) calls into question the need for the term Track One-and-a-half. Notes 1

2

3

This point was made by Brian Job during discussions at the Second CanadaChina Seminar (CANCHIS II), Toronto, January 1998. This definition is based on discussions with Chinese and Canadian academics and officials at the Second Canada-China Seminar (CANCHIS II), Toronto, January 1998. Jane’s Defence Weekly, 24 June 1995.

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TRACK TWO

According to Louise Diamond and John McDonald, the term was invented in 1982 by Joseph Montville of the Foreign Service Institute to describe “methods of diplomacy that were outside the formal governmental system”.1 According to their definition, Track Two refers to the “non-governmental, informal and unofficial contacts, and activities between private citizens or groups of individuals, sometimes called citizen diplomats or nonstate actors.” Its basic premise is the assumption that “the expertise for dealing successfully with conflict and peacemaking does not reside solely within government personnel or procedures.”2 In the literature on Asia-Pacific security, Track Two (or the Second Track as it is often called) is the “unofficial” channel for political, economic, and security dialogue in the region. Secondtrack meetings and organizations are typically made up of scholars, journalists, and occasionally politicians, as well as civilian and military officials acting in their “private” or “unofficial” capacities.3 As Pauline Kerr notes, Track Two in the Asia-Pacific is better described as an unofficial rather than nongovernmental channel, because it is difficult to label organizations or individuals as “government” or “non-government.” Membership of 233

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forums and organizations is usually described as being “mixed” or “blended”, in that the participants include academics, other intellectuals, and government officials, usually from foreign ministries and occasionally from defence ministries, attending in their “private capacities” …. In addition, some “academic” members have a number of identities: also holding government and industry positions or acting as regular policy consultants to governments. Some come from institutes which, despite being labelled non-governmental, are government funded and in some cases the research arm of foreign and defence ministries.4 The second-track process is based upon principles of informality, inclusivity, and non-attribution, in order to encourage frank debate and openness by the participants. It works from the assumption that the unofficial status of the meetings will permit the discussion of subjects that might be considered too sensitive or controversial for official discourse or formal negotiations. Track Two encourages the floating of “trial balloon” policy proposals and “has helped establish building blocks for supporting cooperative arrangements at the official level”.5 It is also said to help “socialize” the idea of regional co-operation among regional élites.6 The policy relevance of the subjects discussed is vital. As Desmond Ball has noted, “the prospects for implementation should count for as much as the intrinsic worth of any ideas generated in the second-track process.”7 While individual governments often fund Track Two events and are involved in shaping their agendas, the leading secondtrack organizations are usually universities, private institutions, or think-tanks that have an arm’s length relationship with their national governments. Several scholars have argued that the close relationship between states and track two institutions restricts the autonomy of these groups and limits their ability to advance critical thinking. As Herman Kraft has noted, “this problem is becoming more evident as the distinction between official and non-official tracks becomes increasingly blurred.”8 According to the Dialogue and Research Monitor: An Inventory of Multilateral Meetings on Asia Pacific Security Issues, second-track meetings take place at the rate of about four per week.9 Some are small, single-issue groups, such as on the security of sea lanes or the Indonesia-organized workshops on the South China Sea. One 234

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of the largest second-track meetings is the annual Asia-Pacific Roundtable hosted by the ASEAN Institutes of Strategic and International Studies (ASEAN-ISIS), which involves hundreds of participants from throughout the region.10 Bunn Nagara has described the strength of the roundtable as lying in “its seemingly understated and latent potential for influence in official circles …. The substance, tenor, and direction of the dialogue filter[s] back into the relevant official circles of each country …. This mode of operation … is a subtle and nuanced mode, consonant with what is culturally a highly nuanced region.”11 Japanese and U.S. institutions are the most active organizers of both Track Two dialogue and research, followed by Singapore.12 The most elaborate second track organization is the Council for Security Co-operation in the Asia Pacific (CSCAP). The concept for CSCAP was developed at a conference in Seoul in November 1992 and formally announced in June 1993 by its ten founding members. According to Paul Evans, CSCAP is “the most ambitious proposal to date for a regularized, focused, and inclusive nongovernmental process on Asia-Pacific security matters”.13 CSCAP aims to create a more structured security dialogue process, open to all countries and territories in the region. Each of its member committees in turn is supposed to have a “broad-based” national member committee made up of officials, academics, journalists and analysts. CSCAP’s work is carried out by study groups that hold regular meetings at which issues and proposals are discussed.The ARF has also added to the already busy Track Two schedule by holding several second track meetings of its own, a development which has further blurred the already imprecise line between official and non-official dialogues. Finally, there is increasingly track two activity on an East Asian basis, including the development of the Network of East Asian Think-tanks (NEAT) process. NEAT is made up of representatives from individual think-tanks in the ASEAN+3 countries. It is organized into six working groups, with each sponsored by an individual country.14 Notes 1

2 3

Louise Diamond and John McDonald, Multi-Track Diplomacy: A Systems Approach to Peace (West Hartford: Kumarian Press, 1996), pp. 1–2. Ibid., p. 2. See, for example, Stuart Harris, “The Regional Role of Track Two Diplomacy”, in The Role of Security and Economic Cooperation Structures in the Asia Pacific Region, edited by Hadi Soesastro and Anthony Bergin (Jakarta: Centre for Strategic and International Studies, 1996); Desmond Ball, “A New Era in

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TRACK TWO 4

5

6

7

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9 10

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Confidence Building: The Second Track Process in the Asia/Pacific Region”, Security Dialogue 25, no. 2, (1994). Pauline Kerr, “The Security Dialogue in the Asia-Pacific”, The Pacific Review 7, no. 4 (1994): 399. Herman Joseph S. Kraft, “Track Three Diplomacy and Human Rights in Southeast Asia: The Case of the Asia Pacific Coalition for East Timor”, Paper presented at the Global Development Network 2000 Conference, Tokyo, 13 December 2000, p. 2. Jusuf Wanandi, “The Future of ARF and CSCAP in the Regional Security Architecture”, Paper presented at the Eighth Asia-Pacific Roundtable, Kuala Lumpur, 5–8 June 1994, p. 5. Desmond Ball, “CSCAP: Its Future Place in the Regional Security Architecture”, Paper prepared for the Eighth Asia-Pacific Roundtable, Kuala Lumpur, 5–8 June 1994, p. 18. Herman Joseph S. Kraft, “The Autonomy Dilemma of Track Two Diplomacy in Southeast Asia”, Security Dialogue 31, no. 3 (September 2000): 346. For a critical perspective, see See Seng Tan, “Non-official Diplomacy in Southeast Asia: ‘Civil Society’ or ‘Civil Service?’ ” Contemporary Southeast Asia (December 2005), 27, no. 3, pp. 370–87. Dialogue and Research Monitor is available online at . For more on ASEAN-ISIS’s important role in the development of Track Two and official regional dialogues, see Kerr, “The Security Dialogue” and also Carolina G. Hernandez, “Governments and NGOs in the Search for Peace: The ASEAN ISIS and CSCAP Experience”, Paper presented at the Alternative Security Systems Conference, Focus on the Global South, Bangkok, Thailand, 27–30 March 1997, available online at . Bunn Nagara, “Preface”, in The Making of a Security Community in the AsiaPacific, edited by Bunn Nagara and K. S. Balakrishnan (Kuala Lumpur: ISIS Malaysia, 1994), p. ii, cited in Kerr, “The Security Dialogue”, p. 405. “Overview Report, January – June 2005”, Dialogue and Research Monitor, available at . Paul M. Evans, “Building Security: The Council for Security Cooperation in Asia Pacific (CSCAP)”, The Pacific Review 7, no. 2 (1994): 125–39, 125. For a list of members and more on the NEAT process, see .

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TRACK THREE

The term suggests a natural link with Tracks-One and -Two, but the relationship between them is more complex than the terminology implies. Generally speaking, Track-Three refers to the activities and meetings of groups such as non-governmental organizations (NGOs), transnational networks, and advocacy coalitions. It is sometimes called “citizens diplomacy”. While Tracks One and Two seek to engage and inform policymakers about specific issues of concern to states, Track-Three is made up of advocates claiming to represent “communities and people who are largely marginalized from the centre of power.”1 These groups seek to “build constituencies … which can question conventional practices and beliefs and present alternatives to official government positions”.2 According to Herman Kraft, their “discussions are based on a critical framework with agendas that tend to oppose mainstream government policies.” Consequently, these meetings “are more adversarial than what is usual for a track two forum”.3 The label “Track-Three” is a misnomer, in that most of these groups have only an indirect link to the policy process and some reject outright the notion that they are a “track” in any way linked to state-centred institutional arrangements. As Pierre Lizee has noted, many civil society groups have been “reluctant to involve themselves within structures they perceive to be too close to the 237

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prevailing centres of power”.4 Some fear that they will be coopted, which will compromise their independence and autonomy. Conversely, some participants in Track Two have also been wary in their approach to Track Three actors. Given that many Track Three groups advocate causes such as human rights and democratization, their participation in regional security dialogues has often been strongly opposed by non-democratic regimes. Specific examples of Track Three actors in the Asia-Pacific include the Alternative ASEAN Network on Burma (Alt-SEAN), the Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development (known as FORUM-ASIA), Focus on the Global South, the Council for Alternative Security in the Asia-Pacific (CASAP), the Forum on Alternative Security, the Asia Pacific Coalition for East Timor (APCET), and Peace, Disarmament and Symbiosis in the AsiaPacific (PDSAP).5 The issues tackled by these groups typically include socio-economic and gender inequalities, environmental degradation, lack of political participation, and democratization. Such groups have often made their presence felt at the “People’s Summits” that parallel official regional gatherings such as AsiaPacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) or Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM).6 For example, the Asia-Europe People’s Forum was established in 1996 alongside the annual Track One ASEM meeting. According to one regional NGO, it is designed to be “a forum for NGOs and civil society groups that are non-state and noncorporate”. It aims to bring “the voice of the civil society in the official Asia Europe Summit, ASEM, and to create alternatives to its neoliberalistic agenda”.7 Track Three groups have also articulated critical positions on regional security. While there is no single line of thought, typically they are opposed to the presence of foreign bases in the region, high levels of military spending, and the acquisition and proliferation of weapons systems, including missile defences.8 However, as Kraft points out, “it is in the area of human rights that track three networks have been most active.”9 While many Track Three actors are hesitant about engaging Track One or Track Two channels, there have been some attempts to establish more formal links between them. One important development has been the creation of an ASEAN People’s Assembly (APA), which had its first meeting in November 2000 in Batam. The idea for a People’s Assembly was first raised at the official level during the 1995 ASEAN Ministerial Meeting in Brunei when the Thai Foreign Minister proposed a congress of ASEAN peoples and requested that the ASEAN Institutes of Strategic and 238

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International Studies (ASEAN-ISIS), through ISIS Thailand, investigate the possibilities for organizing such a gathering.10 According to one Singaporean account, the APA is based “on the rationale that community building in ASEAN must include all sectors of society on a step-by-step basis … ASEAN must be made relevant to the ordinary citizen of each of the member states, as it has become relevant to many members of their Èlite communities, if wider and deeper support for ASEAN among the citizens of the ten member states is to be built.”11 The inaugural meeting in Batam included more than 300 representatives from all ten ASEAN member states.12 The Indonesian think-tank, the Centre for Security and International Studies (CSIS), acted as the APA Secretariat. Participants were invited by ASEAN-ISIS, on the recommendation of national ISIS members. The composition of representatives was supposed to be “as diverse as possible and should include a few representatives from government and business”.13 The APA is currently funded by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), the Sasakawa Peace Foundation, the Open Society Institute and the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung. Recent meetings have addressed issues such as “people-centred” development, democratization and human rights. At the fourth APA in Manila, many participants called “for Myanmar to be denied the Chair of ASEAN Standing Committee in 2006 in view of the lack of reforms within Myanmar and the continued incarceration of Daw Aung Sun Suu Kyi.”14 In addition to the APA, a new civil society forum has emerged, the Solidarity for Asian People’s Advocacy (SAPA) group.15 The idea of forming SAPA came about during an informal session of regional NGOs present during an ASEAN civil society conference in Kuala Lumpur in December 2005. These organizations saw the need to “enhance cooperation among regional civil society organizations involved in advocacy and lobby at the intergovernmental processes” and to “increase impact and effectiveness of Asian civil society engagement with inter-governmental bodies”.16 Although SAPA is critical of several ASEAN governments and some ASEAN policies, it does interact with Track One institutions. For example, in April 2006, SAPA representatives met with the ASEAN Eminent Persons Group (EPG) to share their views on the future shape of the proposed ASEAN Charter. It is not clear if SAPA members consider themselves as a third-track body, or if as a civil society forum they could better be described as one step removed — perhaps Track Three and a Half.17 239

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TRACK THREE

Notes 1

2

3 4

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11 12

13 14

15

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17

Herman Joseph S. Kraft, “Track Three Diplomacy and Human Rights in Southeast Asia: The Case of the Asia Pacific Coalition for East Timor”, Paper presented at the Global Development Network 2000 Conference, Tokyo, 13 December 2000, p. 2. Navnita Chadha Behera, Paul Evans, and Gowher Rizvi, Beyond Boundaries: A Report on the State of Non-Official Dialogues on Peace, Security and Cooperation in South Asia (Toronto: University of Toronto-York University Joint Centre for Asia Pacific Studies, 1997), p. 19. Kraft, “Track Three Diplomacy”, p. 2. Pierre Lizee, “Civil Society and Regional Security: Tensions and Potentials in Post-Crisis Southeast Asia”, Contemporary Southeast Asia 22, no. 3 (December 2000): 551–70, 559. More information about FORUM-ASIA can be found at its website at . Focus on the Global South can be found at . For example, the People’s ASEM Summit in Seoul, October 2000. For details, see . “Migrant Forum in Asia”. available online at . For an example, see Walden Bello, “Towards a Just, Comprehensive, and Sustainable Peace in the Asia-Pacific Region”, Speech at the opening session of the Okinawa International Forum on People’s Security, Okinawa, 29 June– 2 July 2000, available at . The group maintains a project on security and conflict, which is described on its website, and also a series of bulletins under the heading “Focus-on-Security”. Kraft, “Track Three Diplomacy”, p. 4. “ASEAN People’s Assembly”, Article on the website of the Singapore Institute for International Affairs (SIIA) available online at . Ibid. John Aglionby, “ASEAN Starts to Reinvent Itself”, eCountries online news service, available at . Ibid. Report of the Singapore Institute of International Affairs on the Fourth ASEAN People’s Assembly, Manila, the Philippines, 11–13 May 2005, available at . The group was orginally known as Stratgeic Action Planning on Advocacy. See . “SAPA gathers momentum”, 26 March 2006, available at . Solidarity for Asian People’s Advocacy (SAPA) Submission to the ASEAN EPG on the ASEAN Charter, 17 April 2006, available online at . SAPA is concerned about the “slow progress” of APA and ASEAN-ISIS processes. See Alexandra Chandra, “The Role of Non-State Actors in ASEAN”, in Revisiting Southeast Asian Regionalism (Focus on the Global South, December 2006), pp. 71–81, available online at .

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TRANSPARENCY

Used in both security and economic discourse in the region. In the security discourse, transparency is associated with confidenceand security-building measures. Transparency assumes that openness on military matters encourages trust between states and reduces the suspicions that can lead to miscalculation and conflict. It does not require openness on all defence matters but rather limited and carefully defined openness about a particular set of military issues. Transparency works primarily by reassuring states that other governments to do not intend to take military action against them. It can also assure states that potential adversaries do not have the capability to launch a major assault against them without taking obvious preparations. While a state’s intentions can obviously change over time, its military capability can only be expanded by a programme of acquisitions over a long period. If transparency is pursued consistently across an entire region, it therefore becomes difficult for any one state to acquire the capacity to launch an unexpected attack. Desmond Ball has identified transparency as one of the “first and most basic” building blocks for creating confidence in the Asia-Pacific region.1 Practically there are many different ways to work towards transparency. These include military-to-military contacts, visits 241

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by military delegations, prior notification of military exercises, and the sharing of strategic perceptions, military doctrine, and force structures, right through to the actual physical inspection of military installations. In the Asia-Pacific, intrusive measures such as inspections are unacceptable to many states. More attention has, therefore, been placed on exchanges of information such as encouraging the publication of White Papers by regional governments. One second-track proposal has called for the publication of a “generic” Defence White Paper by all the states in the region. Another specific transparency measure that has been proposed is the creation of a regional register of arms transfers. While no agreement on this suggestion has yet been possible, regional states have undertaken to actively support the United Nations’ Register of Arms Transfers. Regional states frequently make calls for transparency when it suits their particular national interests. In May 2006, U.S. and Japanese officials issued a statement calling for “greater transparency on the modernization of military capabilities in the region”, a phrase intended to refer to China’s military buildup.2 Beijing itself has called for “relevant countries [to] increase transparency in their missile defense program for the purpose of deepening trust and dispelling misgivings”.3 Transparency has also been used in a similar way as a concept in Asia-Pacific economic multilateralism. At the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting held in Bogor in November 1994, transparency was identified as one of APEC’s non-binding investment principles. In its 1995 report, the Pacific Business Forum (PBF) described transparency to mean “programmes, rules, regulations, guidelines, all these must be clearly documented and easily accessible to all concerned. Guesswork, discretion, and double standards should be eliminated. The transparency principle should also apply within individual economies.”4 In a Report to APEC’s Leaders, the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC) said transparency requires that all APEC member economies make their laws, regulations, administrative guidelines, and policies pertaining to investment “publicly available in a prompt … and readily accessible manner”.5 Notes 1

Desmond Ball, “Building Blocks for Regional Security: An Australian Perspective on Confidence and Security Building Measures (CSBMs) in the Asia/Pacific Region”, Canberra Papers on Strategy and Defence no. 83, Strategic and Defence

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4

5

Studies Centre, Research School of Pacific Studies, Australian National University, 1991, p. 29. Bill Gertz, “US, Japan ask China for military transparency”, The Washington Times, 2 May 2006; see also the comments of Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld at the 2006 Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore cited in “International Cooperation Vital To Fight Extremists, Rumsfeld Says”, available at . See the chapter “China’s Basic Policy and Position”, in China’s Endeavors for Arms Control, Disarmament and Non-Prolfieration, available at . The Osaka Action Plan: Roadmap to Realising the APEC Vision, Report of the Pacific Business Forum 1995 (Singapore: APEC Secretariat, 1995), p. 11, para. 8. Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Business Advisory Council, ABAC Report to APEC Economic Leaders (Singapore: APEC Secretariat, 1996), p. 53.

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Refers to a concept closely related to the family of confidence- and security-building measures. While TBMs is not a new term — in fact it was used as long ago as the Camp David process in the Middle East — some scholars have suggested they offer a “more indigenous” Asia-Pacific alternative to confidence-building measures (CBMs) or confidence- and security-building measures (CSBMs).1 Trust-building measures were the subject of the first ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) inter-sessional seminar held in Canberra in November 1994. The term has been used extensively by Paul Dibb, Head of the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre (SDSC) at the Australian National University, and chair of the 1994 meeting. According to Dibb, “dialogue and political trust are necessary preconditions for developing specific security measures” in the Asia-Pacific.2 His understanding of TBMs includes both military and non-military measures designed to promote that trust. Dibb argues that “multilateral security dialogue is itself the first and perhaps most important regional trust-building measure.”3 Dibb suggests that specific TBMs discussed by the ARF and the ARF-Senior Officials Meetings (SOMs) fall into two groups: those that involve information-sharing; and those that require specific measures of constraint.4 Of these two types, he groups 245

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TBMs into three baskets. Measures in Basket 1 include exchanges of strategic perceptions; military-to-military contacts; observers at military exercises (on a voluntary basis); and participation in the United Nations Conventional Arms Register. These measures should be “relatively easy” to get agreement on. Basket 2 measures include exploration of a regional arms register; the establishment of a regional security studies centre; the publication of Defence White Papers; and the creation of maritime information databases. Dibb labels these as a “little less easy” and says they would need to be implemented in the medium term. Basket 3 measures, the most difficult to implement, include notification of major military exercises and maritime surveillance cooperation.5 Like CBMs and CSBMs, trust-building measures have the broad objective of promoting confidence, reducing uncertainty, misperception, and suspicion in the region and lowering the chances of armed conflict occurring. According to some proponents, they differ from confidence-building measures in the way TBMs tend to place greater emphasis on a gradual or incremental approach to building political trust between states rather than spectacular breakthroughs.6 Others claim they are less formal and more flexible than CBMs and are based upon consensus. William Tow and Douglas Stuart add that TBMs are often “built on personal political contacts and relationships”.7 Such differences, however, have been exaggerated. It is difficult to see how TBMs offer much in the way of an “indigenous” alternative to the CBMs. Use of the term in the Middle East long pre-dates its use in Asia. Even the terminology used by proponents of TBMs, such as Dibb’s “baskets of measures” emulates the language of the Helsinki Process. A Chinese perspective presented at a seminar on CanadaChina relations in 1997 drew a subtle distinction between the terms trust and confidence. It noted that “in most security writings by Western scholars, the word ‘trust’ is used interchangeably with ‘confidence’…. In Chinese, xinren and xinlai correspond roughly to ‘confidence’ and ‘trust’ respectively and have different shades of meaning. Xinlai implies that someone is not only believable but also dependable. Whereas xinren emphasizes more on the believability of someone or something.” The participant went on to say, “ ‘Confidence’ and ‘trust’ also imply different degrees of belief. ‘Confidence’ is the accumulating process towards the final trust. While ‘confidence’ is more procedural and with more psychological assurance, ‘trust’ is more conclusive with more assured action.”8 246

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Notes 1

2

3 4 5 6 7

8

In his foreword to an Australian paper proposing TBMs, Gareth Evans claims that “as Foreign Minister of Australia for the past six years, I have been a strong proponent of the need for preventive diplomacy and trust-building measures. At the outset, I recognized that Cold War language and concepts were not appropriate to the entirely different political, cultural and strategic situation in the Asia Pacific region. I therefore encouraged Professor Dibb to develop a fresh, new approach and language; new but also based firmly on the security practicalities and expectations of the region.” See Gareth Evans and Paul Dibb, Australian Paper on Practical Proposals for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific Region (Canberra: Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, 1994), p. 1. Paul Dibb, “How to Begin Implementing Specific Trust-Building Measures in the Asia-Pacific Region”, Working Paper no. 288, Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University, Canberra, p. 1. Emphasis in original. Ibid., p. 3. Ibid., p. 4. Ibid., p. 7. Evans, in Evans and Dibb, Australian Paper, p. 1. Douglas T. Stuart and William S. Tow, A U.S. Strategy for the Asia-Pacific, Adelphi Paper no. 299 (London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1995), p. 73, note 5. The comments were of fered by Chinese participants at the Second CanadaChina Seminar (CANCHIS II) held in Toronto in January 1988. The extent to which the term has been used in this particular sense by Chinese Government officials is unclear.

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ABOUT THE AUTHORS David Capie is senior lecturer in international relations at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. His research interests include Asia-Pacific security, international relations theory and armed groups. His past research has been funded by the Rockefeller Foundation and the Royal Society of New Zealand’s Marsden Fund. Paul Evans is the Co-CEO of the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada, on secondment from the University of British Columbia where he is Professor in the College for Interdisciplinary Studies and crossappointed to the Institute for Asian Research and the Liu Institute for Global Issues.

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