Comprehensive Security in Asia: Views from Asia and the West on a Changing Security Environment

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COMPREHENSIVE SECURITY IN ASIA

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COMPREHENSIVE SECURITY IN ASIA Views from Asia and the West on a Changing Security Environment

EDITED BY

KURT W. RADTKE & RAYMOND FEDDEMA

BRILL LEIDEN • BOSTON • KOLN 2000

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Comprehensive security in Asia : views from Asia and the West on a changing security environment / edited by Kurt W. Radtke & Raymond Feddema. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 9004112022 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Asia—Politics and government—1945-. 2. National security—Asia. I. Radtke, Kurt W. (Kurt Werner), 1945- II. Feddema, Raymond. DS35.2.C645 2000 327.1'095—dc21 99-086420 CIP

Die Deutsche Bibliothek - CIP-Einheitsaufhahme Comprehensive security in Asia : views from Asia and the West on a changing security environment / ed. by Kurt W. Radtke & Raymond Feddema. - Leiden ; Boston ; Koln : Brill, 2000 ISBN 90-04-11202-2

ISBN 90 04 11202 2

© Copyright 2000 by Koninklyke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Brill provided that the appropriatefees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910 Danvers MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. PRINTED IN THE NETHERLANDS

CONTENTS*

List of Abbreviations Preface and Acknowledgements Words of Thanks "An Overview of the Contributions to this Book — Issues Affecting the Stability of the Region, in Particular that of Japan"

ix xi xviii

1

KURT W. RADTKE

East and South-East Asia viewed at the regional level 1 "East Asia as a Periphery in the New World Order"

19 21

LAM PENG ER

2 "Asia-Pacific in Transition, or Mutually Assured Instability"

40

KURT W. RADTKE

3

"Nuclear Proliferation Challenges in East Asia and Prospects for Co-operation—A View from Europe" ....

66

FRANK UMBAGH

4

"Environmental Security and Co-operation in Asia" ....

134

MIRANDA A. SCHREURS

5

"The Chinese Economic Development and Security Interests: Implications for Europe"

159

RADHA SINHA

6

"China's Strategy for the Internationalisation of Energy Supplies and Asia's International Environment"

194

HAMA KATSUHIKO

7

"The Recent Asian Currency Crisis and Its Implications" To TERUHIKO [TWU Jaw-yann]

208

You may contact the editors at [email protected]. or [email protected]

VI

CONTENTS

Japan and the region 1 "Regional Order in the Asia Pacific, Japan and UN Security Council Reform"

223 225

REINHARD DRIFTE

2

"2nd Order Cybernetics and 'Comprehensive Security': Contributions from Contemporary Systems Theory"

240

MICHAEL SCHILTZ

3

"The Impact Of Japanese Direct Investment On Regional Stability. Some Consequences of the Expansion of Japanese Networks in Southeast Asia for Comprehensive Security"

270

ROGIER BUSSER

4

"Okinawa: An Aporia in the Security of the Asian Pacific Region"

289

IGARASHI AKIO

Korea and the region 1 "Comprehensive Security and Regional Nuclear Co-operation in East Asia: The Case of South Korea"

305

307

HAHNKYU PARK

2 "Farewell to a Model? German Experiences with Unification and Its Implications for Korean Strategies"

325

MANFRED POHL

China and the region 1 "Study Report on the American Situation in 1997— 1998: Chinese Energy Strategy for the 21st Century: Production, Consumption, Trade and Security"

341

343

ANGANG H U

2

"Factors Affecting Medium and Long Term Sino-US Relations"

357

WANG XIAODONG

Southeast Asia and the region 1 "The Southeast Asian Approach Towards the South China Sea. Conflict Resolution from a Comprehensive Security Perspective" RAYMOND FEDDEMA

377

379

CONTENTS

Vietnam and the region 1 "Vietnam's New Concept of Security in the Context of Doi-Moi"

Vll

403 405

NGUYEN VU TUNG

The European approach towards regional comprehensive security 1 "European Views on Comprehensive Security"

425 427

KEES HOMAN

Index

447


LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

ADB AFTA AMF ANSGO APEC APPCED ARF ASEAN ASEM CFE CNOOC CNPC CPV CSBM's CSCAP CSCE CTBT DPRK EAEC EC EEC EEZ ESCAP ESDI EU FAO FDI FSU GATT GDP GDR GNP HCNM IAEA ICBM's IMF IRBM's JAEC JICA JETRO

Asian Development Bank ASEAN Free Trade Area Asian Monetary Fund Asia Nuclear Safety Consultation Organisation Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation Asia-Pacific Parliamentarians Conference on Environment and Development Asean Regional Forum Association of Southeast Asian Nations Asia Europe Meeting Conventional Forces in Europe China National Offshore Oil Company China National Oil and Gas Company Communist Party of Vietnam Confidence- and Security-Building Measures Council on Security Co-operation in the Asia-Pacific Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Democratic People's Republic of Korea East Asia Economic Caucus European Community European Economic Community Exclusive Economic Zone Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific European Security and Defence Identity European Union Food and Agricultural Organisation Foreign Direct Investment Former Soviet Union General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade Gross Domestic Product German Democratic Republic Gross National Product High Commissioner on National Minorities International Atomic Energy Agency Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles International Monetary Fund Intermediate-range Ballistic Missiles Japan's Atomic Energy Commission Japanese International Co-operation Agency Japan External Trade Organisation

x

KEDO KFEM KMT KWP LDP LWR MAD MAI MIRV MITI MTCR NAC NATO NEACD NGO NIE's NPT ODA OECD OECF OSCE P5 PKO PLA PRC SEANWFZ SEATO SEZ SME's SNF SPNWZ TAC TMD UNCED UNCLOS UNDP UNSC UNTAC WEU WHO WTO ZOPFAN

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organisation Korean Federation for Environmental Movement Kuomintang (Guomindang) Korea Workers Party Liberal Democratic Party Light-water Reactor Mutually Assured Destruction Mutually Assured Instability Multiple Independently Targetable Re-entry Vehicle Ministry of International Trade and Industry Missile Technology Control Regime NIE's, ASEAN and China North Atlantic Treaty Organisation Northeast Asia Co-operation Dialogue Non-Governmental Organisation Newly Industrialized Economies Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Official Development Assistance Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development Overseas Economic Co-operation Fund Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe Five Permanent Security Council Members Peace Keeping Operations People's Liberation Army People's Republic of China Southeast Asia a Nuclear Weapon Free Zone Southeast Asia Treaty Organisation Special Economic Zone Small and Medium seized Enterprises Strategic Nuclear Forces South Pacific Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone Treaty of Amity and Co-operation Theatre Missile Defence United Nations Conference on Environment and Development United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea United Nations Development Programme United Nations Security Council United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia Western European Union World Health Organisation World Trade Organisation Zone of Peace, Freedom and Neutrality

PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This book has its origin in two conferences on security in East Asia held in January 1998 at Hayama near Tokyo. The main aim was to create an image of Japan's security environment from a wider perspective, and put into relief the major issues affecting the stability of the region, but in particular that of Japan. This book likewise focuses on regional

issues of which Japanese policy makers are very much aware when considering the security of the region. It was hoped that this approach would enable European scholars and policy makers to reach a better understanding of the consequences of these developments in Asia for Europe. It is hardly an exaggeration to state that the vast majority of publications in English dealing with contemporary developments in East Asia address themselves either directly to a North American public, or at least focus very much on the implications of developments for East-Asian relations with North America. It is not primarily a study of the security policies of the governments in the region. Focusing on the set of issues should provide us with the necessary background to understand approaches taken by East Asian governments to security, in particular that of the Japanese government. Japan is not particularly known for possessing an independent foreign policy or security strategy, apart from an awareness that the "Peace Constitution" seems to have been used by the Japanese to profit from economic enterprise, rather than wasting money on military security. Since the time of the Ohira cabinet in the late seventies Japan has also been known for its own particular security concept, "comprehensive security". Rather than studying the history of this concept in Japan (and elsewhere) the convenors of the conferences wished to focus on the international environment that had produced approaches to security structurally different from those known in NATO-Europe and the North America. Although numerous papers at the conference dealt with issues ranging from nuclear energy in Korea to pollution in Southeast Asia, an effort was made to address those issues that directly or indirectly had an important impact on Japan's security. The conferences were entitled "Asian Concepts of Comprehensive Security and Their Implications for Europe" and "Regional New

Xll

PREFACE

Order in the Asia Pacific—Past, Present, and Future", to which we invited scholars mainly from Asian countries and Europe.1 They were initiated and organised by Raymond Feddema (University of Amsterdam), Akio Igarashi (Rikkyo University, Tokyo) and Kurt W. Radtke (then at Leiden University, The Netherlands, now at Waseda University, Tokyo). The conference(s) became a meeting ground for scholars from numerous countries and regions in Asia, Europe and America, in which individual scholars discussed concepts of security and regional order in an academic and co-operative spirit, taking care not to engage in unproductive exchanges along such lines as "us Europeans—you Asians—". Most of the contributors to the present book participated in that conference. Among the contributors we find adherents of quite diverse theoretical approaches. There was a general recognition that order and security required the conceptualisation of societies beyond their purely military, political and economic aspects to include culture and environmental concerns, and we opted for the term "comprehensive security" mainly to refer to the multi-layered character of contemporary security issues. Joe Camilleri once provided the following working definition of comprehensive security: a "particular practice or relationship may be deemed relevant to comprehensive security when it is likely to create new conflicts or exacerbate existing ones either between or within nations, especially to the extent that these are likely to involve the use of threat of force. As a corollary to this, a particular practice or relationship may be said to contribute to comprehensive security when it helps to resolve or obviate conflicts between and within nations, and especially armed conflicts."2 We used the term "comprehensive security" in this rather general sense, and not with reference to the specific Japanese paradigm ("Sogo anzen hosho") that acquired some popularity during the period 1 2

For a list of participants, refer to the end of this introduction. Joe Camilleri, "The Pacific House: The Emerging Architecture for Comprehensive

Security," in Mo Better Alternative. Towards Comprehensive and Co-operative Security in the

Asia-Pacific, edited by David Dickens, Wellington, 1997, pp. 77ff., here p. 83. 3 For an early survey of the history of this term, see R. Barnett Beyond War: Japan's Concept of Comprehensive Mational Security, Washington, 1986; for more recent

surveys in Japanese, Nakanishi Hiroshi "Soogoo anzen hoshoo senryaku no saikoosei", in Kokubun Ryosei, Mihon. Amerika. Chuugoku, TBS Brittanica, Tokyo, December 1997, pp. 85-133; Nakanishi Hiroshi, "Anzen hoshoo no riron to seisaku", in Nihon kokusai seijigakkai hen, Kokusai seiji, 1998 March, vol. 117, and also Nakanishi Hiroshi "Soogoo anzen hoshooron no bunmyaku—kenryoku seiji to soogo izon no

PREFACE

Xlll

of the Ohira cabinet in the late seventies.3 We did not entertain any pretence that using the term would lead towards the development of a new theoretical paradigm. Nevertheless, the term "comprehensive security" appears to be a useful starting point for discussions on security especially at a time, when financial and economic crises threaten to affect the internal cohesion of societies in the region with possible consequences for international security. Our adoption of the term was not related to its use as a main theme of some CSCAP working groups. In our mind, "security" refers not only to safety from military threats and physical violence, but also from other manmade threats, such as threats to the health and well-being of the individual (environment, poverty).4 The term is also widely used with reference to maritime security.3 It figured prominently at the "CSCAP Comprehensive And Co-operative Security Working Group Meeting" held in Kuala Lumpur, 17—18 September 1997. Topics addressed included: * Challenges to Environmental Security (Malaysia, New Zealand and Russia); * Food Security (China and Japan); * globalisation and the Retreat of the State (Europe); and * Energy and Security (Vietnam).6 Participants in our two workshops focused on related themes. They generally agreed that differences of culture and ideology among individuals as well as societies as a whole need not be in the way of co-operation to maintain, and strengthen concepts of regional order and security. It was pointed out that some countries preferred national concepts of security, while others preferred a multilateral approach. The legacy of the "Cold War" has different meanings for different countries and continents, and the development of new approaches koosaku," in Nihon seiji gakkai hen Kiki no nihon gaikoo—70nendai, Nenpoo seijigaku

1997, Iwanami shoten, 1997, pp. 97-115; David Dewitt, "Common, Comprehensive, Co-operative Security," in The Pacific Review, Vol. 7, No. 1, pp. 1-15. 4 "The Pacific House: The Emerging Architecture for Comprehensive Security," p. 83. ' For instance, at "The Third ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) Track Two Conference on Preventive Diplomacy," jointly sponsored by the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies (IDSS) Singapore, and the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in the United Kingdom, held in Singapore from 9-11 September 1997. b

S e e No Better Alternative.

Towards

Comprehensive and Co-operative Security in the Asia-

Pacific, edited by David Dickens, Wellington, 1997, and Unresolved Futures. Comprehensive Security in the Asia-Pacific, edited by Jim Rolfe, Wellington, 1997.

XIV

PREFACE

must take this into account. These would include new approaches toward lnstitutionalisation due to its different functioning and other meanings given to it in various parts of the world. This could result in the building of new institutions designed to enhance transparency, not only in military matters, but also to increase transparency in international currency markets with their formidable impact on the security and individual lives of hundreds of millions of people. "Democracy" promises each individual a say in matters affecting his/her own life; "market economy" promises "efficiency". They are both used as guidelines for creating a "better" reality, but do not lend themselves easily to being used as ready-made analytical concepts. One of the purposes of international dialogues is to go beyond slogans of the day, and find a common language that enables us to deal with issues affecting all of us. Dialogues on security at the government and private level have contributed to the spread of a common language and terms used in international debates and discussions, based on scholarship in the English language.7 There are recognisable strands of national "traditions of scholarship" such as in Japan, Russia and other successor states of the Soviet Union, in China, or in various continental European countries. By and large it is fair to say that scholars from these countries seldom rise to prominence in the hit lists of citation indixes based on English language publications. When Raymond Feddema, Igarashi Akio and Kurt W. Radtke joined hands to organise a conference on security issues their main aim was to create a platform for private, independent scholars from countries in Asia, Europe and America to exchange views on security-related issues without prejudice to any particular approach. Judging from our personal experience and research in Asian political history we are convinced that it remains useful and necessary, from an academic point of view as well as as for the benefit of practitioners, to remain abreast of dis' It should be added that numerous such "private" dialogues are in fact sponsored by government or semi-government institutions. To mention only a few: "The Council on Security and Co-operation in the Asia-Pacific (CSCAP)" was established in Kuala Lumpur in June 1993, and the Northeast Asia Co-operation Dialogue or NEACD commenced in California later that year. Early Canadian and South Korean initiatives for multilateral dialogue were not very successful. It is frequently argued that the use of English imposes a conceptual framework on other cultures, but at the same time most participants in dialogues are aware of the fact that the adoption of a common language is unavoidable.

PREFACE

XV

cussions on these issues that take place among scholars and practitioners within countries such as Korea, China, Japan, or countries in Southeast Asia. Their arguments are not necessarily conducted within the framework of our international "epistemic community". It is not an easy task to keep track of the dynamics of these discussions, as frequent visitors to China, Korea and Vietnam, for instance, would readily admit. Some scholars from these countries are gradually adopting conceptual frameworks familiar to scholars and politicians from outside this area. There is a real danger that the ARF (Asean Regional Forum), an initiative originating from within Southeast Asia, will be taken over by the "international community". In a speech on 21 July, 1998, at the Henry L. Stimson Centre, the Assistant Secretary of State For East Asian And Pacific Affairs Stanley Roth had this to say: "The U.S. and other like-minded states have had success in promoting a greater role for defence officials in ARF proceedings . . . . Though our efforts on this front initially met with resistance from the Chinese and from some ASEAN countries, the additional seat (for defence officials) was inaugurated at the Fourth ARF Ministerial in Malaysia last year . . . . Still, certain measures will need to be taken if the forum is to realise its true potential. First, ASEAN will have to relinquish some of its control over the ARF. There is already discussion within ASEAN scholarly circles about the need to do so . . . But the ARF's non-ASEAN members now outnumber its ASEAN creators, and so some means must be devised to reflect this, perhaps by permitting an equitable sharing of the privileges and responsibilities of the chairmanship. At the same time, the ARF needs to become more institutionalised . . . . Ultimately, of course, for the ARF to evolve, its members will have to be prepared to surrender a degree of sovereignty for the greater good."8 Whatever the political needs and intrinsic merits of government led institutionalisation of international dialogues, I am convinced that truly private channels of communication to generate new ideas independently remain important. The academic global community is sometimes in a better position to discuss possibilities for international co-operation beyond the nation state from a position of academic independence. Their efforts may contribute to the establishment of USIA, 23 July, 1998.

XVI

PREFACE

an intellectual framework that may underpin the need for international co-operation as the basis for comprehensive security, a term that also addresses issues such as social and environmental stability. This volume is intended to make a modest contribution to this aim. Mote on editing

The editors had established a tight schedule to ensure that this volume should appear in print by late summer 1998. Virtually all contributors handed their papers in on time. Due to unfortunate circumstances beyond the control of the contributors and editors, the publication of this volume suffered a delay of more than a year. Although the international situation keeps changing at a rapid pace this editor (K.W. Radtke) is convinced that even with such a delay, the insights offered by the contributions are as valid as they were a year ago. Only one contributor is a native speaker of English; writing in English necessarily implies leaving the framework of one's own language and culture, and trying to transmit messages whose import is sometimes not readily understood by readers acquainted with another linguistic and cultural framework. Some contributors quote numerous German, Russian, Chinese and Japanese titles in their original languages, and since these sources can only be consulted by those able to read them in the original translations of titles were not always provided. Editing the English usage of non-native speakers is not only a matter of dealing with grammatical mistakes, but implies treading a tight line between adjusting a manuscript to become "acceptable" to a native speaker to some extent, and preserving the original character of the manuscript. The widespread use of English as a common language of international communication often makes it appear as if that framework of thought has blotted out other alternatives— which is clearly not the case. Those involved in editing the English usage of this book beg forgiveness from the contributors for interfering with their original manuscripts, and ask readers to bear up with the imperfections that still remain. List of papers of the Hayama workshops

Below please find a complete list of papers presented at our Hayama workshops: Introduction: Kurt Radtke (Leiden University) "Comprehensive security = stability without hegemony(?)"; Raymond Feddema (University of Amsterdam) "Why Regionalisation of Security Perceptions?".

PREFACE

XV11

Session 1: "Theoretical Issues and 'Comprehensive Security'":

C. Homan (Netherlands Defence College) "European Views on Comprehensive Security"; Manfred Pohl (Hamburg University) "Farewell to a Model—German Experiences with Unification and Korean Disillusion: From Euphoria to Securing the Status Quo?"; Michael Schiltz (Catholic University, Leuven), "2nd Order Cybernetics and Comprehensive Security: Contributions from Contemporary Systems Theory"; Seok-Soo Lee, "Historical Evolution of Comprehensive Security in South Korea". Session 2: "Theoretical Issues and 'Comprehensive Security'":

Wang Xiaodong (Beijing, editorial board "Strategy and Management") "Sino-US Relations in 1997"; Lee Jong Won, "Order in the Asian Pacific Area Observed in Regional International Relations"; Hahnkyu Park, "Regional Nuclear Energy Co-operation in East Asia; A Korean Perspective". Session 3: "Regional Economic Stability and Issues of 'Comprehensive Security'":

R. Busser (Leiden University), "The Impact of Japanese Direct Investments on Regional Stability"; Riuhei Hasse (Kobe University), "Modernisation and Human Security in East Asia". Session 4: "Regional Economic Stability":

Akiyama Takuo (Long Term Credit Bank, Tokyo), "Emerging Financial Markets". Session 5: "Specific Issues of Comprehensive Security":

K. Hama (Soka University, Tokyo), "The Shift in China's Energy Strategy and the Question of Security"; Raymond Feddema (University of Amsterdam), "The Southeast Asian Approach Towards the South China Sea: Conflict from a Comprehensive Security Perspective"; Nguyen Vu Tung (The Institute for International Relations, Hanoi), "Vietnamese Views on Security in (Southeast)Asia"; George W. Tsai (Chengchi University, Taipei), Sino-American Relations after The Summit: Its Security Implications". Session 7: "Specific Issues of Comprehensive Security":

Kim Dalchoong, "Maritime Security Issue in East Asia in the 1990s"; R. Drifte, "Regional Order in the Asia Pacific and UN Reforms"; F. Umbach (Research Institute of the German Society for Foreign Affairs), "Nuclear proliferation—Challenges in East Asia". Session 8: "Regional Economic Stability":

Radha Sinha (Sophia University, Tokyo), "The Chinese Economic Development and Security Interests: Implications for Europe"; Kurt W. Radtke (Leiden University), "Mutually Assured Insecurity";

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PREFACE

M. Wiesebron (Leiden University), "Transformation in Latin America. Integration and Reforms. Mercosul and Nafta—Recipes for stability?"; Hu Angang (Chinese Academy of Sciences, Professor, Tsinghua University), "Chinese Energy Strategy for the 21st Century: Production, Consumption, Trade and Security". Words of Thanks

The editors of this book should like to express their particular thanks to Prof. Dr. Akio Igarashi and Mrs. Shibuya (Rikkyo University) who provided invaluable academic and logistic support before and during the conferences, Prof. Moon Chung-in (The East-West Centre, Yonsei University, Seoul, Korea) who gave his active support in the preparatory stage of the conference, and last, but not least, Mrs. N. Karthaus-Tanaka (Leiden University) for her administrative support. The holding of the conference would have been impossible without the generous support of our sponsors, The Asia Committee of the European Science Foundation, The International Institute for Asian Studies (Leiden), the Research School CNWS of the Faculty of Letters, Leiden University, and the Embassy of the Netherlands in Tokyo, for which we should like to express our deep gratitude on behalf of all participants in this conference.

An Overview of the Contributions to this Book

ISSUES AFFECTING THE STABILITY OF THE REGION, IN PARTICULAR THAT OF JAPAN, EAST AND SOUTHEAST ASIA VIEWED AT THE REGIONAL LEVEL KURT W. RADTKE

Studies on (comprehensive) security, like most studies that approach an "interdisciplinary" theme, tend to exhibit a certain reluctance to become involved in doctrinal debates conducted among the adherents of any particular "theoretical school".1 In a geographical area that comprises previous empires reshaped into a nation state (China and Russia), a city state (Singapore), Malaysia and Indonesia which are still engaged in solidifying the work of erecting a nation state on the territories of former colonies, and countries (areas) that remained divided in the context of the Cold War (South and North Korea, Taiwan), only Japan can look back on a past as a modern nation state with a history comparable to that of Germany and Italy. The regional international system can only be understood in the context of its colonial past, and the role of outside (superpowers such as the Soviet Union and the United States. Japan is clearly the leading economy dwarfing all other economies in the region, but so far relies for its security on its special relationship with the United States. The maintenance of Japanese security is central to the position of the United States in Asia as a whole, to the extent that in any security 1 Despite the apparent dominance of (neo)realist writings in the field of international relations theory, serious doubts about basic theoretical flaws have been raised not only by post-modernists such as Lene Hansen, but also by some conservative scholars. Maarten Brands "The Obsolescence of Almost All Theories concerning International Relations," Uhlenbeck Lecture 14, NIAS (Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences, Wassenaar, The Netherlands), 1997. He quoted, amongst others James Rosenau who wrote that "it is sheer craziness to dare to understand world affairs," in: "Probing puzzles persistently: a desirable but improbable function for I.R. theory," in S. Smith, K. Booth and M. Zalewski, eds., International Theory, Postiuism and Beyond, Cambridge 1996, pp. 309-317.

I

KURT W. RADTKE

issue affecting Asia its impact on Japan is of vital importance to the United States. While crises involving the United States and China on the Korean Peninsula, in the Taiwan area, and in the South China Sea have their own momentum, they cannot be separated from the effect such crises may have on Japan. Japan, however, is not known for the development of its own active security policy— not a few scholars ritually conclude their surveys of Japanese defence policies by stating that Japan, in effect, seems to follow US policies, either willingly, or with some reluctance, but invariably following. Such a political environment is extremely difficult to capture with the aid of one particular theoretical approach. Nor will an accumulation of studies of bilateral relations between Japan and its neighbours be of much use either. A key issue is whether, in the future, Japan will play a role more independent of US policy than is the case today. "Co-operative security" as described in Homan's contribution to this volume has so far been an overall success in managing stability in the area from the Atlantic to Russia (the Soviet Union) relying on a fairly well developed institutional framework. Just as Germany's unification cannot serve as a model for Korean unification (see Pohl's contribution), so one may argue that the environment in East and Southeast Asia has so far not been conducive to the transfer of Atlantic style "co-operative security" to Asia, and as Homan concludes this may not be easy. One reason is that "co-operative security" relies on the common acceptance of ideals of a democratic society and others, while there is no consensus in Asia on the pursuit of shared ideals. "Comprehensive security" is not an alternative to "co-operative security". At a minimum level "comprehensive security" seeks to arrive at common and shared definitions of threat, such as threats caused by the destruction of the environment, the issue of dealing with nuclear waste, unstable energy regimes, and economic-political-social instability that threatens not only the country involved, but the stability of a whole region. Umbach, Pohl, Schreurs, Park, Hama and Hu An'gang demonstrate

that energy requirements, the question of nuclear cycles, the environment, proliferation and security are inseparably linked. Umbach shows how behind the apparent facade of the status quo both Japan and Korea have a certain potential (and ability) to deviate from the current non-nuclear stance if the credibility of current US strategic assurances weakens. He emphasises the continuing importance of the US—Japan security alliance, but pleads for Japan to assume greater

AN OVERVIEW OF THE CONTRIBUTIONS

5

responsibilities, and initiate a broader as well as more open security debate in Japan in order to bolster new directions taken by its foreign and security policies. Given the lasting mistrust of its Asian neighbours, Japan can only assume new regional responsibilities in a close alliance with the US that also reassures the other East Asian states. As a matter of course, "comprehensive security" is also concerned with military threats. As was briefly pointed out in the Preface, "comprehensive security" is not yet a well-defined concept, and this is demonstrated by the various meanings attached to this term by the contributors to this volume. In the absence of a close political and military alliance of countries in Asia sharing the same sense of mission as is the case with the Atlantic alliance, Japan's conceptualisation of threat and approaches to deal with it can only be understood from the regional Asian context. It is not by chance, then, that it was the Japanese government that first advocated the concept of "comprehensive security". The collection of essays in this volume is intended to present an image of the security environment in (North) East Asia from various angles, without imposing a clear black and white conceptual order. On the basis of their different personal environment scholars from Asia, Europe and the United States reflect on security issues, and they agree that countries and areas in the region should cooperate to reduce threats to stability that would eventually affect all. The diversity of threats illustrates the security context of Japan, and by the same token indicates that it would be difficult, if not impossible, for Japan to act as the leading power in Asia attempting to restructure the internal system of countries in the way the United States does. During the height of the confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States both countries portrayed themselves as leaders of fundamentally different "systems". "Socialism" and "democracy" each established a systemic approach for societies to deal with the challenges of a changing world. Democracies attempt to spread the risks of political decision making by using the institutions of regularly elected parliaments and governments subject to parliamentary control, also as a precaution to prevent the long-term usurpation of power by one particular interest group. The institution of "markets", and checks against the monopolisation of markets by large enterprises follow essentially the same strategy to enable numerous economic actors to develop flexible

4

KURT W. RADTKE

responses towards change for the best of society as a whole. The state is seen as a facilitator to create and maintain the necessary infrastructure for these institutions. In a socialist system both economic and political choices are subject to collectivised institutional decision making which is justified along ideological principles. Competition and struggle between both "systems" were frequently conceptualised as a fight for hegemony for power between alliances and the leaders of both "camps". It thus seemingly confirmed the validity of the "(neo)realist" thesis about world order created through the power of sovereign states in a world that without leaders would degenerate into anarchy. In this sense, world history was a continuation of the historical dynamics of state systems that began in Europe with the creation of the first sovereign nation states in 1648. The transfer of "Western" political systems—such as the nation state, democracy and socialism—to virtually all parts of the globe has apparently led to the incorporation of all regions into one global system. "Global order" is, however, a much more complex term that cannot be easily and neatly subsumed in such a simple way. "Market democracy" may have won the battle against socialism, but it is still too early to claim that the post-1991 global order under the leadership of the US is capable of stabilising the social, economic and political dimensions for all. The largest countries in terms of population—China, India, Russia, Indonesia, Nigeria and Brazil exhibit worrying signs of instability. The "international community" is no less an imagined one than are nations. The majority of the global population in Latin America, Africa and Asia has no direct voice in the "international community". English has become the common language of the internet, the international media and the academic community, but more than half of the global population does not use the Latin alphabet. It is sometimes argued that after the demise of the Soviet Union, China is the only important country that is still outside the global order of market democracies, and that with the anticipated accession of China to the WTO (World Trade Organization) the basic framework will have been completed for a global economic order capable of maintaining stability in an active way. "Comprehensive security" seeks to contribute to stability by pointing out existing or potential weaknesses that may threaten the status quo, or future stable development; usually, less attention is paid on how to construct a hegemonic order.


D

The first contributor to this volume, Lam Peng Er affirms that it is the United States, and not Pacific Asia, that will dominate in the twenty first century. At the same time, he is rather cautious when it comes to defining the new global order. "World order is here simply defined as the lack of a nuclear or world war coupled with predictability in the rules of the game . . . there can be local or regional disorders in East Asia that are limited to that area but do not disturb the general order." Even though regional conflicts in Korea, Vietnam and Cambodia were intertwined with superpower rivalries, East Asia was not pivotal to the political economy of this international order. Its ideological, strategic and economic centres were the US and the USSR. In East Asia, the US constructed a system of alliances, supported the capitalist market, and often paid lip service to democratisation among its allies. The Soviet Union forged alliances with the PRC, North Korea and the Indochinese communist bloc, supported socialism and state directed economic central planning, and encouraged communist insurgencies in Southeast Asia. This order was stable at the systemic level after the 1961 Cuban missile crisis. At the regional and local levels outside the European theatre, the absence of MAD (Mutually Assured instruction) induced order meant that these areas were often prone to instability caused by converging local, regional and superpower competition. While the Cold War system avoided a third world war, the order it brought at the global level did not necessarily lead to distributive justice and equality in the international system. Lam Peng Er emphasises that the demise of the Soviet Union does not justify regarding China as a threat to the global system in terms that compare China to the threat formerly posed by the Soviet Union. The US should be more relaxed in its dealings with China. The dominant view seems to be that the next century belongs to East Asia, where China will become a more complete superpower than Japan, while the rest of East Asia will steadily increase in wealth. Lam's central argument is that, regardless of which analytical prism we adopt, we may observe an unipolar Pax Americana at the global level. Keywords are: strategic alliances in which the US is the leading partner, leadership in military and information technology, ideological leadership in democracy, capitalism, privatisation and market opening, leverage over UNSC (United Nations Security Council), the World Bank, the IMF (International Monetary Fund), APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Council), and the universalisation of American pop icons, music culture and lifestyles.

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The US is the key architect of an order constructed to reflect its own interests. In East Asia, there are no challengers or any coalition of challengers on the horizon which can displace the US hegemon. With the exception of Japan, Asia is a periphery in the global political economy, more than ever dependent on the huge US domestic market. East Asian NIEs (Newly Industrialising Economies) increased in wealth, but theirs is essentially a "dependent development," because they still rely on multinational corporations for technology and capital. So far there are no attractive ideological "Asian alternatives" to liberal democracy, market capitalism and privatisation. Lam then goes on to review four paradigms of a new world order, an ecological one, a globalist one based on regional or international organisations, a state-centric, realist paradigm that stresses power politics, and a neo-liberal order underpinned by free trade and democracy, and concludes that there is no realistic alternative to global US leadership. One may question whether the spread of market democracies will not be stunted by the limits imposed by non-sustainable development, and it is not surprising that energy and the environment is a major theme for four contributors to this volume. Radtke points out that the destabilisation of large, relatively poor countries such as China, India, Indonesia or Russia constitutes a genuine threat to global order—and that despite the apparent strength of the US, Europe and Japan their combined power may not be enough to prevent the collapse of order in huge areas with large populations. Echoing the former global order based on "Mutually Assured Destruction" (MAD), he posits that we have now entered the age of "Mutually Assured Instability" (MAI). It may well be that in terms of direct economic consequences Europe and the United States remain surprisingly insulated from the direct effects of economic upheaval in Asia (see the articles by Umbach and Radtke in this volume). More intense Japanese economic interaction with Asia exposes Japan to fluctuations in the economies of Asian countries, but Japan finds it difficult to compete with the United States when it comes to bringing about structural change in the economies of its Asian neighbours. The US regards such restructuring as essential. In fact, throughout this century the US has consistently followed a policy of imposing (and aiding) structural change within defeated nations, and a similar strategy is being followed in the case of those Asian countries who were "defeated" by the Asian economic crisis. During the past


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one hundred years, emerging challengers to the power of Great Britain and the United States—Kaiser's Germany, Hitler's Germany, Japan, and the Soviet Union were defeated or collapsed. From the US point of view, the five major Asian players do not constitute a challenger to be "defeated", but countries to be restructured and "integrated" into a new kind of global system. The image of past "challengers" has not disappeared completely, however. Increasing tensions with China over Taiwan, and the treatment of issues such as "Tibet" recall US visions of former enemies, such as the Soviet Union. Rejection of a US led global order by Malaysia or China tends to be equated with "outdated nationalism". It is questionable whether the dynamics of "markets" contributes to systemic stability, nor is the restructuring of states in the US image a solution to fundamental conflicts of national interest among the major players in East Asia, even if they should all become successful market democracies (which in the middle run is highly unlikely). In this context the identification of shared common threats along the concept of "comprehensive security" may be a major contribution to security that does not rely on the restructuring and integration of countries. Moreover, this concepts avoids the labelling of countries like China as "heretic"—a classification that may add to ideological enmity even if no immediate mutual threats are involved. Lasting disorder on any large scale in China and Russia must be a matter of serious concern, and not only because both countries possess major nuclear arsenals. Quite apart from the effects of massive flows of refugees to neighbouring countries such as Korea, Japan and Central Europe such instability might seriously undermine the promises and legitimacy of market democracy. During the first three decades of this century failing marketisation had been a cause of the rise of fascism and socialist planned economies. In contrast to Europe, US leadership in Asia is not equivalent to imposing a new hierarchy among the five major Asian powers, Japan, China, Russia, India and Indonesia, who together are unable to construct a stable regional system of international relations. The security function of Japan, Korea, Taiwan and Singapore displays a completely different pattern of "division of labour" in the security field than that observed among the sovereign member states of NATO. The Asian crisis demonstrated once more that security is affected by economic instability, such as that in Indonesia, and that an approach to security focusing exclusively on military power is

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useless in preventing such dangerous situations from arising. As Sinha demonstrates in detail, China's economic dependence on the US and on Japan in the second instance, remains very great. In his opinion this will push China in the direction of further integration. It is mainly China's security concerns (Taiwan, Tibet, Xinjiang, South China Sea) that for the time being stand in the way of a more rapid integration of China into the regional and global system. Umbach focuses on specific "hard" issues of military security, both at the international and the domestic level. The attempt by the religious organisation AUM Shinrikyo to engage in the large-scale killing of Japanese citizens demonstrated that contemporary security can no longer be seen in terms of "battles along clearly demarcated front lines". He concludes that in order to prevent those new security dilemmas, to stabilise and not to undermine regional and global stability, a much broader and deeper security co-operation between nuclear powers and non-nuclear weapon states is urgently needed. Co-operation is also needed to deal with the proliferation challenges of the Soviet nuclear legacy and the inherent risks of Russia's strategic nuclear armed forces. Countries like North Korea might feel tempted to employ terrorist means against the population of Japan or the United States should North Korea become involved in a major conflict (Radtke). In this context Umbach refers to the fact that the US is maintaining a nuclear retaliation option against ABC weapons, but adds that the US will also rely increasingly on the use of conventional deep-strike, long-range, high-precision weapons systems. He discusses in detail the link between nuclear energy and the issue of proliferation in an age where the distinction between the military and civilian application of advanced technology is difficult, if not impossible, to draw. He goes on to discuss the issue of the significance of China's military build-up, and the implications of plans for a Theatre Missile Defence (TMD) system. His exposition of the technical and political aspects of military modernisation, and its consequences for the prospect of a larger Japanese autonomy in security matters versus the United States, provides the basis for an understanding of the physical environment which Japan's military security policies will face in the future. Schreurs once more draws attention to differences between the European and Asian security environment, and focuses on "soft" areas of security co-operation. In her view, Asia lacks many of the


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factors that contributed to international stability within Europe in the post WW II period. Having suffered numerous wars, Asia is still characterised by great differences in economic wealth and political regime type. There is still much mutual distrust, also fuelled by territorial disputes. Schreurs' main aim is to survey the pollution and resource problems in the East and Southeast Asian region, document some of the forms environmental co-operation has taken, and explain why co-operation is now beginning to emerge. Such co-operation may eventually contribute to reducing distrust. Nuclear energy is an option that is attracting growing attention in China and elsewhere in the region, but also creates common concern about nuclear safety issues. China's growing energy demands will have a major impact on international energy markets. Deforestation, water pollution and other issues are slowly leading states to build networks linking actors to address regional pollution problems. ESCAP (The Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific), APEC and ASEAN, the World Bank and the Asian Development recognise that economic development and environmental concerns cannot be separated, but there are still extremely few informal environmental or resource regimes in East and Southeast Asia. Sinha's contribution on "Chinese economic development and security interests: implications for Europe" demonstrates that economic issues and security issues cannot be separated either. China cannot afford to overburden its economy with excessive military expenditures. He argues that a continued high rate of economic growth is only possible if economic restructuring does not lead to undesirable inequality. Instability in China as a result of an economic downturn may indirectly influence stability in the region; a rapid growth rate, on the other hand, might lead to growing competition for food, fuel and natural resources. One should, however, guard against overestimating the weight of the Chinese economy from a global perspective. Neither for trade share nor for foreign investment is Asia important to European countries. In Sinha's view, developments in Asia do not have many security implications for the European countries, except in a very broad general sense. Sinha's article is more ambitious than the title suggests. He shows how domestic politics, the economy, and the build-up of military forces interact and are related to the regional international system, and suggests several scenarios in which events in China and the region might affect the global system.

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Both Hama and Hu An'gang explore the current state of China's energy supplies and its interaction with international energy markets. Hama points out that there will be no change in the high rate of supplies from China's own sources in energy consumption. Secondly, the reliability of energy imports is mainly dependent on China's export capability and acquisition of foreign exchange which should not be an issue. Thirdly, the development of international energy resources can reduce the risk inherent in oil imports. He stresses indirect consequences of increasing Chinese energy imports, and discusses in some detail the role of the Middle East and Central Asia in China's attempt to diversify its sources of energy. China will share sea lanes with America, Japan and other Asian countries. Chinese navy units will need to protect not only Chinese oil transports. This will also raise the question how to settle the issues concerning joint navigational security, and what kind of institutions are needed for joint consultation. Just as environmental concerns may push regional co-operation, so do crises in the financial realm encourage players to look for ways to increase stability by fostering regional co-operation—this is the major theme of the contribution by To Teruhiko. The currency crisis confronted the countries of Asia with the question of how to form a stable regional currency system. He then goes on to explore the theoretical structure of the currency crisis, pointing out the differences of the crisis for ASEAN member countries and the NIEs. In addition to "purely" economic causes he refers to the upheaval in Cambodia June 1997 as the major immediate trigger for the crisis, as well as the role of smuggled Thai currency on Cambodian, Laotian, and Vietnamese markets in this crisis. Structurally speaking, however, there are clear differences in the way the international economic relations of Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and other East Asian countries are built up which go some way to explain the different causes and effects for each of the countries involved—as is also evidenced by the different degrees of recovery achieved in recent months. Twu also explains the way in which the Chinese and Japanese economies were involved in the crisis. Japan and the region

Historically Japanese discussions on security matters have been conducted in terms of "US centred" and/or "UN-centred" policies. Drifte discusses the kind of policies Japan has recently developed in the UN context, and to what extent such policies may influence the


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workings of international politics and order in East Asia. He draws attention to a less analysed aspect of the emerging new regional order and multilateralism in the Asia Pacific region, namely the interaction of the states in the region within the framework of the UN. This may give some indications of the extent of regional co-operation and cohesion. There are forty-nine countries gathered in what is known as the "Asian block". This block is of relevance to the election of member states to various seats on UN committees, including the non-permanent seats on the UN security council. The UN Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC) is the foremost example of a UN peace-keeping operation which has also opened a new regional role for Japan. Drifte concludes that Japan's ambitions to become a permanent member of the UN Security Council in a restructured United Nations are nurtured more by status thinking and recognition of economic contributions to multilateralism, rather than by a clear concept of multilateralism based on domestic consensus or input in terms of initiatives, concept or personnel. In addition, its impact on Asian cohesion and the formation of a stable regional order is ambivalent, because of the continuity of a strong US-focused bilateralism, and Japan's inability to come to terms with its historical legacy. Drifte then goes on to deal in detail with Japanese initiatives concerning a settlement of the Cambodian issue(s), initiatives generally welcomed by the Asian states which saw for the first time not only the sending of Japanese self defence forces abroad for a PKO (Peace Keeping Operation), but also the first Chinese participation in PKOs. The UN is also sponsoring the UN Regional centre for Peace and Disarmament in Asia (the so-called Kathmandu process), and this is the only regular meeting which also includes North Korean participants. He warns, however, not to attach excessive expectations to the role of the UN. Despite the urgency of the situation the UN is playing no role in reducing tensions on the Korean Peninsula, and all recent moves such as the Korean Economic Development Organisation KEDO, or the quadrilateral talks between North Korea, South Korea, China and the US are all at the initiative of the US and outside of the UN framework. Nevertheless, one of the most important contributions to regional cohesion and Asia's comprehensive security by the UN is probably supporting the integration of the PRC into the global order in various ways. On the other hand, the PRC will not allow the UN to intervene in any way in the issue of Chinese reunification, and it is only with great reluctance that the PRC has agreed to discussing

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competing territorial demands concerning parts of the South China Sea. Both issues, however, could have a very serious impact on Asian regional security. Discussing the possibility of a reform of the UN Security Council Drifte recalls that India, Pakistan, and Indonesia have all shown interest in a permanent security council seat, complicating Asian cooperation. He also points out the lack of a consistent, clear Japanese strategy to convince others of the appropriateness of Japanese claims. Schiltz analyses the philosophical background to Japan's security policies; it is only by establishing the parameters for the historical and domestic debates on security and foreign policy that we can understand the logic and defuse the apparent paradox in Japanese security policies. The title of his contribution may frighten off many a reader: "2nd order Cybernetics and Comprehensive Security: contributions from contemporary systems theory," and some may question whether such philosophical considerations are of any practical relevance. This editor (Radtke) is, however, convinced that exactly because of the apparent ease with which international discussions can be conducted through a generally accepted common language (English), with virtually no technical limits on communications in the age of Internet, we do need to wonder from time to time whether our use of language does in fact reflect our patterns of thought, our logic, which may not be the same as that of our neighbours. The abstract character of systems research does not go beyond the level of other natural sciences. Exactly because of the apparent ease with which we can communicate it is all the more necessary to realise that communication is a more complex phenomenon than providing a smooth translation from one language to another. Schiltz uses Japanese security policies as a case study to provide an illustration for Niklas Luhman's theoretical approach towards systems research. He stresses that the concept "comprehensive security" has turned into a kind of catch-all term. The Japanese post-war security system describes itself as "comprehensive security," and thus provides its own key to an understanding of the character of the Japanese security system. In order to observe how a system observes, one may make observations at a different level, performing a second order observation. In the first part Schiltz outlines the frame of Luhmann's theory of social systems. In the second part he presents a discussion of the relevance of his theory to the study of Japan's comprehensive security, which brought fourth "unique" concepts such as


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"autonomous defence" {jishu booei) and "comprehensive security" (soogoo anzen hoshoo). Japan is well known for its love of discussing "Japaneseness" (nihonjinron). Schiltz presents this as one example of a societal self-description, highlighting the alien-ness of the Japanese in contrast with the outside world. Asian values would be another comparable self-description. "Comprehensive security" is still in fashion at the end of the twentieth century. The term "both countered and reinforced some of the arguments of the new military "realists". "Comprehensive security" facilitated a domestic debate on national security in an environment where discussions of military security where surrounded by the misty shrouds of Article 9 of Japan's Constitution. Schiltz's discussion may remind us that citizens of other countries may be similarly forced by their own social environment to adopt modes of reasoning difficult to understand for those who are not privy to that environment. Japan is the only country in this part of the world that enjoys a living standard and a social, political and economic structure comparable, and in some aspects superior to the countries of (North)west and Central Europe. Its secu-

rity is highly dependent on the internal political and economic stability of its Asian neighbours, but Japan has to rely on the United States for its military security. At the same time, the internal structure of Japan's Asian neighbours differs in many aspects from that of Japan. Active co-operation on matters of military security with other Asian nations must, as a matter of course, be considerably less intensive than are the relations between France, Germany and Great Britain in the initial stages. While taking into account the differences with its neighbours, Japan endeavours to foster co-operation to the largest possible extent. This is the background to the concept of comprehensive security as formulated in 1980 by a study group appointed by Prime Minister Ohira, which called for Japan to use a blend of economic, political and military tools to maintain its security. It is questionable to what extent Japanese policy makers have striven consciously to apply the concept in Japanese foreign policy decision making. In his essay on the impact of Japanese direct investment on regional stability Busser argues that the concept of comprehensive security reinforced the legitimacy of Japan's foreign economic policy and the massive scale of its foreign direct investments in Asia as part of Japan's attempt to contribute to the greater stability of the region as a whole. He illustrates the Japanese governments' concern by outlining the involvement of three Japanese government institutions in

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aiding private investments in the region, the Export Import Bank of Japan, the Japanese Overseas Economic Co-operation Fund, and JETRO. Last, but not least, Igarashi deals with the costs and benefits of securing security to the ordinary citizen of Japan, by discussing the issue of the American bases in Okinawa. Common sense requires that in a democracy such as Japan the burden for the defence of the country ought to be shared evenly by all citizens—as the example of Okinawa shows, this is, however, not the case. Perhaps his essay is a timely reminder, towards the end of this volume, that security does not just serve the interests of the state, but is a matter that affects all citizens. By conceptualising security in a multi-layered, broad sense comprehensive security once more draws attention to the fact that in the end, the state, the political parties, the "economy", international and domestic enterprises ought to have one common objective: to serve the citizen. Korea and the region

Park takes up the issue of security and nuclear co-operation to demonstrate policy choices and the circumscribed space within which South Korean security and foreign policies can move. He defines comprehensive security in terms of policies designed to protect the people's life not only from traditional forms for military threat, but also from various other forms of threats such as hunger, poverty, environmental disaster, scarcity of energy, and the like. Affected by the reduced role of ideological conflicts world-wide, military security interests are no longer the predominant factors that dictate international relations in the post-Cold War era. Most states have begun to pay more attention to non-military security interests. Park shows, however, how the issues of nuclear energy in East Asian countries could provide a potential source of conflict in the region in the future. The nuclear energy option raises controversial issues among regional countries, including the issues of nuclear safety, nuclear waste management, and nuclear proliferation. Park goes on to discuss this issue in detail for the question of the nuclear fuel cycle programme, Japan being the only country in the world that pursues an active policy in that direction. South Korea is not happy about the United States' twotier non-proliferation policy, i.e. allowing Japan to reprocess US supplied fuel, but not South Korea. Park describes in detail the significance of the framework of KEDO co-operation for enhancing security in the region, but points out that, in contrast to the European Atomic


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community (EURATOM), there has been no such framework for regional co-operation to co-ordinate nuclear activities in East Asia, despite recent proposals for ASIATOM or PACIFICATOM. Considering its active nuclear programme and its geopolitical position in the region, South Korea also has a vested interest in the emerging concept of a regional nuclear co-operation system, but there are pros and cons. A regional nuclear co-operation framework could hinder the development of an independent nuclear fuel cycle programme in South Korea; second, a regional framework could generate new constraints in the nuclear relationship between the United States and South Korea if the US thinks that a regional framework might encourage reprocessing in East Asia. Pohl approaches the security issues of the Korean Peninsula from the point of view of Korean unification. He argues that German unification cannot be a model for Korean unification, but that there are still a few lessons to be learned. Only a gradual process will bring success on the road to Korean unification, and that this process must be carried by the Korean states themselves, and not imposed from without. He asserts that after unification there can be no doubt that a unified Korea will quickly assert itself as one of the leading powers in Northeast Asia. The ultimate common factor shared by both the North and South alike is a deep-rooted aversion to Japan. This editor (Radtke) has always held that exactly because of this, Japan must attempt to reconceptualise its foreign policy on a long-term basis in the direction of much more intense and friendly relations with South Korea, to begin with. China and the region

Hu An'gang's, central argument is that increasing the total volume of oil imports within a certain range need not constitute a threat to China's political independence. He focuses in particular on the composition of the "energy basket", and links the increasing supply of clean forms of energy, such as the import of natural gas to China's east coast, to existing environmental concerns. He demonstrates that it is possible to achieve a sound balance between the political demands of maintaining independence in decision making and the need to expand energy imports. The topic of China's independence also figures high in Wang Xiaodong's treatise on "Basic development trend of Sino-US relations in 1997". Although Sino-US relations have seen several ups and

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downs since then, his observations on the dynamics of developments in 1997 present a good example of the way many Chinese appear to conceptualise the Sino-US relationship. He argues that to look at it from a purely ideological angle today lacks the power to convince Differing from numerous other observers he stresses that not only China, but India too is an emerging great country with ambitions no less great than China's as she seeks to influence regional and even international affairs. Still, the fact remains that China is the only exception among major countries in Asia that have officially expressed their wish to adopt Western forms of political democracy. He underlines the weaknesses of China versus the United States, for instance in the ability of the US to damage the Chinese economy should it choose to close access to American (and global) markets. He also points out that it is unlikely that China will break the existing tranquil situation of her own accord—the real test will come when Taiwan takes initiatives in an attempt to change the present position. In conclusion he points out that from the long-term, strategic and basic angle, China will have to build democracy and a legal framework, and at the same time must press ahead with progress in economic and technological spheres. Southeast Asia and the region

In his article "The Southeast Asian Approach Towards The South China Sea. Conflict Resolution From A Comprehensive Security Perspective" Raymond Feddema shows how for a considerable period the Cold War setting put its stamp on the way countries in Southeast Asia, China and the United States have handled conflicts and conflict management. He demonstrates, however, that over time at the regional level Southeast Asian countries developed their own approach towards conflict resolution and conflict prevention. Rather than insisting on agendas with a fixed order of priorities for issues to be dealt with the new approach has stressed the linkages between the issues; accepting the inseparability of issues in a realistic manner countries in Southeast Asia pursued a comprehensive approach. Feddema takes up two issues that illustrate the point: problems related to the South China Sea and the Cambodian issue. In addition to the well-known issues of oil and military security Feddema emphasizes the importance of fishing rights in the EEZs, and environmental issues related to fishing. He also deals with institutions such as ASEAN and their role not only in conflict resolution, but also conflict prevention.


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Vietnam and the region

Nguyen Vu Tung's article on "Vietnam's new concept of security in the context of Doi-Moi" emphasises the vital necessity of coping with poverty and backwardness, the greatest enemies of Vietnam in this period. He is clearly concerned about the fact that the Asian crises and poverty threaten not only Vietnam, but other countries in the region as well. He does not ignore the domestic causes of the economic crisis, but adds that what has happened reflects the lack of a regulating body beyond the national level with regard to the international financial and stock markets, which have been increasingly integrated. Instability in the regional and global economy, therefore, is perceived to be a source of threat to Vietnam, which is increasingly concerned over beggar-thy-neighbour policies in the self-help settings. As one Vietnamese put it: "Will the world economic and political order be one of equality, justice and mutual benefits for all or the one imposed by a 'closed club' of big powers?" The European approach towards regional comprehensive security

In common with numerous other commentators from the region, globalisation is here not seen as transcending the role of the state, b u t rather

as a consequence of the powerful role of rich countries—poor countries find it difficult to devise policies to deal with the crisis, especially since none of them boasts any strong multinational companies that may function as influential global players. As is apparent from the essays above there is a general feeling for the need for increased co-operation in the face of shared military insecurity, and threats posed by economic and environmental problems. Although the ideological confrontations belong by and large to the past, there is still no general consensus among Asian nations on the direction economic, political and social

developments should take. This, however, is one of the main pillars of co-operative security as practised in Europe, skilfully outlined by Homan in his essay on the past and present of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). In his view, the priorities of the OSCE today are to consolidate common values and build civil societies: prevent local conflicts, restore stability and bring peace, to overcome real and perceived security deficits and to avoid creating new divisions by promoting a co-operative system of security. Present-day conflicts show a tendency to move from international to internal conflict, and this also influenced the concept of sovereignty and the right of the security council of the UN to

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intervene—a development not always welcome among countries in Asia, especially those who have still not completed the process of building a solid unified nation-state. Together with the political and military power plays of state actors, other conditions determining power relations between actors include the distribution of wealth and property rights, attitude of majority versus minority groups, and the extent to which democratic rights are guaranteed and human rights are respected. If the OSCE were to become a model for (South)east Asia it seems clear that conditions there differ considerably from the current situation in Asia.

EAST AND SOUTH-EAST ASIA VIEWED AT THE REGIONAL LEVEL


EAST ASIA AS A PERIPHERY IN THE NEW WORLD ORDER LAM PENG ER*

During the Cold War era, East Asia was located on the periphery of world order.1 This Cold War Order was underpinned by the strategic stalemate which resulted from the nuclear balance of terror between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR). Even though regional conflicts in Korea, Vietnam and Cambodia were intertwined with superpower rivalries, East Asia was not pivotal to the political economy of this international order; its ideological, strategic and economic centres were the US and the USSR. In East Asia, the US constructed a system of alliances (including the Southeast Asian Treaty Organisation (SEATO) and interlocking bilateral military ties with Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and the Philippines), supported the capitalist market, and often gave lip service to democratisation among its allies. Opposing the US-led bloc, the Soviet Union forged alliances with the People's Republic of China (PRC), North Korea and the Indochina communist bloc, supported socialism and state-directed economic central planning and encouraged communist insurgencies in Southeast Asia. This order was stable at the systemic level after the 1961 Cuban Missile Crisis because of the tacit understanding reached between the two leading (nuclear) superpowers; mutual assured destruction (MAD) deterred them from any direct military confrontation that could escalate and cross the nuclear threshold. However, at the regional and local levels outside the European theatre, the absence of MAD-induced order meant that these areas were often prone to instability caused by converging local, regional and superpower competition.

* Assistant Professor of the Department of Political Science, National University of Singapore. His main areas of research are grassroots democracy and local referendums in Japan. He is the author of Green Politics in Japan (London: Routledge, 1999), and has also published in Asian Survey, Pacific Affairs and Japan Forum. 1

I define East Asia as the region which encompasses Northeast and Southeast Asia.

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While the Cold War system avoided a Third World War, the order it brought at the global level did not necessarily lead to distributive justice and equality in the international system. In East Asia, while it was possible for Japan, the Newly Industrialising Economies (Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong) and the late developers Malaysia and Thailand to attain economic progress, they were dependent on the huge US domestic market for their products and on American military might to maintain the regional balance of power. Many other countries in East Asia and beyond did not attain significant economic improvement, although they fell within the superpowers' spheres of influence. By the end of the Cold War, with the exception of the ascending NIEs and the descending former Soviet bloc and Eastern Europe, the pecking order remained essentially the same as it was at its outset: the US at the top of the power hierarchy, Western Europe, Japan, Canada and Australasia in the middle, followed by the third world countries in Asia and Latin America, and Africa at the bottom. In short, the central feature of this international system was the Cold War polarisation between East and West coupled with an economic cleavage between the rich North and the poor South.

THE POST-COLD WAR ERA AND COMPETING CONCEPTIONS OF WORLD ORDER

By 1991, the rapid collapse of the Soviet Union and the concomitant Cold War structure led to different conceptions of a new world order.2 However, most analysts find it convenient to label it "the Post-Cold War epoch" or "a new world order" without explicitly capturing its essential characteristic or giving a new name to this world order.3 If it is indeed a new order, what is it and why is it new? Is there an appropriate name for its "newness" anyway? The caution in labelling a new epoch is understandable because it may simply be too early to tell what its defining characteristics are. Nevertheless, we can identify a number of paradigms which may 2 Harkavy gives a good summary of seven competing images of the post-Cold War international system. See Robert E. Harkavy, "Images of the Coming International System", Orbis, Vol. 41, No. 4, Fall 1997. 3 Cox writes: "Because we cannot know the future, we cannot give a satisfactory name to future structures. We can only depict them in terms of a negation or

EAST ASIA AS A PERIPHERY IN THE NEW WORLD ORDER

23

inform us about potential and divergent outcomes of the global order and, by extension, East Asia, in the next three decades. This chapter addresses the following questions. First, what is a periphery in the context of a world order? Second, what are the main paradigms of a new world order? Third, which of these appear to be most plausible? The four paradigms I will examine are: an ecological order, a globalist order based on regional or international organisations, the state-centric, realist paradigm that stresses power politics, and a neo-liberal order underpinned by free trade and democracy.

THE EAST ASIAN PERIPHERY AND THE US CENTRE

Interpreting this region as a periphery in the new world order is contrary to the dominant view that the next century belongs to East Asia.4 According to this conventional view, China will become a potential negation of the dominant tendencies we have known . . . . This sense of transition away from known structures towards an as yet unnameable future accounts for the large number of approaches in different fields of study that begin with 'post'—post-industrial, post-modern, post-structural, post-capitalist, post-Marxist, etc." Robert W. Cox, "Towards a Post-Hegemonic Conceptualisation of World Order: Reflections on the Relevancy of Ibn Khaldun" in James N. Rosenau and ErnstOtto Czempiel (eds.), Governance Without Government: Order and Change in World Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992) p. 139. 4 See for example Francois Godement, The Mew Asian Renaissance: From Colonialism to the Post-Cold War Era (London: Routledge, 1997), Mark T. Berger and Douglas A. Borer (eds.), The Rise of East Asia: Critical Visions of the Pacific Century (London: Routledge, 1997), Jim Rohwer, Asia Rising: How America will Prosper as Asia's Economies Boom (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995), John Naisbitt, Megatrends Asia: The Eight Asian Megatrends that are Changing the World (London: Nicholas Brealy, 1995), James C. Abegglen, Sea Change: Pacific Asia as the New World Industrial Centre (New York: Free Press, 1994), Mark Borthwick, Pacific Century: The Emergence of Modern Pacific Asia (Boulder, Col: Westview Press, 1992), Frank Gibney, The Pacific Century: America and Asia in a Changing World (New York: Macmillan, 1992), William McCord, The Dawn of the Pacific Century: Implications for Three Worlds of Development (New Brunswick: Transaction, 1991), Simon Winchester, Pacific Rising: The Emergence of a New World Culture (New York: Prentice Hall, 1991) and Staffan Burenstam Linder, The Pacific Century: Economic and PoliticalConsequences of Asia-Pacific Dynamism (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1986). For an articulate Asian voice which anticipates the coming "Asian Era", see Kim Il-Gon, "The New World Order and the Future of Asia: Characteristics, Underlying Factors, and Prospects for Development in East Asia", The APC Journal of Asian-Pacific Studies, March 1997. For a minority view which questions the hype about East Asian miracles, see Rodd McGibbon, "Charting the Pacific Century: Megatrend or Just Plain Hyperbole?", Pacific Review, Vol. 8, No. 2, 1996.

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LAM PENG ER

more complete superpower than Japan while the rest of East Asia, notwithstanding the anomalies of Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia and North Korea, will further increase in wealth. Some optimists assume that East Asia is the once and future centre; the region will reclaim its historical site at the centre of the new world order. This sanguine view is underpinned by the following factors. First, around half of the global economic production and consumption may be located in East Asia by the mid-21st century. Second, China will emerge as a superpower with enhanced nuclear capabilities and a blue water fleet; Japan will become a "normal" great power when it loses its residual allergy to playing a more active political role commensurate with its economic might; the NIEs and other late developers will embark on arms modernisation once they have the economic means to do so. In contrast to the earlier centuries when most East Asian states fell to Western imperialism and colonialism, they will probably be less vulnerable to threats emanating from outside the region. Third, many East Asian countries will become more confident and strident about their values, culture and ideologies. Some Asians have proposed alternatives to American values (often confused with Western values) of liberal democracy and laissez faire capitalism. These include the alleged superiority of "Confucian values", "Asian democracy", and the East Asian model of state-led, capitalist development. Increasingly, Asian governments and intellectuals are prepared to challenge the cultural "hegemony" of the West, especially now that Asian societies have become more affluent.3 In short, the rise of East Asia is underpinned by its impressive economic growth. Certain East Asian countries will be in an even stronger position to translate their economic might into political, strategic and cultural influence sometime in the next century. The 1997—98 East Asian currency meltdown and concomitant socio-economic and political problems may even drag the region into an uncharacteristic three to five-year long recession. However, those optimists who subscribe to the belief that East Asia still has the fundamentals to succeed—high savings, strong work ethic, respect for order, stability and authority, a powerful developmental state and an highly educated work force—will probably believe that the crisis is only temporary. Some may anticipate that, in the long run, many East Asian countries are likely to emerge from the crisis as leaner 5

See for example Chan Heng Chee, "What the 'Asian Values' Debate is All About", Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1996 mimeo.


25

and meaner economies. Thus, if East Asia were to recover strongly from the crisis after a few bad years, it would mean that the region was forced to take a few steps backwards before making its leap towards a developed status by the middle of the 21st century. Nevertheless, even if the region were to recover soon, East Asia is likely to remain a periphery; the flip side of the coin is Pax Americana perpetuated at the global level into the 21st century. My central argument is: regardless of which analytical prism we adopt, they tend to highlight an uni-polar Pax Americana at the global level. Indeed, the US superpower has extended its dominance even more impressively in the fields of strategic alliances, military and information technology, ideological leadership in the realms of democracy, capitalism, privatisation and market opening, leverage over the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), APEC and the universalisation of American pop icons, music, culture and lifestyles. Thus the prospects for the US to construct a Gramscian hegemony of "soft power" which underpins its status as a sole superpower have never looked so bright.6 Charles William Maynes wrote: "America's current hegemony has had an extraordinary impact on other countries in the post-Cold War era. Perhaps not since ancient Rome has a single power so towered over the international order with such a decisive margin of superiority."' Even though the American state and capital are not monolithic, do not always get what they want and need the support of certain domestic and international allies, the US is the key architect of this new world order which is constructed to reflect its interests. Put simply, during the Cold War, there were two competing orders: Pax Americana and Pax Sovietica; in its aftermath, a more pervasive and expansive Pax Americana world order appears to be emerging and no real challengers seem to be in sight in the next two decades. In East Asia, the US is likely to remain dominant despite the hype b According to Gramsci, a ruling bloc successfully establishes its hegemony not merely through coercion but especially when the ruled consent to the cultural, moral and intellectual values of the ruling bloc. Although Gramsci focuses on hegemony within a particular state and society, his idea on hegemony is also applicable to international relations. For an examination of hegemony, see Anne Showstack Sassoon, Gramsci's Politics (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987) pp. 109-134. 7 Charles William Maynes, "'Principled' Hegemony", World Policy Review, Vol. 14, No. 3, Fall 1997, p. 31.

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about China emerging as a regional hegemon. If this argument is correct, then Pax Americana, an old but central feature of the Cold War era, is still persisting in the "new" world order while East Asia remains a periphery. I use the term "periphery" in three different but compatible ways. First, East Asia is a periphery in terms of the global strategic balance; the US is still Number One and is in a league of its own in the projection of conventional military and nuclear power.8 Moreover, the US is unrivalled in launching the military-technological revolution: integrating space technology, command, control, computers and communications and "smart weapons". Despite premature and exaggerated notions of American decline, Washington continues to lead its allies in East Asia. There are no challengers or any coalition of challengers on the horizon which can displace the US hegemon. In addition, the military in many East Asian countries depend on the US for sophisticated weapon systems, spare parts and technical training. Indeed, the US remains the number one arms merchant in the world. Second, East Asia, with the exception of Japan, is a periphery in the global political economy. It is more than ever dependent on the huge US domestic market for its products, US-based multinational corporations for investments, American mutual funds and hot money to bolster their share markets and American banks for financial loans. While East Asian NIEs have increased in wealth, it is essentially "dependent development" because they still rely on multinational corporations (MNCs) for technology and capital. Despite suggestions that East Asian countries should adopt the yen as a regional currency as an alternative to the US dollar, the US dollar continues to remain the preferred currency for international trade. Moreover, East Asian countries are under-represented in terms of voting power in various international organisations including the IMF and the World Bank.9 An American newspaper reported: "The IMF, in the words 8

Mark Danner writes that "American forces thus remain abroad independent of the defunct Soviet Union, and to support that hegemony, the United States spends approximately 260 billion dollars a year on armaments and troops—an amount that, though a good deal lower than the peaks of the Reagan years, easily exceeds that of the next ten heavily armed nations combined". Mark Danner, "Marooned in the Cold War: America, the Alliance, and the Quest for a Vanished World", World Policy Journal, Vol. 14, No. 3, 1997, p. 4. 9 The US is dominant in the IMF. A.F.P. Bakker writes: "With 18 percent of the votes, the US has a right of veto over the most important decisions, such as


27

of former US trade representative Mickey Kantor, is a 'battering ram' to open up Asian markets to US enterprises."10 Moreover, even the communist regimes of China and Vietnam are increasingly sucked into the vortex of global capitalism. Third, I use the term "periphery" in the Gramscian sense; East Asia does not provide any attractive ideological alternatives to liberal democracies, market capitalism and privatisation. The muchvaunted state-led capitalism of East Asia and the keiretsu-chaebol dinosaurs of Japan and South Korea are in trouble; "Asian values", "Asian democracy" and communism have no universal appeal. Indeed, the proponents of "Asian values" and "Asian democracy" have been silenced by the East Asian economic crisis. If Asian values are supposed to underpin impressive economic growth in that region, don't they also underpin its dramatic economic crisis? Japanese-style capitalism is also unravelling. This includes lifetime employment, seniority system, the keiretsu system and the collusion between bureaucrats and big businesses. Undoubtedly, US hegemony in the realms of strategic power, political economy, ideology and culture are not uncontested but there are, presently and in the near future, no real challengers to the US. Two qualifications to this Pax Americana should be made. First, order at the systemic or global level does not preclude the possibility of disorder at the local or regional level. World Order is here simply defined as the lack of a nuclear or world war coupled with predictability in the rules of the game. Conceivably, there can be local or regional disorders in East Asia that are limited to that area but do not disturb the general order. Second, Pax Americana or any other world order is no guarantee for justice, especially for the smaller countries. Hitherto, world order is by the great powers, from the great powers and for the great powers. In the case of East Asia, it may well suffer from major turbulence even when there is a new world order. Similarly, among the East Asian countries, there are capital increases and amendments to the Articles of Agreement, for which 85 percent of the votes are needed". A.F.P. Bakker, International Financial Institutions (London: Longman, 1996), p. 14. East Asian countries with the exception of Japan have very little influence in the IMF. The Group of Ten (US, Germany, Japan, France, UK, Italy, Canada, Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland and Sweden) has 52.2 percent of voting ratios in the IMF. In the case of Japan it has 5.6 percent but the rest of East Asia are poorly represented in the IMF. See Bakker, International Financial Institutions, p. 20. 10 International Herald Tribune, 26 January 1998, p. 8.

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also winners and losers, and a lack of equality and justice for the weaker countries in the midst of a world order. In short, while a new world order is preferable to having no order, it is not necessarily a global arrangement that can satisfy the wants of humanity.

ALTERNATIVE WORLD ORDERS

To assess the periphery, it would be useful to examine different paradigms of world order. Even if we were to look at the world through different lenses and assumptions, the role of the American hegemon still looms large. The four paradigms of world order can be expressed in Typology A. The first is a Green Order where military brute force is irrelevant to address the threat of ecological disasters. These include the depletion of the ozone layer and the possibility that certain countries may even be submerged by rising waters from melting polar caps, deforestation, acid rain, the rapid extinction of more species of flora and fauna and severe industrial and nuclear accidents. The traditional nation-state system is ill prepared to deal with environmental problems that transcend the borders of its units; a Green Order would demand a regional or a global approach to deal with trans-national environmental problems. Hence, the two axis of a Green Order are the irrelevance of military power and the inadequacy of the nation-state to grapple with green challenges. The second is an international organisation-centred world order.11 A nascent supra-national organisation is the European Community (EU) whose members (the traditional nation-states) pool their sovereignty together, and share common institutions like the European Parliament and judiciary and possibly a common currency, the Euro. An UN-centred world order would be one where the UNSC can maintain the peace through peacekeeping and peace-enforcement activities. The two denning features to this model are the pre-eminence of a non-state actor, the UN, to deal with the issue of war and peace and the continued relevance of military power. The UNSC will carry military clout to deter recalcitrant forces which may dis11 See for example, J.W. Burton, World Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972). See also Robert W. Cox, "An Alternative Approach to Multilateralism for the Twenty-first Century", Global Governance, No. 3, 1997.


29

rupt the peace, while the EU members will continue to retain its military power. The third is the realist model of international politics.12 This perspective views international relations essentially as competition among sovereign states in an anarchical world whose currency is military power. In short, it stresses the primacy of power and states as key actors and units of analysis. The realist literature often examines the critical role of a hegemon who underpins the stability of the international system. The fourth paradigm, a liberal world order, is predicated upon the norms that countries engage in the comparative and not the competitive advantage of global trade; the economic ties that bind is a positive-sum game, not a zero-sum game for its participants.13 The forging of economic partnerships and rising affluence underpinned by free trade will eventually lead to the emergence and the consolidation of a middle class in these countries. This particular class with the advantage of more resources, education, access to information and travel will prefer a democratic form of government to reflect its interest. Democratisation and the consolidation of democratic regimes will underpin international order because democracies do not go to war against each other. Thus, the two denning characteristics of a liberal order are the primacy of free trade rather than military power and the continued relevance of nation-states which will have democratic regimes. The next section will examine how these paradigms will inform us about order in East Asia. Competing Paradigms of World Order Primacy of Military Power Yes No State-centricity

12

Yes

Realist Model

Liberal Order

No

International Organisations

Green Order

On the assumptions of realism and its variant "neo-realism", see Robert O. Keohane (ed.), JVeorealism and its Critics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986) and Andrew Linklater, "Neo-realism in Theory and Practice" in Ken Booth and Steve Smith (eds.), International Relations Theory Today (Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania University Press, 1996). 13 See for example, David A. Baldwin (ed.), Neorealism and Neoliberalism: The Contemporary Debate (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993).

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LAM PENG ER A RADICAL GREEN ORDER IN EAST ASIA?

A case can be made for a stronger international environmental regime, especially in East Asia. In their headlong drive for rapid economic growth, many Asian countries have suffered from environmental degradation. Japan's impressive economic growth in the 1950s and 1960s was bought at a heavy price; notorious cases of mercury and cadmium poisoning were some of the more visible incidents of environmental pollution. The backlash from local residents' movements in politics against big business polluters, a tighter regulatory and legal regime, the relocation of dirty factories to neighbouring countries with a less stringent regulatory regime and advances in green technology had significantly reduced the source of pollution in that country. However, the poorer Southeast Asian countries have given priority to rapid economic growth at the expense of the environment. For example, they have engaged in unsustainable logging for foreign exchange resulting in severe deforestation.14 Moreover, many of these countries are not democracies, lacking in transparency and public accountability, and practice crony capitalism and corruption; wellconnected friends of key political leaders enjoy business contracts, monopolies and access to bank loans. Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei and parts of the Philippines have been periodically shrouded by poisonous smog caused by indiscriminate burning of plantations and virgin forests in Indonesia for cash crop cultivation. Even in Japan, there were a few potentially serious nuclear station mishaps and cover-ups which resulted in greater disquiet among many local residents against the construction of more nuclear stations. Conceivably, a Green Order ought to be canvassed if environmental problems become catastrophic and life threatening on a massive scale to human beings, animals and plants. If the region is badly hit by multiple disasters such as Chernobyl-type nuclear accidents in Japan, Korea and China, more smog from the burning forests and plantations in Indonesia and, if states lack the capacity to deal with these serious man-made disasters, East Asia would be forced to 14

See Peter Dauvergne, Shadows in the Forest: Japan and the Politics of Timber in Southeast Asia (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1997) and Michael J.G. Pamwell and Raymond L. Bryant (eds.), Environmental Change in Southeast Asia: People, Politics and Sustainable Development (London: Routledge, 1996).


31

respond to these problems as a region. Until and unless the magnitude of environmental disasters is really overwhelming, economic growth will continue to take precedence. After all, the legitimacy of both democratic and authoritarian regimes in East Asia is dependent on the ruling parties to deliver the economic goods. In short, if the ecosystem does not appear to be collapsing, the type of world order familiar and comfortable to the ruling elite is the realist balance of power and the liberal conception of economic materialism. Even in the more advanced case of Western Europe where postmaterialist mass values, Green Parties and stricter environmental laws have emerged: a Green Order is not in place. Like East Asia, regional order in Europe is still based on the balance of power and economic interdependency. The US, the largest and probably the most wasteful economy in the world, consumes the most energy and resources and emits the largest amount of ozone depleting gases. Since the US places greater priority on its national and producer interests, it dragged its feet at the 1992 Rio Conference and the 1997 Kyoto Conference over higher standards to curb environmental pollution. The lack of cooperation from the US is sufficient to hinder any attempts to shift towards a Green Order.

REGIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL ORGANISATIONS IN EAST ASIA

In the 1990s, the United Nations seemed to have taken a higher profile to address acts of aggression (e.g. Iraq's invasion of Kuwait) and peacekeeping operations in Cambodia, Namibia, Mozambique, Zaire, Somalia and Bosnia. Since the UNSC is no longer paralysed by vetoes driven by Cold War considerations, it appeared that the UNSC could perform the original role envisaged by the UN's founders: a concert of five permanent members which is able to deter or punish any transgressors of international order and stability. The IMF and the World Bank have also become key actors in the currency turmoil and economic crisis of East Asia in 1997 and 1998. These organisations, especially the IMF, have been imposing stringent economic conditions on South Korea, Thailand and Indonesia in a bid to restore investors' confidence and to pry open their markets in exchange for IMF rescue packages and loans. These countries could not ignore the bitter prescription of the IMF even though

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its actions were made at the expense of their political and economic sovereignty. Regional organisations to underpin regional order were further consolidated in East Asia. ASEAN as a regional organisation has expanded from seven to ten Southeast Asian countries. Moreover, the ASEAN states have also initiated the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) as a platform for confidence building, dialogue and the discussion of security issues. APEG has also been institutionalised to establish stronger economic linkages and market liberalisation across the Pacific. However, it is unlikely for the ASEAN states to emulate the EU soon because these Southeast Asian states are at different levels of economic development, they have different types of political regimes and also differ with regard to ethnicity, religion, culture and colonial heritage. With the exception of Thailand, they are young post-colonial states which are preoccupied and concerned about consolidating their statehood rather than to transcend it. They are unlikely to adopt a common currency, permit open borders and the freedom of labour migration within ASEAN. In the case of Northeast Asia, the region is even more "backward" than Southeast Asia in terms of regional organisational building. This is due primarily to the Japanese burden of imperial history and the perpetual tension between the divided states of China (Beijing and Taipei) and Korea (Pyongyang and Seoul). While some of these regional and global institutions seem to herald a new era of co-operation, the reality is that nation-states, especially the US, continue to drive most of these institutions. While the UN provided the fig leaf of international legitimacy to the multilateral forces arrayed against the Iraqi forces, the US was the real commander during the Gulf War. By virtue of the UN's location in New York, the perpetual threat of the US (a key financier of the UN) not to pay its arrears, Washington exercises a dominant influence in the UN [through the presence of the US and its allies France and Britain in the UNSC, and its insistence to retain military control in UN peacekeeping operations which involve its troops]. In fact, the American influence on the UN has never been greater. Its compliant ally, Japan, is the key donor to the UN. Russia, preoccupied by its internal problems and reliant on American and its allies' goodwill and assistance to its weak economy, has not behaved like its Soviet predecessor in the UNSC. Russia today does not cast paralysing vetoes in the UNSC like the USSR did in the past.


33

A key reason why the ARF and APEC are operational is because it is in the US interest to support them. When Washington perceives that certain regional initiatives are against its interest, it has no qualms to reject them. For example, it had pressured Japan not to support the East Asian Economic Caucus (EAEC) which would have become an Asian club excluding the US. Similarly, it has rejected ASEAN's plan to introduce the Southeast Asian Nuclear Weapon Free Zone (SEANWFZ) even though it would have enhanced regional order. Washington was concerned that the nuclear free zone would pose problems for the freedom of navigation of its nuclear-bearing vessels in Southeast Asian waters. Unless ASEAN is willing to amend the treaty to take into account US strategic interest, the US would not endorse the SEANWFZ. Not surprisingly, Japan tacitly supported its ally. The US is pre-eminent in the IMF and the World Bank.15 During the 1997-98 currency and economic turmoil in South Korea, Thailand, and Indonesia, there was a convergence of IMF demands and US preferences for market opening and other forms of deregulation as a condition for IMF rescue packages. These concessions are likely to benefit US banks and producers. Even though certain representatives from the American Congress fear that the US contribution to the IMF package may become a repetition of the American rescue package for Mexico when its peso crashed, the Clinton Administration has taken advantage of the East Asian economic crisis to secure an advantage for US business interests, as well as strategic interests. Not surprisingly, Beijing has condemned the IMF as a tool of US state and business interests.16

THE REALIST PARADIGM: REALPOLITIK IN EAST ASIA

One can subscribe to this paradigm without believing that the US is "bound to lead" in East Asia.17 Paul Kennedy argues that, like lj

For a view that the US is also very influential in the Asian Development Bank, see Nitish K. Dutt, "The United States and the Asian Development Bank", Journal of Contemporary Asia, Vol. 27, No. 1, 1997.

l(> East Asia Today, "People's Daily Article Alleges Washington is Using Asia's Financial Woes to Further Its Own Interests", BBC London, 2300 hours, 6 January 1998.

" Joseph S. Nye, Jr., Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature of American Power (New York: Basic Books, 1990).

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the great powers that have preceded the US, Washington will suffer from "imperial overstretch" and relative decline because its economic base cannot support its heavy military and strategic commitments.18 From this perspective, even if the US had won the Cold War against the Soviet Union, it was a costly and draining victory. The US spent billions of dollars in its nuclear arms race with its rival with limited consumer spin-offs. In contrast, Japan single-mindedly concentrated on economic development after its loss in the Second World War and has overtaken its mentor in terms of per capita GNP in the 1990s.19 Adopting the realist paradigm, some analysts argued that if the US were to withdraw from the region, a vacuum would surely emerge and be filled by other regional powers, especially China and Japan. Since the end of the Cold War, many analysts have speculated that China could well emerge as a hegemon and displace the US from the region. They argue that if China emerges as an economic powerhouse in the 21st century, it will be able to translate its economic strength into military might.20 In the case of Japan, there is an increasing desire among certain mainstream politicians who hope that Japan will become a "normal" state unconstrained by Article 9, the no-war clause of its constitution.21 While most of them want Japan to maintain its alliance with Washington, any US withdrawal from the region is likely to result in Japan embarking on its own autonomous defence posture. If we were to adopt the realist paradigm in East Asia, we can chart four different regional orders that are contingent on two key factors: whether China will emerge as a regional hegemon and whether the US-Japan Alliance will be maintained.

18

Paul Kennedy, The Rise and fall of Great Powers: Economic Change and Military

Conflict from 1500 to 2000 (New York: Random House, 1987). 19 In 1995 Japan's per capita GDP was US$40,897 while that of the US was $27,799. Bank of Japan, Comparative Economic and Financial Statistics: Japan and Other

Major Countries (Tokyo: Bank of Japan, 1996) p. 1. 20 For an assessment of these views, see Avery Goldstein, "Great Expectations: Interpreting China's arrival", International Security, Vol. 22, No. 3, Winter 1997/98. 21 See for example, Ichiro Ozawa, Blueprint for a New Japan (Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1994).


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Typology B: Great Powers & Regional Order China as Rising Hegemon

US-Japan Alliance

Yes

No

Yes

Balance of Power

Pax Americana, Phase 2

No

Pax Sinica

Pax Nipponica

If Washington and Tokyo can tide over its recurring trade friction and mass protests against the US military bases in Okinawa prefecture, the combined weight of the two allies is likely to be able to balance a resurgent Beijing. Thus the balance of power will continue to underpin the regional order in East Asia. If the Alliance were to collapse, Japan on its own is unlikely to match resurgent China; Pax Sinica will maintain regional order. History will then repeat itself because China was traditionally the hegemon (military, economics and culture) in the region before the advent of Western imperialism. Should China fail to emerge as a hegemon and if this is coupled with the collapse of the Alliance, Pax Nipponica could well emerge. This is reminiscent of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, which enveloped Korea, Taiwan, large chunks of mainland China and Southeast Asia. However, I would argue that the most likely outcome is Pax Americana. In the Clinton-Hashimoto Joint Declaration of April 1996, Tokyo committed itself to assisting the US in the event of a crisis in "areas surrounding Japan". This ambiguous region has been interpreted as the Korean peninsula, Taiwan Straits, the Spratlys in the South China Sea and the Gulf region.22 In 1997, Japan came up with its new defence guidelines to show how it could assist the US in a concrete way should crisis erupt in the region. Thus, Washington's position in the region has been bolstered by its ally's agreement to strengthen the alliance. In addition to its hi-tech military wizardry—amply demonstrated during the Gulf War—US hegemony is also reinforced symbolically and financially by a strong US dollar. During the 1997—98 currency turmoil, the US dollar was king; the Thai baht, Korean won and Indonesia rupiah had a free fall against the US dollar. Even the 22

Foreign Broadcast Information Service, Daily Report: East Asia, 96-101, 23 May 1996; also 96-114, 12 June 1996.

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Japanese yen fell significantly against the US dollar. If the Asian currency contagion were to broaden and deepen in the region (including China), the East Asian countries would have to scale back their arms imports and military modernisation because of severe budgetary constraints. (Ironically, Southeast Asia was one of the best markets for weapons because of affordability due to sustained economic growth.) Significant slashes in the defence budgets of the regional states would obviate a regional arms race and thus enhance regional stability. The economic weaknesses in East Asia also highlighted the resilience of the US hegemon and its almighty dollar.

THE LIBERAL PARADIGM: AN ASIAN PARTNERSHIP?

This perspective envisages that mutual benefit of trade, investments and affluence will underpin a community of nations in East Asia. Thus some have argued that Japan and China will forge a partnership because of complementary economic interests.23 In addition, there is a possibility that East Asian countries are gradually increasing trade with each other rather than continuing their traditional overwhelming dependence on the American and the European markets. Nevertheless, the US remains an important investor and trader in the region. The free trade and market opening rhetoric of liberalism may mask the fact that US banks, telecommunications and auto industries have the resources, expertise and political backing of Washington while Southeast Asian banks, telecommunications and auto industries lack the capacity to penetrate the saturated and well established US market. Neither can the Southeast Asian businesses easily penetrate the Japanese market. Thus the liberal discourse in the international political economy serves the interest of the big powers, especially the US and Japan.

CONCLUSION

East Asia was a periphery in the Cold War Order and appears to remain so in the post-Cold War Pax Americana. Besides the US 23 Robert Taylor, Greater China and Japan: Prospects for an Economic Partnership in East Asia (London: Routledge, 1996).


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dollar and military firepower, there are no countries in the region that can match American ideology in terms of universal appeal. Although Fukuyama overstated his case that the end of history is liberal democracy since all its rivals (fascism and communism) have been discredited, liberal democracy seems to shine even brighter because the proponents of "Asian values" seem to be reeling under the currency and confidence crisis in the region.24 Smug politicians, especially in Singapore and Malaysia, earlier argued that "Asian values" underpin the economic success of East Asia while associating liberal democracy with Western decadence and poorer economic performance. However, the economic crisis in East Asia starkly reveals that certain countries with "Asian values" suffer from nepotism, corruption, lack of accountability and poor economic health while the Western liberal democracies have enjoyed better growth and less social dislocation. Thus there are no challengers in East Asia who can match the ideological "soft" power of the US. In the case of the great powers of Japan and China, the former is in the same ideological camp as the US while Chinese communism, with its contradictory state and market economy, offers no attraction, promise or future to most intellectuals and the masses of other East Asian countries. Besides liberal democracy, other aspects of American cultural hegemony include the appeal of its lifestyles and icons. Hollywood, Coca-Cola, McDonalds, NBA and MTV may have only a superficial impact on the indigenous cultures of East Asia but no Asian countries, including China and Japan, have universal appeal similar to American consumerism, entertainment and values. Intertwined with the dissemination of American pop culture and values are the new technological platforms launched in the US. Microsoft and the rest of Silicon Valley are poised to continue their dominance of information technology including the Internet. Japan, despite its technological prowess, does not seem to have anything similar to the magic of Microsoft. Culturally, it lacks universal appeal other than the superficialities of karaoke, Godzilla and tamagochi. It is likely that the grave economic crisis in East Asia will blow over and the region will recover in health and wealth. Nevertheless, a richer East Asian political economy will still orbit around the US. The US appears to extend its dominance from the battleground to 24 Francis Fukuyama, "The End of History?", The National Interest, No. 16, Summer 1989.

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the playground. It is the only power that could dispatch two aircraft carrier fleets to the Taiwan Straits during the tension between Beijing and Taipei. US mutual funds, especially the one headed by George Soros, will continue to shake and move Asian stocks and currencies. Even though alarmists have speculated that China will emerge as the most likely challenger to Pax Americana in East Asia, crass consumerism rather than communism seem to appeal to the Chinese masses. Japan prefers to remain a subaltern of the US in an American hegemonic order rather than to venture into the unknown by itself, or even worse, be confronted with Pax Sinica. While East Asia may enjoy stability and prosperity in the 21st century, it is still as dependent as ever on the sole superpower across the Pacific to underpin its balance of power, trading regime and regional organisations like the ARF and APEC. What is the significance of our thesis if it is correct? First, if the US is likely to remain unrivalled in the region, then harping on the so-called "China threat" is only sensationalism and alarmism. Thus the US should not overreact and be more relaxed in its approach towards China; it should avoid further strengthening its military alliances, especially with Japan, to address a hypothetical "China threat". Second, if the US remains the top dog in the new world order, then it should exercise greater restraint and should avoid a brinkmanship-style of trade negotiations with Japan. Even if there are real grievances, it should not adopt a unilateral approach to trade disputes with Tokyo but should raise them at the WTO for resolution. Third, the US should be confident of its own values and should not be overly sensitive to the Lilliputians of East Asia who mouth the "virtues" of "Asian values" and "Asian democracy". Rather than mounting an ideological challenge to the US, the articulation of these values by certain Asian regimes is often defensive. It is also meant for domestic political consumption and to legitimise their illiberal rule in the wake of democratisation globally and regionally. Fourth, the US should avoid arrogance of power. It is in the selfinterest of the US to exercise its awesome power lightly and thus facilitating East Asian states to consent voluntarily to its leadership: if the US acts like a bully, it will surely encounter resentment and resistance in East Asia. Even if the relationship between the centre and the periphery is inherently unequal and sometimes conflictual, and even if the regional countries have different regime types and culture and are located at


39

different stages of economic development, they can still share common interests like environmental protection and conflict resolution. Let us conclude with a historical observation: no hegemon can stay on top forever. Similarly, it is not predestined that East Asia will remain perpetually as a periphery in future world orders. However, even if Washington were to enjoy only a fraction of Rome's longevity as a great imperial power, it is likely to remain a hegemon for many decades to come. Acknowledgements

I like to thank Igarashi Akio, Professor of Law and Government, Rikkyo University for his intellectual and financial support which enabled me to present an earlier version of this chapter at a conference in Zushi, Japan.

ASIA-PACIFIC IN TRANSITION, OR MUTUALLY ASSURED INSTABILITY KURT W. RADTKE*

INTRODUCTION**

The Tiananmen Square Incident and the collapse of the Soviet Union symbolise the beginning of an historical turning point at whose long term significance we can only guess. We have now entered a period of economic and political instability in many parts of the world which in the minds of some throws doubts on the ability (perhaps even the willingness) of the US to maintain global systemic stability.' One of the areas of concern is the complex relationship between India, Pakistan, China, and Russia, as well as the internal situation in these countries. It is far from certain that the US is in fact in a position to prevent dangerous conflict involving these countries. The struggle against poverty is now a high priority of the communist parties of Vietnam and China, and in other countries as well. To give an idea of the scale of the issue: if China and India were excluded, the rest of developing Asia would account for only 7.3% of world output and 4.4% of world trade in goods and services. China's economic strength cannot be measured only by the profitability of its industries. An analysis of its weak points, in particular persistent poverty, is at least equally important.2 Poverty and unemployment are difficult

* Kurt W. Radtke is Professor at Waseda University, Tokyo, Research School of Asia-Pacific Studies. His main fields of research are "changes in politics and society in Twentieth Century China and Japan," "Sino-Japanese relations" as well as "comparative studies of China and Japan." His main publications include Poetry of the Yuan Dynasty, Canberra, 1984; China's Relations with Japan, 1945-83, Manchester University Press, 1990; China's Modernisatiuon, Westernisation and Acculturation (eds. K.W.

Radtke and A. Saich), Steiner, Stuttgart, 1993; The Dynamics of Pacific Asia, Kegan & Paul, 1997. ** The Lianhe zaobao (Singapore), Xinhua Newsagency reports, and USIA sources are quoted from their websites. 1 This issue was also touched on in Renmin ribao, 7 January 1998. 2 China's exports display at least two fundamental structural weaknesses. They are, relatively speaking, mostly low-tech and the large majority is related to

ASIA-PACIFIC IN TRANSITION

41

to measure in China—street vendors, repairing push bikes and hair cutting on the pavement can hardly be compared to the job market of the US post-industrial service economy.3 China's ability to maintain its economic growth, and thereby its internal social and political stability, is dependent not only on its economic policies at home. Even if the weak banking system could be reformed in time,4 China's economy does not remain insulated from the effects of the current global economic crises. The pressures on China to devaluate first the Hong Kong currency and then its own have not disappeared yet, but China realises that such devaluation may contribute to the vicious cycle of competitive devaluation without aiding its exports significantly. For the moment, the unexpected strength of the Yen has helped to push off the date for a devaluation of the Chinese currency. Any Chinese devaluation will increase feelings of a "China threat" among its neighbours. One matter for concern is that delays in further economic reforms could encumber Chinese access to international capital markets which, in turn, might "hinder its ability to raise the huge amount of money needed to rejuvenate ailing state enterprises."0 The "Asian crisis" has put into relief rivalry between the US and Japan over policy towards Asia, and this was one factor delaying the implementation of policies to deal with the crisis at an early stage.6 The commitment of the US to stability in Asia remains undisputed, at least in public, but this commitment alone is not enough. Instability in Indonesia has already led to a greater role for the armed forces, whose conduct in Aceh and East Timor has evoked sharp criticism abroad. China's leaders are very much concerned about the stability in their own country, and a growing sense of insecurity may lead to a greater role for the PLA in Chinese politics at home and abroad. foreign, and not Chinese domestic investments. On poverty, see also Radha Sinha's article in this volume. 3 "Restructuring" and its problems, such as unemployment, are the focus of frequent conferences in Beijing and elsewhere; see, for instance, Lianhe zaobao of 6 February 1998. + China's internal bad loans and its weaknesses in its financial system have been recognised as a major point for concern since 1997. Some of the fundamental weaknesses of the financial system in Southeast Asia are also repeated in China. It is not a new problem—the Tiananmen Square crisis was preceded by an economic crisis that overlapped with a financial crisis symbolised by the flood of so-called triangular debt. 5

b

International Herald Tribune, 13 November 1997.

On the dispute between Japan and the US on the Japanese initiative for an Asian currency fund, see Lianhe zaobao, 7 January 1998.

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The structure of US hegemony underwent a considerable change in the seventies, and it did so once more as a result of the collapse of the Soviet Union. As formulated by Susan Strange and Joseph Nye, the functioning of the US as a hegemonic power is multi-level,7 but the composition of the levels is also changing according to circumstance. The current crisis has already revived the importance of states as actors, not only as guarantors of the proper functioning of markets, but also as the only reliable organisation to look after economic security in the strategic sense.

MUTUALLY ASSURED INSTABILITY—MAI

In the past, military equations such as MAD—Mutually Assured Destruction—propelled the search for international joint actions to achieve stability. At present, financial and economic developments pose a much more direct threat not only to welfare, but to systemic stability as well, to a large degree because they appear to be so unpredictable, and therefore difficult to manage. Neither the IMF, Moody's nor any other institution has scored high in predicting future economic trends. The predictable management of global affairs remains an elusive chimera. There is a growing awareness of shared vulnerability that may act as a strong element working in favour of international co-operation to secure stability—hence we might call this period of transition a period of Mutually Assured Instability. This period of instability pairs economic and military threats in ways quite different from the period of the Cold War, and it demands new kinds of political leadership and forms of institutionalised co-operation that take into account the asymmetries of Asia mentioned below.8 In the past military security was important but always remained linked to economic security—and this essential circumstance was not altered by the collapse of the Soviet Union. In the early post-war years, the fight against poverty in Europe and Japan was seen as an indis7

Stefano Guzzini, Routledge, London and New York, 1998 [The New International Relations], 176. 8 Among the recent flood of publications on the topic I shall limit myself to two books: "Scenarios towards Co-operation" is the subtitle of a recent book by Kokubun Ryoosei on the relations between Japan, the US and China (Kokubun Ryosei, ed. Nihon Amerika Chugoku, TBS Buritanika, Tokyo, 1997), and Anthony McGrew and Christopher Brook eds. Asia Pacific in the New World Order, Routledge, 1998.


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pensable element in the defence against Communism. The lessons for the superpowers of the wars in Vietnam and Afghanistan and of the arms race are quite clear: disproportionate military expenditures have the potential to sap the fundamental strength of the economy. This was by no means a new lesson, historically speaking—even modern "superpowers" need to find a proper balance between security-related expenditure, including the costs of maintaining hegemonic leadership, and the overall strength and cohesion of their economic and political system.9 In Europe, the incorporation of Germany into NATO was a core element in the strategy to contain the further expansion of the colonial Russian-Soviet empire, and it also insured the long-term leverage of the US in Europe. The European process of integration went through several phases. In the early stage, raising the ability to resist the Soviet Union was a predominant engine for integration. Subsequently, integration was motivated by the awareness that only the creation of a common market with a common currency could provide a home base for European companies to withstand the pressures of globalisation—in other words, enhance competitiveness versus US companies. Politics created the conditions for this transformation, but the structure of European domestic and foreign politics changed as a result of European integration. Long term effects on society, such as a thorough change in the social fabric, patterns of employment and the participation of citizens in the new political context have begun to be felt throughout Europe. The implications for parliamentary democracy as we know it are not yet clear. Apart from the well known concerns about the non-democratic character of EU decision making, one also wonders to what extent the new globalised elites will remain responsive to majority opinion in their original home countries. In Asia, the American defence arrangement with Japan fulfilled a function similar to the incorporation of Germany into Europe. Japan took part in the American containment of China in the context of the Korean War. In the absence of an overall organisation such as NATO the US established an array of security agreements with other regions and countries in Asia, increasingly directed not only against 9 Finding a proper balance between tax income and military spending was not only at the centre of policy debates in pre-war Japan on the speed of Japan's military build up, but has continuously been an important issue in the more than two thousand years of Chinese imperial politics.

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China, but against the Soviet Union and its satellites as well. Attempts to consider the creation of an "East Asian NATO" had to fail, if for no other reason than that the political, social and economic points of departure for countries and regions in Asia differed too much. NATO, after all, is not just a military defence arrangement but designed to support the implementation of shared convictions concerning democracy and a free economy. In this global constellation the room for Japanese and German political initiatives in foreign policy has been extremely limited.10 It is undoubtedly true that both countries still carry a specific moral burden and responsibility for their wars of aggression, but it should be open to debate whether the past should limit the independent participation of both countries in international politics in the twenty-first century. Although the United States is paying Japan compliments for its positive role in the Four Party Peace Talks involving the United States, the Republic of Korea, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and the People's Republic of China, the absence of Japan from these talks simply highlights the limitations placed on a more independent role for Japan. After the collapse of the Soviet Union the structural differences between the western part of Eurasia, and the eastern part, have increased. On the western fringe the intensification and expansion of European integration through NATO has speeded up supranational co-operation. In Asia, China is looking for new definitions of its international role in Asia. One of its main imperatives is to avoid an open confrontation with the US, while aiming towards a slow but steady increase of Chinese influence in regions bordering the PRC, and that includes Taiwan. Hegemonic leadership by the US, as demonstrated in the Gulf War, was once judged to be a sufficient political force to ensure the stability of the international system. In the first two or three years after the collapse of the Soviet Union the miracle of the balancing forces of market mechanism seemingly obviated the need for political leadership. National strength cannot be measured merely in terms of comparing numbers of rockets and leaky anti-missile defence 10 See also the contribution by R. Drifte in this volume. There are numerous issues to be tackled by Japan, but it is doubtful to what extent Japan is able to play a powerful leading role. Ogura, Kazuo, "Challenges for Japanese Diplomacy in the Twenty-First Century," Japan Reviewof International Affairs, Winter 1998, vol. 11, no. 4, 321-332.


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systems. Put in a nutshell, in this age of globalisation the system of international relations can no longer be grasped without a firm knowledge of the nature of trade in financial derivatives, and this has added to the difficulty in judging the dynamics of strategic balances. The indicators of today's financial markets tell us little about the strength of economies five years from now. Unfortunately, historians are mere prophets of the past, and here they do not differ greatly from economists who can tell us very little about the workings of the international economy system five years from now. During the early nineties, the new uncertainties of the post-Soviet decade hardly involved the popular political mobilisation of democracies. The conscription system that had symbolised "citizenship" since the French Revolution was abolished in France. Rather than merely being a "technical" measure to enhance the professionalisation of military forces, such a transformation reduces the chance of democratic resistance to unpopular military intervention such as that in Kosovo. If market democracy is to become more than a hollow phrase, it must reform itself, and also endeavour to generate selfrespect among the economically weaker persons in society. The liberation from "socialism", from Korean "state capitalism" or the Indonesian variety, "monarchical capitalism", does not automatically engender democracy. A vague propaganda slogan rather than a specific guide to action, the contents of "market democracy" are subject to rapid change. The United States itself is not a static model, but developing in a fairly dynamic way. We cannot yet predict the course of its future internal development or the strategic approach it will take towards new developments in Asia Pacific in the coming years. In the absence of systemic predictability in general, and the need to cope with sudden crises, there remains little choice but to cooperate in the conceptualisation of threats and the creation of solutions. My personal interpretation of "comprehensive security" is that it offers an approach to deal with current uncertainties by striving towards a consensus on definitions of various kinds of threat, as a first step towards taking joint measures to increase security for all. In the period of the "Cold War" military security as well as the fight against poverty were seen as indispensable twins in defence against communist threats. It is high time to combine the drive for greater economic efficiency ("privatisation") with concerted efforts to

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combat the threats to stability posed by the spread of poverty and the hollowing out of middle classes in countries affected by economic downturns during the nineties. The collapse of the Soviet Union produced instability, not only within the territory of the former Soviet Union, but in Central, Southeast and Eastern Europe as well. The extension and intensification of European and American economic and political influence world wide is proceeding, but it is too early to conclude that their power is sufficient to maintain the economic and, in particular, financial stability of the global system. After all, global hegemonic leadership demands more than the strength of a "superpower", or "hyperpower", namely the maintenance of global stability in the face of regional (economic) crises." An economic, social and political meltdown in Russia, as well as other areas of the former Soviet bloc will have serious consequences not only for Europe, China and Japan, but also for the United States. Needless to say, the limited ability of the US and Japan to make use of the combined size of their economies (roughly 35% of global GDP) to support global growth raises fundamental questions about the authority of hegemonic stability in the long run. In the absence of "global frontiers" it seemed for a time as if the major threat to US security would now be posed mainly by what were called "rogue states", such as North Korea and Iran. In fact, the revamping of the security relationship between the US and Japan was inaugurated around 1994 by acute concerns about a perceived threat posed by North Korea. Threats by "rogue states" consisted, for instance, not only in their specific implications for the stability of the Middle East, but also as potentially threatening the global "authority" of the US by encouraging proliferation that in turn undermines the ability of the US to provide strategic protection of its allies. Political authority, as we know, remains intact as long as it is perceived to be credible. Non-proliferation works because the owners of WMD (weapons of mass destruction) and carriers of such weapons agree on the practicality of an institutionalised system of conflict prevention, that has the additional advantage of preserving the exclusive status of those countries that already possess such 11 Although there are numerous signs that the European Union wishes to increase its weight as a force in global politics, including its military dimension, its role is still far below its economic and military power. See Marise Cremona, "The European Union as an International Actor: the issues of flexibility and linkage," in European

Journal of International Relations, vol. v, no. 1 (March 1998).


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weaponry. The threat of recent North Korean long-range missiles is a very real one, and so is the threat of serious war between India and Pakistan. This course of events may undermine the effectiveness of the existing system of conflict prevention and, thereby, call into question the ability of the leading powers to maintain global stability. Such an awareness should encourage all parties in the international system to look for new concepts in security co-operation. In Asia, the international system seems overwhelmingly dominated by the fluctuations of Sino-American relations, to which should be added the role of the economic clout of Japan. It is as yet unthinkable that either of these powerful nation states would cede essential ingredients of sovereign power observable in the process of European integration. Europe, and not the United States, provides an institutional model for the gradual abolition of the all-mighty nation-state. Neither the United States, nor nations in Asia, are for the time being willing to surrender elements of their sovereignty—the United States, because it fears that this would impair its leadership, while nations in Asia assume they cannot embark on such a path before the nationbuilding process is completed. This makes the situation in Asia-Pacific considerably different from the situation in Central and Western Europe which hopes to regain a leadership position for the EU as a whole by sacrificing elements of their national sovereignty. It is still far too early to greet the advent of the demise of the nation state, a kind of Utopian wishful thinking that had its parallel in the Marx'ian dream of the withering of the state. In order to understand the US position on Asia, one must take US global strategy into account. The US is also vitally concerned about strengthening its leading role in the Americas. Published research suggests that the US may remain relatively undamaged by even a major economic crisis in Asia. Such thinking may strengthen tendencies in the US to distance itself from Asia,12 and seek stronger links with the more familiar South (Latin America) and East (Europe).

12

Chay Chandler, "What if the Worst Happens in Asia? Not so Bad," in International Herald Tribune, August 3, 1998. "It would be painful, but not disastrously so, according to experts at Standard & Poor's. DRIRI economists concluded that even under a "worst-case scenario", in which Japan's economy shrinks by 10 per cent, China's economic growth rate skids to 1 per cent from 8 per cent and Indonesia lapses into default on its foreign debts, the United States would experience only a "mild recession, while Western Europe would escape recession and merely grow more slowly."

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The "1998 Trade Policy Agenda of the United States" mentioned that In 1998 we expect US exports to Latin America (including Mexico) to exceed our exports to the European Union (EU). As the countries of Latin America continue their negotiations to create free trade areas or customs unions among themselves, however, it is essential that we ensure that they do not adopt rules that harm US interests.13 As the rivalry between the US and the EU in Latin America moves into higher gear, some specialists expect the establishment of a currency union between the US and Canada, thus further directing US attention towards the Western hemisphere. In geopolitical terms, the crisis has put an end to the isolation of the central parts of the Eurasian heartland from its Western, Eastern and Southern neighbours. In discrediting communism as a viable political guiding principle it has created the possibility of a world no longer ruled by the binary principle of "we" against "them". To some it appears as if China is taking the place of the Soviet Union, creating a new global "binary" split. Such a simplified view does not take sufficient account of the fact that in a situation different from the age of the Soviet Empire, China has no "empire" beyond its present territorial border, and that China's influence in its neighbouring countries—Korea, Russia, Mongolia, the Central Asian Republics and India—is quite limited. Post-1991 "market democracy" has no need to present itself as the positive mirror image of an "evil empire", and this circumstance by itself changes its identity. The prospect of a world without the Soviet Union has strengthend the position of politico-philosophical approaches that doubt the validity of the binary paradigm, created long before the Soviet Union finally collapsed, such as postmodernist theory.14

RESTRUCTURING SECURITY: TOWARDS COMPREHENSIVE SECURITY?

Just as we have seen broad moves towards the restructuring of political and economic systems, there is now also a need to restructure 13

USIA, file 9803030l.eco. Cf. Lene Hansen, "A Case for Seduction? Evaluating the Poststructuralist Conceptualisation of Security," in Cooperation and Conflict, vol. 32 (4) (1997), 369-397, and Michael Schiltz' article in this volume. 14


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approaches towards security. This can only succeed with the co-operation of the main actors on the global stage which include not only governments, but companies, banks and, at the political level, national political parties as well.15 Such restructuring goes far beyond purely "economic" and "military" issues. Comprehensive security avoids identification with any particular ideological order and assumes that dialogue can be used to discover common ground irrespective of systemic (political or economic) differences. Here there are some parallels to the process of detente in Europe—with the proviso that those systemic differences of politico-economic systems that figure so largely in Europe are of much less importance in Asia. The need to find some common ground was one of the factors that led to the birth of the idea of "comprehensive security" (soogoo anzen hoshoo), which first acquired some popularity during the period of the Ohira cabinet in the late seventies.16 Comprehensive security was to be more than just a way to initiate new dialogues on technicalities of maintaining military security. "Comprehensive security" stressed the need to discover shared values in Asia, exactly because the reality of political and cultural discontinuities of Asia made it so different from the civilizational unity of Europe. Other concerns, such as the greater Japanese susceptibility to economic threats, especially after the end of the Vietnam war, also played a role in establishing comprehensive security as a new initiative. Our definitions of what constitutes "security" depend on our definitions of threats. Comprehensive security sharpens our sense to the fact that security should not only be conceived in terms of security versus a specific threat emanating from a state, an "enemy". That had been the situation that necessitated the building of elaborate networks of alliances and institutions in Europe. Comprehensive security starts from the assumption that dialogues at the level of the state and elsewhere contribute to the formulation of mutually acceptable definitions of common threats. The threats do not necessarily emanate from rival states, but also comprise threats to internal stability in the area of 15

On the increase of actors and "stages" in international politics, Takada Kazuo

Kokusai kankeiron to wa nani ka? Tayoo ka sum JbaJ to JfbutaiJ.

l(> On the historical background of the term, see the introduction, and also David Dewitt, "Common, Comprehensive, Co-operative Security," in The Pacific Review, vol. 7, no. 1, 1-15. Cf. Muthia Alagappa, "Comprehensive Security: Interpretations in ASEAN Countries," in Robert A. Scalapino et al. Eds., Asian Security Issues: Regional and Global, University of California, 1988.

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economics, social unrest, ethnic divisions, or serious environmental damage.

PROSPECTS FOR INTEGRATION IN ASIA PACIFIC

Historically (not etymologically) speaking, "comprehensive security" looks very much like the opposite of "comprehensive war" (sooryokusen), a concept that arose from the (wrong) lessons of the First World War, and which included the mobilisation of all means, including economic weapons, to defeat the opponent. In a similar way, it is now necessary to approach the issue of peace from a multi-level, multi-dimensional perspective. The creation of ASEAN, motivated by the political and military confrontations in the period of the Vietnam War, did not result in a level of integration comparable to that which evolved in Europe. Despite some positive experiences of co-operation in the ARF, APEC, the ASEM and other similar processes, it is obvious that much still needs to be done. There is an increasing need for regional co-operation but the crises are unlikely to produce deeper integration in Asia.17 The unwillingness, or inability of Asian nations to ensure security in East Timor provides an unfortunate example, comparable to the unwillingness, or inability of European nations to intervene in the civil wars in the Balkan in the absence of US intervention. There is intense co-operation in the security sphere between the United States, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, and some countries in Southeast Asia, but this is unlikely to lead in the foreseeable future to the creation of a common political and social framework along the lines of European integration. Japan's network of economic relations with China and her other neighbours in the region is not likely to lead towards genuine economic integration in the foreseeable future. This is not merely due to the effects of the current crisis. Integration would imply some form of symbiosis, but no major country in the region is likely to commit itself to such intra-Asian integration in the foreseeable future. In addition, both Japan and her Asian neighbours will remain dependent on access to US and European markets.

17 Cf. Yamamoto Yoshinori, "Chiiki toogoo no seiji keizaigaku," in Kokusai mondai, November 1997.


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APEC set out as an institution for economic integration but its role as a facilitator for political and defence dialogue is an important additional function. APEG is also judged useful by China as a means to further its accession to the WTO. Together these developments are changing the parameters of the international system in Asia. It is a system not likely to be caught in terms of a consistent theoretical model based on concepts derived from European history where economic integration was not just a means to increase the competitiveness of European companies in the world markets, but also served a largely political end of intra-European competition.

MILITARY THREATS AS A FACTOR PUSHING REGIONAL CO-OPERATION IN SECURITY MATTERS

So far, the concept of "comprehensive security" is still looking for new international or global institutions that may act as potent patrons for this approach. One might think of ASEM, the ARF or APEC as sources of likely institutional support, but apart from the CSCAP dialogue such support is still lacking. In order to illustrate the relevance of the comprehensive security approach I shall now present a broad survey of the implications of the current global crises on the structure of leadership and global restructuring in general.18 The East and South Asian political "system" exhibits paradoxical features, paradoxical when viewed in terms of Europe-based theories. The existing asymmetries in Asia do not make for any particular hierarchy— there is no recognisable pattern in which leading powers such as the US, China and India exercise leadership over each other, either at the global or regional level. Korea's economic dependence on Japan and the US is pronounced, but Japan's political influence on Korea remains limited. The US is careful not to provide "leadership" in the solution of territorial disputes between Japan and China (in particular the island chain Diaoyu lieyu/Senkaku). The absence of an overall hierarchy in the region does not imply equality either, and this also holds true for allies or quasi-allies of the United States. Despite the recent surge in multilateral institutional dialogues, the 18

A recent solid survey of the Asian crisis is Ajia kinyuu kiki (The Asian Financial Crisis) by Takahashi Takuma, Kan Shuu'u (i.e., C.H. Kwan), and Sano Tetsuji, Tooyoo keizai shinpoosha, Tokyo, 1998.

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US prefers to deal with military threats through its bilateral alliance arrangements as they occur. In realist theory on international relations there is no division of labour within a world-wide system of governance (Kenneth Waltz),19 but the economic and security functions of Singapore, Taiwan and Korea can only be explained with reference to an international division of labour among states. As US negotiations with Japan on co-operation in the Gulf War, the revision of the Guidelines (concluded in September 1997), and discussions on Missile Defence (September 1998) show, the specific implementation of the division of labour in defence and security issues is not necessarily the result of a long term vision, but may be given an unexpected push by sudden crises. Strategic co-operation with Asian partners of the US concerns the situation on the Korean Peninsula, the Taiwan area and the area of the South China Sea, but one may expect that different from alliances among equal partners, it will be the US which decides how, and at what level to respond to any crisis in these areas. It may therefore be said that objective threats and opportunities for co-operation, and the way threats and opportunities are perceived, have a major impact on the definition of the system of international relations in East Asia.

DEFENCE CO-OPERATION IN ASIA-PACIFIC20

A brief survey of major US assessments of the economic and political prospects of China published between 1988 and 1998 would result in an amazing sequence of abrupt changes in those assessments, both as far as opportunities and threats for the US is concerned. Since the "Taiwan crises" of August 1995 and March 1996 relations between the US and China seem to have improved suddenly and spectacularly, and that was clearly the message the US wanted to get across during Clinton's visit to Beijing in 1998. The visit of the US Defence Minister Cohen to a number of countries in Asia in January 1998 also included China. He denied that the US was apprehensive about the rising power of China but such concerns appear regularly in informal discussions and are, of course,

19

Guzzini, op. dt., 127. Watanabe Akio, "Nichibei anzen hoshoo kankei no shintenkai," in Kokusai mondai, March 1998. w


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hardly new.21 1999 saw a similar series of rapid changes in the temperature of Sino-US relations. China's rise as an economic great power is still accompanied by question marks—and the same holds true for its internal stability. This creates uncertainties for the security of East Asia as a whole. Japan has strengthened its security insurance through the renegotiations on the implementation of its security treaty with the United States as expressed in the acceptance of the "Revised Guidelines" (September 1997). Rather than being the expression of a particular strategy the introduction of these new laws will make it easier to avoid extra-legal military operations in the event of hostilities that concern Japan, and thus enhance the willingness of the United States to assist in the protection of Japanese security interests. Barring crises on the Korean Peninsula and tensions over Taiwan, both China and the US will try to avoid any serious military clash. The US has repeatedly denied that it aims to contain or "constrain" China. Moreover, there are good reasons for both countries to coordinate security policies in a variety of areas that also go beyond the Asian theatre. Although US politicians usually praise any reduction of tensions in the East Asia, the present author (K.W.R.) has frequently been told by colleagues from the PRC that in their view the US needs to maintain a certain degree of tension in the region in order to justify its (military) involvement in Asia. It may perhaps be closer to the mark to speculate that the US wishes to prevent the evolution of a strong bond between Japan and China bound by intense economic interaction, since this would conceivably reduce the ability of the US to influence the course of events in East Asia. There has been mention of the possibility that within less than two decades Sino-Japanese trade may well be the dominating trade relation in global trade, surpassing the role of US trade. In my view, the uncertainties of the Chinese economy are of such a dimension that such speculation is highly premature. 21 Presenting an idea at variance with the irrational Angst about the "yellow peril", a Dutch sociologist, Spykman in 1942 predicted the consequences of a post-war rise of China in the following terms: "A modern, vitalised, and militarised China of 450 million people is going to be a threat, not only to Japan, but also to the position of the Western Powers in the Asiatic Mediterranean. China will be a continental power of huge dimensions in control of large sections of the littoral of that middle sea . . . When China becomes strong, her present economic penetration in that region will undoubtedly take on political overtones." (Spykman 1942, p. 469, quoted in H.W. Houweling en J.G. Siccama, "Oorzaken van conflict en strategieen," in K. Koch, R.B. Soetendorp, A. van Staden (eds.), Internationale Betrekkingen, 141.

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KURT W. RADTKE JAPANESE INVOLVEMENT IN ASIA—CONSEQUENCES OF THE CURRENT CRISES

In the post-war period Japan has not been able (some would say, has not been willing) to exert political leadership in its wider region, and its foreign policy has been curtailed even more than that of Germany. This is in contrast to Japan's deep economic involvement in, and commitment to, other Asian countries. Japan's interaction with Asia appears clearly in the following figures: "Seventy percent of the dollar value of Asia's goods and services are produced in Japan. Before the crisis, 55 percent of Asia's exports went to other Asian nations. Over 40 percent of Japan's exports went to Asia as well."22 At times it has been said that trade flows act as weathervanes for future strategic alignments; if Sino-Japanese trade were indeed to grow as some expect, there would be tremendous implications for the relations of the United States with Japan, Korea, and China. On the other hand, trends of the moment indicate a negative growth for Japanese investments in China, largely because of purely economic factors. Without access to the policy and diplomatic documents not yet publicly available, it is not easy to judge how much room there is for an independent Japanese foreign policy in the face of US pressure on Japan evident in issues such as Japan's reactions to Mahathir's EAEC (East Asia Economic Caucus) proposal and, more recently, Japan's initiative in the context of a proposed Asian Monetary Fund (AMF). The inability to deal with systemic economic weakness since the bursting of the bubble has eroded Japan's potential to influence US policies directly or through an array of international organisations such as the IMF and the ADB (Asian Development Bank). Despite huge Japanese financial contributions to help take care of the crisis in Indonesia, political benefits for Japan have been rather limited. In fact, the quick reversal of short-term capital flows that undermined Japan's important economic partners Thailand, Indonesia and South Korea have seriously weakened the "home turf" of the Japanese economy. It would be unfair to put one-sided blame for the pro22 David Aaron, Under Secretary of Commerce for International Trade, in a speech on 23 July in Palo Alto on the Asian Financial Crisis. For a good overview of other interactions between Japan and Asian economies, see the testimony by Robert D. Hormats, Vice Chairman of Goldman Sachs, at the Senate Finance Committee on July 14, 1998. Sakakibara Eisuke, in Tomiuri Shinbun, November 26, 1999.


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tracted crisis on Japan's inability to deal quickly with its weak financial system after the bursting of the bubble. As Robert J. Samuelson noted, Japan is one loser, because other economies absorb about half its exports and because Japanese banks have suffered more loan losses.23 We may characterise the current situation more appropriately by referring to the need of each player to engage in a careful balancing act that must not upset regional or domestic stability. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union there are as yet no clear cut "front lines" in this region of the kind that split Europe for four and a half decades. Taiwan wishes to increase its ability to manage its affairs independently while, at the same time, struggling to reduce its economic dependence on mainland China. Both Taiwan and Japan endeavour to prevent serious tensions between the United States and China but, even so, agreed to consider long term missile defence projects directed not only against North Korea, but against perceived threats from China as well. Japan has referred to financial constraints that made the speedy implementation of such a system un-likely, yet the recent North Korean missile launchings may cause a reassessment of that position.24 Korea and China exchange defence missions and are now joined by similar exchanges between China and the US. As if to underline the fluidity of the situation, these came to a (temporary?) halt after the US bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade. Southeast Asia is perhaps less united internally than cooperation in ASEAN may suggest, but appears united in its policy of engagement with China without appeasement. The implications of the rise of Indian influence in the region are as yet unknown, although the tone of the Indian government towards Peking suggests serious rivalry rather than co-operation. North Korean rockets may push Japan further towards the development of independent capabilities, for instance, in the field of military satellites. Should US behaviour create doubts in Japan about its role as a dependable guarantor of its security, the Japanese government may have no choice but to take gradual steps towards the development of an independent missile defence capability. The current 23

International Herald Tribune, 13 November 1997. Current reports indicate that quite apart from lingering doubts about its reliability the high cost of deploying any version of a suitable Ballistic Missile Defence system may thwart its development. 24

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controversy about the quality of North Korean rockets is not just an intelligence problem—it also highlights the differences in perception of the threat between Japan and the US. For Japan, the threat is more immediate. The firing of missiles by North Korea has also led to South Korean demands to extend the range of South Korean missiles which were limited under a South Korean-US memorandum to 180 kms. The maintenance of stability and economic security in Eurasia cannot be achieved by the US, Japan and Europe alone. The giants of Asia in terms of population—India, China, Russia and Indonesia— possess the potential to make the difference between a stable and an unstable world in the twenty-first century. The recent bitter emotional and acrimonious exchange between India and China following India's public assessment of China as a potential threat may not have direct consequences, but demonstrates that Asia still has a long way to go before security can be maintained through a regional institutionalised system. In the absence of such a system each major power involved in the region continues preparing for contingencies even during phases of apparent reductions in tensions. In the past few years, the United States has continued to re-intensify its security relationships with a number of countries in Asia and Oceania, from Mongolia to Japan and Australia. Little insight is required to recognise that these policies create concern in Beijing about the construction of a new ring of containment around the People's Republic of China. Even if this should result in long-term tensions between China, its neighbours as well as the US, such a situation does not re-create the system of global rivalry with the Soviet Union which attempted to expand its influence throughout Indochina, Africa and other parts of the world. The US, in particular, is not likely to accept a reduction in its role as hegemonic leader which might be implied by the growth of true multilateralism. The US (and "realist" theorists) may even argue that multilateralism without such leadership may produce instability, if not anarchy.25 This leaves little room for an independent leadership role for Japan. By advocating a concept like "comprehensive 25 See the special issue on "Multilateral Co-operation in Asia-Pacific," in The Journal of East Asian Affairs (The Research Institute for International Affairs, Seoul), (Winter/Spring 1998), vol. xii, no. 1. For an interesting view of an American "realist", see Kurt Campbell who addressed the issue in the USIA's electronic journal "US Foreign Policy Agenda" of January 1998. He makes it perfectly clear that he


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security" Japan may also wish to have a greater say in the definition of threats, which so far has usually rested with the United States, and been mainly defined on the basis of US national interest.

POVERTY AS A BARRIER TO GLOBAL INTEGRATION

The recent series of financial crises in Asia has been compared to the "fall of the Berlin Wall". Perhaps the comparison may seem a mere journalistic hype but it is only a mild overstatement. These momentous changes present opportunities for positive change but we are all too aware of the tremendous risks involved. For the moment, in Eastern Europe as well as in Asia, and now in Latin America, the economic crises have the potential to weaken and hollow out the middle classes in the region. Even if economic growth figures would start to show a more positive picture, it is doubtful whether such growth is sufficient to offset the threat posed by rapidly growing poverty in Indonesia, Vietnam and Russia, to mention only a few countries. As mentioned above, statistical figures describing "the economy" in terms of output have an uncanny tendency to conceal fundamental weaknesses, such as long term unemployment and creeping impoverishment of sections of the population.26 The current reforms demanded by the IMF have systemic implications, also for the international system. They aim towards a clearer separation between the functions and authority of "purely economic" and political institutions. The primary function of the "division of labour" within economies has been an essential driving force towards modernisation, but there is also an international division of labour among nations in the field of security and international relations. As mentioned above, the nature of relations of the US with Germany and Japan makes it fairly obvious that they cannot aspire to the kind of regional leadership which the US attempts to maintain for itself globally. This, by the way, does not accord with "realist theory".27 This also makes the feasibility of a tripartite division of the world in a welcomes co-operation between China and Japan, provided the US remains deeply involved in this relationship. 2b This is not just a moral issue, but a factor leading to systemic underconsumption. 27 Paul Schroeder, "Historical Reality vs. Neo-realist Theory," in International Security, 19.1 (1994), 129-130.

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US, Western European and Japanese hegemony a highly unrealistic one—a main idea of trilateralism.28 If the restructuring of economies does not result in renewed growth in the near future, this delay would seriously undermine the political will, and even the ability, to bring about needed change at a time of instability and weakening economies. We are witnessing a race against time—and it is still too early to venture any prediction about the outcome of this race. The current crises cause economic hardship for the citizens and the governments affected. The lack of systemic stability is a security issue by itself, creating a common interest in stability even among those actors that are mutual competitors on the global stage. They also present a serious challenge to the self-congratulatory flow of articles eulogising the advent of a globalised economy. The lack of transparency of international financial markets can be compared to the threat posed by the lack of transparency in the field of military security. The crisis calls for the establishment of a new financial system with much [greater] transparency.29 Recently, the US and Japan joined hands to exchange specific figures on Japanese holdings of US government bonds and other instruments that can easily be converted at short notice and the capacity of Japanese banks to acquire dollars; figures vital for both governments to take concerted action in case of another financial crisis.30 So far, attempts to achieve greater transparency (Japan) or calls to impose new controls on financial markets (Malaysia) and George Soros(!) have not yet been crowned with success. The enforced acceptance of foreign led economic dictates has the potential to weaken the appeal of democratic ideals, both in Asia and in (south)eastern Europe. If markets judge governments, democratic voters lose confidence in the meaning of their democratic system. After all, the imputed "rationality of markets" operates at a level different to the value judgements so important to any democracy. In addition to this, the "rationality of markets" has little to do with predictable rational behaviour. Freedom of speculation in the face of an uncertain, unpredictable future is an essential part of the spiritual basis of 28

See also Gilpin, 1987, ch. 10. This idea was invoked by Deputy Treasure secretary Lawrence Summers, in a statement on 12 February (USIA, 98021204.eea). It will not be easy to achieve since it requires a balance of interests "among sovereign governments operating out of different cultures". 30 Nihon keizai shinbun, 17 September 1998. 29


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capitalism. Psychological effects make markets "overshoot" the "theoretically" optimal levels of balance, whereas economic science in general assumes that "markets" tend towards a "rational" equilibrium.31 Influenced by such ideas, some specialists in international relations ascribe a similar magic power to the idea of "balance of power". The "invisible hand" of the market is far from omnipotent, despite the quasi-religious powers with which it has often been credited. Alan Greenspan, head of the US Federal Reserve, expressed the need to maintain overall price stability as a corollary for the "proper" functioning of the market: "Nevertheless, even if we could ensure significantly more rapid productivity growth than we have seen recently, there are valid reasons for wishing to avoid ongoing declines in the general price level. If increases in both inflation and deflation raise risk premiums and retard growth, it follows that risk premiums are lowest at price stability. Furthermore, price stability, by reducing variation in uncertainty about the future, should also reduce variations in asset values." The "market" in the global sense is by itself not a mechanism that guarantees the broadest satisfaction for the biggest number of customers, nor is it a means to achieve justice. The "technical" nature of the relationship between the real economy, and its Platonic image as mirrored in international financial transactions, has made it increasingly difficult to arrive at an understanding of the workings of the international system in which military threats, struggle for resources, social instability, and the free will of individuals mix in games whose rules (if there are any) are difficult to surmise.

LIMITS TO US LEADERSHIP

If asked, most leaders habitually complain that leaders have much less room for initiatives than outsiders seem to assume. Likewise, the US might complain that it has less leverage over allies and countries with which it co-operates with than is normally thought. This 31

Acknowledging the relevance of "psychology" is of course nothing but common sense. The normative assumption of "rational" markets is at best wishful thinking far removed from business reality. It seems that realism about the "abnormal" behaviour of markets is now also shared with economists in China, such as Sheng Songcheng, head of the Financial Research Institute of the Shanghai Branch of the People's Bank (quoted in Gongshang Shibao, Taiwan, 8 January 1998).

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applies not only to US leadership versus Korea and Japan, but also versus Taiwan. The reversion of the sovereignty of Hong Kong was not so much the conclusion of the period of colonialism in China, but rather the first step in Chinese moves to gain de facto control over Taiwan. This strategy will aim towards achieving greater Taiwanese economic dependence on China, but the recent economic crisis in Asia has rather (temporarily?) increased Taiwanese abilities to make use of its financial reserves to conquer "international space of its own". There is concern in Beijing that Taiwan not only makes use of the economic crises in Southeast Asia but also in Korea to strengthen its international position in the region. This was symbolised, among other things, by the visit of an important high-level Taiwanese trade delegation to Thailand, India, Malaysia and the Philippines towards the end of last year. This also includes a strengthening of relations with North Korea which was a development that was initiated by the relaxation of Taiwanese restrictions on trade with North Korea adopted in November 1997.32 Li Denghui's moves towards publicly musing about Taiwan as a special kind of (independent) state separate from China seems merely another milestone in a long-term strategy. The US certainly regards Taiwan as an independent economic area.33 In February 1998 the US and Taiwan completed a bilateral market access agreement—an important step which moves Taiwan closer to membership in the WTO. Although in public China wishes to present itself as a self-assured country on the road towards (economic) great power status,34 Chinese efforts to become a member of the WTO seems designed rather to prevent any chance of China becoming isolated from international markets, with its great danger to the Chinese economy. The Communist Party is therefore prepared to go a long way towards reducing protectionism. One might speculate that a non-communist China led by a government representing Chinese private business interests might be a much tougher negotiator than the current government in matters of WTO access. It is not a foregone conclusion that a non-communist China would be less "nationalistic". 32

Lianhe zaobao, 29 December 1997. Taiwan's accession to the World Trade Organisation will be made on its own merits and is not dependent on China's accession, according to Deputy US Trade Representative Richard Fisher. (USIA website, East Asia—Pacific, 98031202.eea) 34 Lianhe zaobao, December 5, 1996, Xinhua, 21 November 1996. 33


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PROSPECTS FOR AND AGAINST INTEGRATION

Current developments in Asia underline once more that conceptualisation in terms of "economics", "politics", and "military security" is an array of tools to dissect "reality", but should not be confused with "reality" itself. Ethical and moral judgements cannot be viewed in isolation, as if they are set apart from the "objective" workings of "economics". Advocating "market economics" (this means different things to different people) does not relieve us of our moral obligation to judge the outcome of policies carried out in the name of that idea. Policy makers would be ill advised to rely on analyses that focus on "purely" economic, or political science models. The interaction of economics and politics, history, culture and security requirements creates dynamic patterns different for each of the participants in the international system. The individual "personality" of states— which itself is not a permanent, fixed trait—is subject to frequent change. The personal background of leading politicians may also influence not only the style, but also the substance of policies. None of the states involved, and this includes the United States as well, is able to dictate the shape of the future systems evolving in Asia Pacific. The US may set itself the task of preventing instability, but it lacks the positive means to create stability on the Eurasian continent as a whole. In the case of China, patterns of demography and urbanisation differ greatly from those in the traditional great powers. Their dynamics alone ensure a new pattern of development with important implications for the need to create new paradigms for economic as well as political organisation.35 A global system that relies on the ability of national and transnational actors to maintain a stable balance is not only difficult to realise but also difficult to conceptualise. Functional differentiation between politics, economics, private and government initiatives, and the interaction of local and global institutions and elites form a system whose dynamics cannot be understood by economics alone but will surely provide numerous challenges for complex disciplines such as International Political Economy. At a different level, as the current economic crises demonstrated once more, long cherished idealisation i:> This is the main point in Qin Hui and Su Wen, Pastorals and Rhapsodies: A Research for Peasant Societies and Peasant Cultures, (in Chinese, original title: Tianyuanshi yu kuangxiangqu), Beijing 1996.

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of the separation of "public" and "private" spheres is even more fictional than theorists and political practitioners have been ready to admit: in this crisis, "the dividing line between public and private liabilities too often becomes blurred".36

EXPANDING HEGEMONY? THE US AND GLOBAL RESTRUCTURING

The global restructuring process led by the US is also aimed at major changes in the relationship between the economy, society, and the political infrastructure, and reaches as far as the popular culture of countries.37 American statements on issues of restructuring exhibit a missionary zeal reminiscent of the "mission civilisatrice" of colonial powers in the nineteenth, and the early part of the twentieth century. Restructuring is also seen in "moral" terms. There was a spate of popular newspaper articles highlighting "Asian practices of corruption" in South Korea and Indonesia which compared them either explicitly or implicitly with superior "Western" traditions. The emphasis on the division of labour between economic and political institutions has been at the core of global restructuring since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The creation of healthy and strong companies able to operate in the global market place has, by now, become one of the most important ingredients for national stability and, by extension, national security. At stake is not merely an increase of global market access informed by traditional mercantilist ideas. A core aim is the systemic change of the very nature of the global economic system; the global restructuring of companies and pertinent economic laws forms an indispensable part. The attempts in China to create oil conglomerates able to compete globally must be seen in this light. Moreover, restructuring aims to homogenise the way that companies operate, in particular as far as their capitalisation is concerned. An important part of this transformation is therefore the conversion of the role of debt into equity which would allow a much more rapid penetration of the global economy by leading (financial) companies. The idea may be to restructure states by fostering internal structural economic reforms. Even if these ideas were successful,

See Greenspan's testimony on 12 February, in USIA file 980212.eea. For a Chinese comment, see for instance Renmin ribao, 7 January 1998.


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they would not necessarily lead to an international system in which national interests can be more easily reconciled. I should like to add a few words about the historical context of the current economic crises and their implications for global leadership.38 In the past decade, the US enjoyed a seemingly unassailable position as the only true global leader after the collapse of the Soviet Union. This was a period in which the United States, in co-operation with member states of the European Union, pressed for the restructuring of former members of the Soviet bloc according to American models. The coming shape of Pacific Asia seems to be significantly determined by the ability of the United States to persuade or force its partners in East and Southeast Asia to adopt institutional patterns of economic, social and political organisation along the lines of the "US model". Another major ingredient in shaping Pacific Asia will be the interaction between China and its neighbours and, more specifically, the degree to which the Chinese presence in Asia will make itself felt and what reactions this may cause both in Asia and, in particular, the United States. The economic crisis that commenced with the collapse of the Thai currency in July 1997 saw the United States once more as a leader. The crisis was used to increase pressure on countries in Asia to achieve a similar kind of restructuring in this part of the world. Economic difficulties and the character of economic restructuring in Europe (Russia, former Soviet bloc) differ considerably from the economic reforms attempted in Asia, including China. Chinese reforms were not so much inspired by the personal "will" of reformers under the leadership of Deng, but were forced upon the party and the leadership by economic changes beyond the control of the party, changes, which the leadership was wise enough to adopt, while trying to keep the political system in control of the situation (some might say, in order to keep themselves in power). The introduction of a "socialist market economy" in China reminds us, in an ironic way, of the ability of a totalitarian state to change its basic tenets and still pretend towards its citizens that its new policies are consistent with doctrine. Recalling an episode from the first hours of 38 p o r r e c e n t literature from a Japanese point of view, see for instance the special April 1998 edition of Kokusai mondai, and the June 1998 of Gaikoo jihoo, "IMF no konnichiteki kinoo to mondaiten. Ajia tuuka; kinyuu kiki to kokusai seisaku kyoochoo (Current Functions and Issues of the IMF. Asian currencies; financial crisis and international policy co-operation)."

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the Cold War, Kennan mentioned a task given in a Russian language course at the Soviet group in Riga, where participants were asked to draft a newspaper article in which the introduction of capitalism in the Soviet Union would be presented as a tremendous triumph of socialism.39 China is now seldom perceived to constitute an ideological challenge to anybody.40 More important is the degree to which China is irreversibly integrated into the world economic system. In the period before and after Clinton's visit to China there were numerous publications and speeches which explicitly listed US requirements for reforms in China. Most pressing, in this view, were 1) the conversion of the state-owned enterprise sector; 2) the reform of the banking sector, and 3) the full convertibility of the Chinese currency, as a "key step toward turning China into a full market economy."41 Despite repeated tensions among the two countries, both governments have a vested interest in maintaining "engagement", although domestic critics and political enemies may eventually gather sufficient force to disrupt current relations. We clearly need to locate current developments in an historical context. We should not exclude the possibility that the current crisis will produce an ideological backlash against current trends towards globalising marketisation. As K. Polanyi has pointed out—fascism, the New Deal and other ideas about a socialist planned economy were a reaction to failing marketisation more than a hundred years ago. From an historical perspective, the current crisis can be seen as another instance of problems brought about by globalisation, although this was denied by Paul R. Krugman.42 Globalisation, however, is

39

Guzzini, op. cit., 55. This point is also very strongly made by Wang Xiaodong in his contribution to this volume. 41 US Ambassador to the PRC James Sasser, in a speech on April 6, 1998 (USIA, 98040602.eea). 42 "La mondialisation n'est pas coupable," in politique etrangere, 1/98 (printemps 1998), 187-193. "The current process of globalisation involving low tariffs and the opening of financial markets was compared by Dani Rodrik of Harvard's Kennedy School to the earlier "globalisation" of the North American and European economies that eventually contributed to the world economic crises of 1929-1931," in: International Herald Tribune, 13 November 1997. On the international system in terms of "the 40


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only one level of tectonic shifts which has taken place in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The twentieth century has also been characterised by the rise of new "great powers" both within Europe and on a global scale: In chronological order Germany, the United States, the Soviet Union, Japan and finally China. The rise of these not always democratic new powers was not caused by any particular ideology, but their appearance repeatedly contributed to the outbreak of wars, in particular, the two world wars. Since its active involvement in the First World War, the US has consistently tried to change the internal structure of other countries, not only in defeated Germany, and Japan but also by its military intervention in Soviet Russia. After the Second World War the United States succeeded in making the main aggressors of the Second World War, Germany and Japan, situated on the Western and Eastern fringes of Eurasia, its most important allies in the Pacific and Atlantic areas. A major question for the twenty-first century will be whether the rise of China and India will fundamentally disturb the foundations of US leadership, requiring basic changes in US policies not only towards Asia, but a review of its global strategy as a whole.

duality of interstate system and world economy," see Robert Cox, Production, Power and World Order, New York, 1987.

NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION CHALLENGES IN EAST ASIA AND PROSPECTS FOR CO-OPERATION—A VIEW FROM EUROPE* FRANK UMBACH*

INTRODUCTION

At the end of November 1997, U.S. President Bill Clinton issued a still classified new directive for the American nuclear forces that defines the potential use of nuclear weapons in conflict situations. The new directive marks a departure from a nuclear strategy developed in 1981 under former U.S. President Ronald Reagan that called to fight an all-out, protracted nuclear war until victory, irrespective of social and military costs. According to the new guidelines, the future main purpose of U.S. nuclear forces will put the emphasis on deterring the use of nuclear arms or other mass destruction weapons against U.S. forces or allies by threatening a devastating response. These changes in the U.S. nuclear strategy have become necessary because the future nuclear defence planning and targeting requirements have to be reconciled with the denuclearization cuts of START-I and -II. Furthermore, these changes should encourage the ratification of START-II (which calls for reductions of nuclear warheads from 6.000 to 3.000-3.500 on both sides) in the Russian Duma.1 Nonetheless, the Clinton directive will preserve an retaliation option of using nuclear strikes against military and civilian targets, if U.S. and allied armed forces are attacked particularly with chemical or biological weapons. Therefore, the United States will retain a triad of nuclear forces consisting of bombers, land-based missiles (ICBMs) and submarine-based missiles (SLBMs) but on lower levels according to proposals of future START—III negotiations with * Frank Umbach is a Senior Research Fellow at the Research Institute of the German Society for Foreign Affairs (DGAP) in Berlin. This analysis is based on findings of a research project "Perspectives of Regional Security Co-operation in the Asia-Pacific Region", sponsored by the Volkswagen foundation, at the DGAP. 1 To ambivalent Russian reactions see Dmitrii Gornostaev, Nezavisimaya Gazeta, 9 December 1997, p. 1 and Nikolai Zimin, Segodnya, 9 December 1997, pp. 1 and 4.

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Russia (after the Russian Parliament ratifies START-II) that will further downsize the nuclear arsenals to 2.500—2.000 warheads. To some extent, this directive can be seen as a another indicator for a creeping denuclearization and a diminishing role of U.S. nuclear weapons in the context of their military planning for future conflicts. Although the U.S. thus is maintaining a nuclear retaliation option against ABC-weapons, simultaneously it will rely increasingly on the use of conventional deep-strike, long-range high-precision weapon systems, based on most modern technology, as it was already the case in the Gulf-war in 1991. To some extent, these denuclearization trends seem also to be in line with a growing delegitimation of nuclear weapons as calls for the abolition of all nuclear weapons and a nuclear free world by the prestigious international Canberra Commission2 and well-known retired U.S. officers such as General Lee Butler (the former commander-in-chief of all U.S. strategic nuclear forces) or General Andrew J. Goodpaster (former commander of NATO forces in Europe) have shown.3 And although the International Court of Justice's ruling on nuclear weapons was quite ambiguous, some activists of a nuclear free world felt be strengthened.4 Furthermore, they might also be encouraged by the fact that former forecasts of 20 nuclear powers by 1970 made in the 1960s by U.S. experts have never become true. The number had reached nine by 1990, including four undeclared nuclear powers (Israel, Pakistan, India, and South Africa). In addition, shortly afterwards, South Africa decided to dismantle its six nuclear bombs.0 Moreover, a horizontal nuclear proliferation after the implosion of the former Soviet Union (FSU) with new emerging nuclear powers on its territory (such as Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan) has been successfully prevented. In contrast to these positive developments in the field of global non-proliferation and denuclearization efforts, however, a number of other regional and global trends and their security implications put 2 The "Report of the Canberra Commission on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons", August 1996, can be obtained from the commission's site on the World Wide Web—http://www.dfat.gov.au/dfat/cc/cchome.html. 3 George Lee Butler, "Time to End the Age of Nukes", Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, March-April 1997, pp. 33-36 and "Statement on Nuclear Weapons (by international Generals and Admirals)", The Washington Quarterly, Summer 1997, pp. 12-130. 4 B. Carnahan, "World Court Delivers Opinion on Legality of Nuclear Weapon Use", Arms Control Today (ACT), July 1996, p. 24. 5 J.W. De Villiers/Roger Jardine/Mitchell Reiss, "Why South Africa Gave Up the Bomb", Foreign Affairs, November/December 1993, pp. 99-109.

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the goal of a nuclear free world in question, at least in near and mid-term perspective: The implosion of the nuclear superpower USSR and the resulting proliferation problems have created new potential proliferation threats to both Europe and the Asia-Pacific region. Although any nuclear war between the U.S. and Russia seems nowadays more remote than ever, Russia is facing numerous dismantling problems and costs that aggravate problems of reforming its armed forces and coping successfully with the challenges of the nuclear legacy of the FSU. These challenges include the following two potential threats in the near future: a) increasing risks of the loss of command and control over nuclear weapons, both politically and militarily, that might lead to accidental or inadvertent and unsanctioned or unauthorised use of them; and b) an illicit export of nuclear materials and expertise to potential nuclear threshold countries. Any proliferation of mass destruction weapons or even an unlimited proliferation of advanced conventional weapon systems and the increasing technology diffusion might fuel the already ongoing arms build-up and arms competition in East Asia.6 It could lead to an open arms race, increasing risks of misperception, miscalculation and misunderstanding and finally to a violent outbreak of potential conflicts, so undermining the stability and security in the region. Against this background, new potential proliferation threats must be addressed in the dynamic and highly fluid security landscape of the Asia-Pacific region. Although nuclear-weapon-free zones have been established in the South Pacific—such as the 1985 Treaty of Rarotonga (the South Pacific Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone or SPNWFZ) and Southeast Asia (the 1995 South East Asia Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone or SEANWFZ),7 it remains an open question whether they are effective instruments for successful regional and global non-proliferation policies. 6

To the current regional arms build-up, technology diffusion and emerging modern defence industries in the Asia-Pacific region see F. Umbach, "Strategic Changes in the Asia-Pacific Region: The Dimension of Military Technology Diffusion and Proliferation of Advanced Conventional Weaponry", in: Joachim Krause/Frank Umbach (Eds.), Perspectives of Regional Security Co-operation in Asia-Pacific: Learning from

Europe or Developing Indigenous Models? Arbeitspapiere zur Internationalen Politik (ed. by the Research Institute of the German Society for Foreign Affairs/DGAP), No. 100 (Bonn: Europa-Union Verlag GmbH, September 1998), pp. 43-69. 7 See "Treaty on the Southeast Asia Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone", Strategic Digest


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Ultimately, they are dependent on the support of the nuclear weapon states—the US, Russia, China, France and Great Britain—and their national security interests.8 These interests are not always and exclusively defined by broader regional or global security concerns but often to more narrow national security interests. Characteristically, the support of the nuclear powers for these two nuclear-weapon-free zones was and is still limited (SPNWFZ) or so far even non-existent (SEANWFZ).9 Given European experiences, nuclear-weapon-free zones might promote confidence and security building measures (CSBMs), but can hardly be the major or the only non-proliferation instrument.10 Therefore, the analysis of motivations and the internal as well as external security environment of potential nuclear threshold countries remains an important prerequisite for defining specific and successful non-proliferation strategies. Moreover, as the result of the dynamic economic growth and population increase in the Asia-Pacific region, the energy demand in the next decades will increase several times (particularly in China). Given the limited existence of energy resources, almost all states in East Asia are looking into the available options, notably the civilian use of nuclear power. But the creation of new nuclear power stations, nuclear fuel fabrication, spent fuel storage and nuclear storage sites will raise considerable non-proliferation concerns because 3/1996, pp. 320-328. Although the treaty was drafted on the basis of similar agreements, it has certain unique features such as the inclusion of the "Exclusive Economic Zones (EE£s)" and continental shelves that has raised concerns particularly in the United States and China. Thus far, both nuclear weapon states have not signed the protocol of the SEANWFZ-treaty which ensures compliance with the treaty by the five declared nuclear powers—to the background see Amitav Acharya/J.D. Kenneth Boutin, "The Southeast Asia Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone Treaty", Security Dialogue 2/1998, pp. 219-230 and Rolf Muetzenich, "KernwafTenfreiheit in Suedostasien", Aussenpolitik 4/1997, pp. 390-400. 8 See also Jozef Goldblat, "Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zones: A History and Assessment", The Nonproliferation Review, Spring-Summer 1997, pp. 18-32. 9 See also Keith Suter, "U.S. Signs on At Last", 77K Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, March-April 1996, pp. 12-13. 10 Although one motivation of ASEAN states was to include EEZs and continental shelves to make sure that China cannot deploy nuclear weapons in or around the contested islands and reefs in the South China Sea, this makes militarily little sense given the capabilities of modern long-range weapon systems (particularly missiles). Such zones can also lull their member states into a mistaken sense of nuclear security. To their positive role in promoting CSBMs between its members see Ralph A. Cossa, International Herald Tribune (IHT), 23 July 1996, p. 6. To an Indian critic of such zones see Brahma Chellaney, IHT, 7 May 1996, p. 8.

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the boundaries between the civilian and military use of nuclear energy are often small.11 Furthermore, new trends in Russia's and China's military policies indicate either a greater reliance on nuclear weapons both for prestige and compensating mounting deficiencies of its conventional forces (as it is the case in Russia despite the denuclearization of the last years as we will see later) or an accelerating modernisation process (as it is the case in China). The latter might not only increase the accuracy of missiles and other technical parameter, but also expand its current nuclear arsenal two or three times in the next 10-15 years. Such a future nuclear arms build-up of China might also raise and justify nuclear ambitions of other East Asian countries, notably Japan, Taiwan and South Korea (or a unified Korea after the collapse of North Korea).12 Japan, for instance, is already confronted by ambitions of two de facto and one potential nuclear power (Russia, China and North Korea) in the Asia-Pacific Rim. It might have a direct or indirect impact on its security, particularly if the U.S. would withdraw from the region or if the U.S. nuclear umbrella as a positive security guarantee for Japan would loose its credibility. Moreover, the Indian-Pakistani nuclear arms race and their weaponry programmes have also destabilising effects on Southeast and Northeast Asian states because it threatens the crucial sea links for their trade and energy flows and undermines regional CSBMs. The expansion of technology that has an dominant influence on lives of most people presents certainly numerous benefits and opportunities, but at the same time it poses also new security challenges. The globalisation of economies and technology available provide new opportunities for terrorists with a power of modern weaponry and transnational links which are unprecedented in human experience. The example of the AUM-Shinrikyo Doomsday Cult, which will be analysed later in this paper, has underscored these grave hazards with new dimensions. 11 These issues are discussed in the excellent paper by Hahnkyu Park, "Comprehensive Security and Regional Nuclear Co-operation in East Asia: The Case of South Korea" in this volume. 12 On South Korea's and Taiwan's nuclear ambitions in the past see Andrew Mack, "Potential, not Proliferation", The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, July/August 1997, pp. 48-53 and David Albright/Corey Gay, "Taiwan: Nuclear Nightmare Averted", ibid., January /February 1998, pp. 54-60. A renewed open nuclearization of Taiwan, however, might risk a pre-emptive military strike by the PRC.


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The following chapters do not aim primarily to identify the status and numbers of nuclear weapons in East Asia13 but rather to analyse some of the wider regional and global nuclear proliferation challenges and nuclear modernisation efforts in China which might produce new security dilemmas in East Asia. It concludes with the assumption that in order to prevent those new security dilemmas and to stabilise and not to undermine regional and global stability, a much broader and deeper security co-operation between nuclear powers and non-nuclear weapon states is urgently needed in the forthcoming months and years. Realistically, it should begin with enhancing military transparency, such as publishing White Papers with more detail information of the national defence policies, comparing military budgets, military doctrines and strategies, conventional and nuclear arms procurement plans, and by inviting experts to military exercises. While a wide-ranging and militarily significant nuclear-free zone in Northeast Asia seems only achievable in a longterm process of a nearly nuclear-free world, a register of nuclear arms would contribute to more transparency and confidence-building in the region in the short—and mid-term perspective.

PROLIFERATION CHALLENGES OF THE SOVIET NUCLEAR LEGACY AND THE INHERENT RISKS OF RUSSIA'S STRATEGIC NUCLEAR ARMED FORCES

The Implosion of a Nuclear Superpower and its Proliferation Challenges

Although significant steps toward a denuclearization and improving the safeguards mechanisms of the former Soviet nuclear arsenal have been made during the last years, the implementation process of START-II had to be extended from 2003 until the end of 2007. It gives Russia more time to dismantle launch and delivery systems— such as missile silos, bombers and submarines—with multiple war1S Gerald Segal, "Nuclear Forces in Northeast Asia", in: Young Whan Kihl/Peter Hayes (Ed.), Peace and Security in Northeast Asia. The Nuclear Issue and the Korean Peninsula (Armonk, NY-London: M.E. Sharpe, 1997), pp. 305-317; Dunbar Lockwood, "The Status of U.S., Russian, and Chinese Nuclear Forces in Northeast Asia", in: ibid., pp. 318-358 and Ralph A. Cossa, "Nuclear Forces in the Far East: Status and Implications", in: ibid., pp. 359-380.

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heads. Moreover, Washington, therewith, hopes to win more support in the Russian Duma for the still un-ratified treaty as a precondition for START—III negotiations.14 In the fall of 1993, the Russian minister for atomic energy, V. Mikhaylov, revealed for the first time that the Soviet Union had in 1987 approximately 45.000 nuclear warheads in its arsenal'3—12.000 more than the CIA had accounted in the mid of 1980s. In mid1993, the most reliable estimate, based on data from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Russian Ministry for Atomic Energy (MINATOM), specified the Russian nuclear legacy still on 32.000 strategic and tactical nuclear warheads. 15.000 of them are active, or deployed, and another 17.000 are in storage or awaiting disassembly and disposal.16 Table 1: Reductions and Limits of Strategic Nuclear Warheads according to S T A R T I and II

ICBMs SLBMs Bomber Total

Mid 1991 U.S.A. USSR/RF

START-I U.S.A. USSR/RF

START II U.S.A. USSR/RF

2.450 5.760 2.665 10.875

1.444 3.456 1.066 5.966

500 1.728 772 3.500

6.612 2.804 855 10.271

3.258 1.744 820 5.687

795 1.744 461 3.000

Source: Frank Umbach, "Die nukleare Rustungskontrollproblematik und die Rolle der USA im postsowjetischen Raum", in: BlOst (Ed.), ^wischen Krise und Konsolidierung. Gefaehrdeter Systemwechsel im Osten Europas (Muenchen-Wien: Carl Hanser Verlag, 1995), pp. 360-371, here p. 360.

In the FSU, strategic nuclear weapons had only been deployed in Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and Kazakhstan. Those weapons were all either land-based ICBMs or weapon systems deployed on heavy bombers. In contrast to the tactical nuclear weapons, their safety against theft and unauthorised use had been perceived by Western experts as rather high. According to various Western and Soviet official statements, 80-85 14

Steven Lee Myers, IHT, 29 September 1997, p. 6. Moscow News 40/1993, 1 October 1993, p. 5. 'Nuclear Pursuits", The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, No. 4 (May) 1993, pp. 48-49; "Estimated Russian (CIS) Nuclear Stockpile (July 1993)", ibid., No. 6 (JulyAugust) 1993, p. 57, and D. Lockwood, "Report on Soviet Arsenal Raises Questions, Eyebrows", ACT, No. 9 (Nov.) 1993, p. 23. 15

16


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per cent of the Soviet nuclear weapons were deployed within the Russian Federation (RSFSR) itself, leaving some 4.000-6.500 warheads beyond the borders of the RSFSR. Confronted with disintegration tendencies in the former Soviet Union at the end of 1980s, the Soviet General Staff ordered already in the spring of 1990 to withdraw the more numerous and more widely dispersed tactical nuclear weapons from the potential conflict zones, particularly from the Transcaucasus republics. The Soviet General Staff obviously feared the possibility of "loosing nukes" despite of its numerous explanations of its safeguarded tactical nuclear weapons against theft or unauthorised use. However, Russia was not prepared for the rapid withdrawal of thousands of nuclear weapons that it experienced. Furthermore, not only nuclear weapons, but also the "nuclear archipelago" with its research laboratories, weapon design bureau's, testing areas, the command, control, communication and intelligence (C3I) facilities—like early warning radars—and production plants for nuclear warheads and ballistic missiles as well as the nuclear components, materials, and know-how have become a potential source of concern for non-proliferation strategies. Thus the stockpile of fissionable materials, facilities and skilled bomb-builders pose a latent problem of diversion to political factions, terrorists, or potential proliferants around the world. Most of the facilities were located in the Russian Republic, like the two nuclear weapon design laboratories in "Arzamas-16" and Chelyabinsk-70. Hence all nuclear warheads during the cold war had been exclusively produced within the Russian republic. None of the other Soviet republics had facilities for designing, manufacturing or refurbishing nuclear warheads. However, the same cannot be said about the missile production and other parts of the nuclear complex. The largest missile production facility, for instance, was located at Dnepropetrovsk in Ukraine. Moreover, the underground test sites were located at Novaya Zemlya in arctic Russia and in Semipalatinsk (Kazakhstan). The last one was formally closed by the president of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, on August 29, 1991. Of particular importance for the future of the Russian strategic nuclear forces are also the 11 early warning radars. Six of them were located outside of Russia, in Skrunda (Latvia), Baranovichi (Belarus), Mukatchevo and Sevastopol (Ukraine), Saryshagan (Kazakhstan) and Lyaki (Azerbaijan). These early warning radar's are needed in order to maintain strategic stability (and to guarantee Russia's second strike-

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capability) because nuclear forces require numerous information as well as command and control systems (C2). Because of the loss of those early warning radar's and the rapidly ageing C3I system, Russia's high command is now becoming partially blind—a fact that could produce false alarms and makes adequate decisions both at the bottom and the top of the high command as well as in the political leadership much more difficult. Loss of Command and Control: Increasing Risks of an Unauthorised and Unsanctioned Launch of Russia's Nuclear Missiles11

During the Cold War, an unauthorised use of nuclear weapons seemed largely a theoretical scenario without presenting a real threat in peace times. However, when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, questions of command and control and "who has the nuclear button?" of the Soviet nuclear arsenal became utmost significant when the West insistently tried to find out who was in possession of the "nuclear briefcase"—thus during the August-putsch of 1991 and the bloody events in October 1993 or in the early autumn of 1996, when President Boris Yeltsin had been forced temporarily to give up control over his country's nuclear arsenal during a forthcoming heart operation.18 Each nuclear command and control system is confronted with the following dilemma: on the one hand, the system has to prevent an unauthorised use of nuclear weapons—called "negative control"; on the other hand, it has to guarantee the execution of an order to use them after authorisation—called "positive control". Both demands interfere with each other. It confronts the military commanders with the dilemma that measures which aim to reduce the risk of undesired use make the execution of a release order for nuclear weapons difficult or even impossible. Or put it in other words: The more reliable the guarantee of a retaliatory strike becomes, the less reliable is the guarantee against a non-sanctioned launch in event of error 17

On the following discussion see also the previous analysis by Frank Umbach, "Who Controls the Nuclear Button?", Jane's Intelligence Review (JIR), August 1992, pp. 353-356, and idem, "Control and Security of Nuclear Weapons in the Former USSR", Aussenpolitik 4/1992, pp. 362-372. From the Russian side see in particular the interview with the chief designer (pseudonym Yuri Mkolaev), Komsomol'skaya Praxida, 28 January 1992, p. 2. ia See, for instance, Chrystia Freeland, Financial Times (FT), 13 September 1996.


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or overreaction to an imaginary threat. Measures that reduce the risk of an unauthorised launch might thus impede the orders to execute an authorised retaliatory strike, and vice versa. All nuclear powers are confronted by these dilemmas. But the priorities and the specific concepts which the two superpowers placed on measures to resolve them—particularly as to the delegation of authority and devolution of top-down command and control—were often very different. But in the Cold War there was always on both sides a certain tendency to give priority to positive rather than negative control. Consequently, during the coup d'Etat of 1991, Gorbachev could not have been the only person at the most senior command level who had custody of the "black briefcase" to release the access codes for the use of the strategic nuclear potential.19 Furthermore, the monopoly which the General Staff enjoyed in the control of nuclear weapons was primarily designed to guard not against an accidental launch but mainly against a failure not to respond to an attack promptly and on a massive scale. Since that time, three major negative factors affecting Russia's Strategic Nuclear Forces (SNFj have been identified during the last years: (1) the decline of the human support element in both numbers and reliability, partly also as the result of an excessive psychological strain, (2) the growing probability of technical failure as a result of the ageing of nuclear warheads as well as of delivery systems, and (3) the current state of the ageing command, control, communication and intelligence (C3I) system of the Strategic Nuclear Forces. Many of those systems received practically no development during the last years, are functioning in a reduced composition, are degrading or have basically be stopped such as the work on improving Moscow's anti-aircraft defence system.20

19 Thus also the conclusion by Alexei Arbatov, "Taini yadernoi knopki. Nashi generali mogut nacat' atomnuyu voinu i ne sprosyas' i prezidenta Rossii", Novoe Vremya 4/1992, pp. 28-31. 2(1 Viktor Surikov, Praoda-5, 10-11 September 1996, p. 3 and R. Bykov, Komsomol'skaya Pravda, 15 March 1997, pp. 1-2. These facts have also been confirmed by the (former) Russian defence minister Igor Rodionov himself in February 1997. According to his alarming statement Russia's nuclear missile forces are close to collapse because of poor funding. Later, Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin claimed again—in contrast to Rodionov—the firm and effective control of all nuclear weapons in Russia—see Igor Korotchenko, Nezavisimaya Gazeta, 21 February 1997, p. 1 and Juriy Golotjuk, Segodnya, 22 February 1997, p. 1.

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All three factors have its negative implications for Russia's main wartime automated nuclear command-and-control system, called "Kazbek". It is the heart of Russia's command and control system (as a complex network of cables, radio signals, satellites and relays) designed to authorise the launching of a nuclear strike after it caused an alert in each of the three nuclear suitcases, called "Cheget". This Russian system is based on a "triple key system"21, involving the Russian President, the Defence Minister and the Chief of the General Staff who all possess their own set of codes. This technical and administrative control of strategic nuclear weapons, however, was and is ultimately dependent on the trust within the party-military relationship or—being more concrete—on the absolute loyalty of the General Staff officers to the political leadership of the FSU and Russia. Meanwhile, this control system has eroded technically, financially and politically. Chronic budgetary shortfalls, worsening living conditions, low pension and wages (if they are paid at all), gaps in the early warning system and the maintenance of a "launch-andwarning"-nuclear strategy (the ability to launch a retaliatory strike before an attacking adversary's warheads hit their targets) have all contributed to increasing risks of erroneous, accidental or unauthorised missile launches because of technical failures, false warnings, misjudgements or political and socio-economic reasons. These factors are particularly destabilising because Russia has a computerised "doomsday" command-and-control complex, called "Perimefr". According to the U.S. expert Bruce Blair, this system allows the General Staff with its primary wartime post at Chekov (60 km south of Moscow) to launch ICBMs directly, thereby by-passing subordinate commanders and missile launch crews, to insure quasi-automatic retaliation in the event of a decapitation strike.22 At the same time, 21 See also Alexander A. Pikayev, "Post-Soviet Russia and Ukraine: Who Can Push the Button?", The Nonproliferation Review, Spring-Summer 1994, pp. 31-46, pp. 32ff. and A. Konovalov/A. Sutiagin, "Nuclear Weapons on the Territories of the CIS States: Problems of Safety and Security", in: Joachim Krause (Ed.), Kern-

waffenverbreitung und internationaler Systemwandel.

Neue Risiken

und Gestaltungsmoeglichkeiten

(Baden-Baden: Nomos-Verlagsgesellschaft, 1994), pp. 135-158. 22 Steven J. Zaloga, "Russia's 'Doomsday' Machine", JIR, February 1996, pp. 54-56; Bruce G. Blair, The New York Times, 8 October 1993, p. A35; id., "Global Zero Alert for Nuclear Forces" (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1995), pp. 51-55. According to Russian sources, however, the involvement of the missile launch crews is needed—see Valery Yarynych, The New York Times, 1 February 1994, p. A17 and the interview with Nikolai Devyanin (the chief designer of the first modification of the president's "suitcase"), "Is the 'Nuclear Briefcase' Really Necessary?", Moscow


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the system has the technical capability that subordinate command posts to launch their missiles automatically without approval from Russia's political leadership and the General Staff if they are dead or unable to direct a nuclear retaliation strike. Western efforts towards co-operation on nuclear issues are still hindered by the military's reluctance for "glasnost" and an open dialogue about its command and control procedures and the current status of the "Perimetr" system which is unknown. But considering the loss of several early warning radars in the former Soviet republics, the radar and satellite system is vulnerable because of gaps in its network. Hence Western reluctance on the computerised "dead hand" system remains and call in question the secure command and control (C2) over strategic nuclear weapons. Furthermore, U.S. intelligence officials have pointed out in 1996 that the Russian "doomsday machine" has only recently been deployed though the system has been known for at least four years.23 Hence unthinkable scenarios involving the unauthorised launch of nuclear weapons, particularly in crisis, might not be excluded any longer.24 These uncertainties over command and control of Russia's nuclear arsenal and its "death hand" system had been highlighted in January 1995 when a Norwegian missile inadvertently alarmed Russia's SNF which triggered a heightened level of alert throughout its forces. It was the first time that President Boris Yeltsin declared to have used his nuclear briefcase by activating the Kazbek-system in a real alert. He speculated that Norway and NATO "might have been trying to test Russia's military readiness."25 The General Staff, indeed, raised the state of alert and combat readiness of Russia's strategic triad so that the whole command and control system was operating in combat mode. But fortunately, the retaliation attack was not initiated and the crisis ended. Later the Defence Ministry claimed to have pursued the trajectory of the rocket from the beginning to its end,26 and Yeltsin dismissed his former comments as a misunderstanding.2' News, No. 13, 1-7 April 1994, pp. 1 and 7. Nonetheless, I would follow here the assumption of Bruce Blair because of a number of reasons which cannot be discussed here in detail. 23 James Adams, Sunday Times, 29 February 1996. 24 The Tunes, 28 July 1995. 25 Quoted in IHT, 27 January 1995, p. 2. 2(1 Marat Zubko, Izvestiya, 27 January 1995, p. 3 and Veronika Kutsyllo, KommersantDaily, 27 January 1995, p. 1. 27 IHT, 27 January 1995, p. 2.

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Given the fact that Norway had informed the Russian side on 21 December 1994 of the rocket's launch for studying the northern lights phenomenon (like 607 other weather rockets before),28 however, the incident raised serious questions about the stability of Russia's strategic command and control system. A following investigation found out that a prelaunch notification message by the Norwegians was not properly delivered to the Russian early warning forces.29 Characteristically for these uncertainties, a US report stated at the end of 1996 that Russia's SNF have implemented new procedures to report accidental or unauthorised missile launches.30 It is, indeed, this combination of domestic power struggles and bureaucratic policies for short-sighted political ends, of inaccurate information and of misunderstanding, misperception or miscalculation that raises concern, particularly in crisis, over Russia's nuclear arsenal in general and a secure information chain in particular from major military installations to the supreme commander in chief of Russia that has still the most formidable nuclear forces both in Europe and in Asia. Moreover, nuclear weapons have become the last symbol of the former superpower status in Russia. Together with the disastrous state of Russia's conventional armed forces, preparation for nuclear war with the USA appears to remain a high priority for the Russian military establishment and for defining a new military doctrine and nuclear strategy. In order to strengthen "negative control" and to prevent any further erosion of its command and control system, Russia has basically two options: (1) to lower the status of alert (de-alerting) of its Strategic Nuclear Forces, and/or (2) to change the doctrine of its national nuclear strategy and to reject all hair-trigger and accident prone "launch-on-warning" postures of the Cold War on which Russia traditionally relied on and which still dominates its nuclear control system. Russia has taken only the first choice and has reduced the status of alert of its nuclear arsenal instead of favouring option two or going even further (in co-operation with the United States) to an end-state of zero alert—so-called "virtual arsenals" (disassembled

28 See also "Norway's Ambassador Per Tresselt, Plays Down Rocket Incident", Moscow News, No. 5, 3-9 February 1995, p. 5. 29 David R. Markov, "The Russians and Their Nuclear Nukes", Air Force Journal, February 1997, pp. 40-43, esp. p. 43. 30 Ibid., p. 42.


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weapons under multilateral inspection and monitoring).3' The complete mutual detargeting of all strategic missiles on 30 May 1994 was the result of the bilateral agreement signed by US President Bill Clinton and Boris Yeltsin four months before. But it was rather a political and symbolic step towards the West which has been reiterated by Yeltsin in May 1997 during his Paris visit.32 Militarily, this information can be retargeted in minutes if not seconds. Thus the agreement produced no significant changes in the operational launch readiness on both sides which are still regularly exercised. Furthermore, Russia has dropped the pledge on its 1982 "no-first use"-policy of nuclear weapons in the document "Principle Guidance on the Military Doctrine of the Russian Federation" in November 1993.33 It has underlined the increasing role of Russia's strategic and tactical nuclear weapons in its defence policies.34 Many Russian security and defence experts advocate placing a greater reliance on nuclear weapons to compensate for the deficiencies of conventional forces. Not only strategic nuclear weapons, but also tactical nuclear weapons play a much more important role presently in Russia's defence posture, and particularly in the Far East towards China. Aleksei Arbatov, for instance, argued in 1997: Chinese conventional build up greatly depends on massive imports of weapons and technology from Russia. Thus, besides the nuclear threat, Moscow has effective means of undercutting or at least seriously slowing down the emergence of this hypothetical threat. At a minimum, to deter effectively China's conventional offensive superiority at the theatre, Russia might rely on the option of employing tactical nuclear weapons in the border area to thwart the enemy's offensive operations 31 On those proposals see Bruce Blair, "Global Zero Alert for Nuclear Forces" and id., "Command, Control, and Warning for Virtual Arsenals", in: Michael J. Mazarr (Ed.), Nuclear Weapons in a Transformed World. The Challenge of Virtual Nuclear Arsenals (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1997), pp. 55-75, esp. pp. 62ff. 32 On the confusing statement (as one of many others by Yeltsin) see the reaction in the Russian press by Dmitrii Gornostaev, Nezavisimaya gazeta, 29 May 1997, pp. 1-2 and Pavel Felgenhauer, Segodnya, 28 May 1997, p. 3. 33 The document in: Izvestiya, 18 November 1993, pp. 1-4. It has modified the 1982 Soviet pledge not to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states (as a denuclearized Ukraine)—see also Dunbar Lockwood, "Russia Revises Nuclear Policy, Ends Soviet 'No-First-Use' Pledge", ACT, December 1993, p. 19. The Russian Minister of Defence, Army-General Pavel Grachev, declared it already in an article four months earlier, see Krasnaya £vezda, 9 June 1995, pp. 1 and 5. 34 See, inter alia, Vladimir Belous, "Key Aspects of the Russian Nuclear Strategy", Security Dialogue 2/1997, pp. 159-171 and Nikolai Sokov, "Russia's Approach to Nuclear Weapons", The Washington Quarterly 3/1996, pp. 107-114.

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while deterring China's nuclear response at the strategic level by superior (assured destruction) strategic retaliatory capabilities. Then Russia's deterrence would be credible: its nuclear capabilities would be sufficient to deny China's alleged military gains at the theatre but not threatening to its national survival and thus would not provoke its strategic nuclear pre-emption.35 The new emphasis on the role of nuclear weapons has also been confirmed in Russia's newly declared "National Security Concept,"36 signed by President Boris Yeltsin on December 17, 1997, and in new military doctrine and strategy proposals. It suggests an overwhelming reliance on nuclear forces in a host of military-political contingencies (including the right to use them as first strike and sometimes even for the pre-emptive use in ethnopolitical conflicts) that these forces cannot realistically and effectively confront.37 Characteristically for the increasing role of strategic and tactical nuclear weapons—which mostly (at least 6.000 operational warheads plus thousands in storage) have not been destroyed as former President M. Gorbachev had pledged in October 1991—in Russia's military planning is also the fact that the current restructuring of Russia's armed forces is conducted under the slogan "military reform under the nuclear missile umbrella."38 Instead of improving living conditions and raising the actual fighting capacity of Russia's conventional troops engaged in peacemaking missions and internal conflicts, the well-known Russian military expert and journalist Pavel Felgengauer has criticised the current reforms with the words: . . . money is being spent on superfluous nuclear missiles which, in accordance with agreements on non-targeting, are aimed "nowhere". The fairy tale of the reform "under the nuclear umbrella", the new missiles and discussions on parity, will be paid for not only with money, but also with the blood of Russian soldiers in future local conflicts in this country's southern regions.39 In this light, Russia places too much emphasis on nuclear scenarios (which are mostly unrealistic and do not solve any of its most impor30 Aleksei G. Arbatov, "Virtual Arsenals", in: Michael J. Mazarr (Ed.), Nuclear Weapons in a Transformed World, pp. 319-336, here p. 331. 36 Kontseptsiya natsional'noi bezopasnosti Rossiiskoi Federatsii', Rossiiskaya Gazeta, 26 December 1997, pp. 4 - 5 . 37 See also Aleksei G. Arbatov, "Voennaya reforma: doktrina, voiska, finansy", Mirovaya ekonomika i mezhdunarodnye otnosheniya (MEiMO) 4/1997, pp. 5-21, here p. 8. 38 Pavel Felgengauer, Segodnya, 23 October 1997, p. 1. 39 Pavel Felgengauer ibid.


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tant security problems at its southern flank) in order to justify its declining world power status without having the means to control them effectively. Moreover, regardless of the Duma's ratification of START—II in the forthcoming months or years and the ongoing consolidation of its nuclear armed forces (such as the integration of the Strategic Missile Forces, the Missile Space Forces and the Missile Space Defence Force into a single branch or the creation of a unified combat control system to provide centralised and stable control over all elements of the integrated Strategic Missile Forces),40 a decade from now Russia probably will have less than 2.000 warheads in its strategic nuclear arsenal as the result of the economic situation and its scarce financial resources it has to maintain its nuclear armed forces. Even the core of its strategic nuclear deterrence forces, the Strategic Missile Forces, will shrink dramatically in the years ahead.41 According to Aleksei G. Arbatov, with the implementation of START-II, Russia will not have more than 1.200-1.500 warheads in 2003 (the timetable for the implementation of START-I has meanwhile be extended to the end of 2007) because it is unable to deploy 700-1.000 additional warheads and SS—25 missiles at a rate of 100—200 per year.42 At the same time, however, thousands of strategic and tactical nuclear warheads are still waiting in storages for their dismantling. Presently, Russia has neither the financial resources to maintain a nuclear arsenal equivalent to that of the United States nor sufficient funds for dismantling all the nuclear warheads of the Cold War. Even the ratified START-I agreement is only 40 per cent funded by Russia's federal budget.43 Moreover, with the ratification of START-I and II and the financial pressure to downsize Russia's strategic nuclear arsenal, a radical restructuring is under way with the result that most of Russia's strategic nuclear warheads in the future will be based on mobile-ICBMs and SLBMs. Although these nuclear weapon systems will strengthen the nuclear deterrence effect (because they are more invulnerable 40

Ilshat Maichurin/N. Poroskov, Krasnaya ^vezda, 5 November 1997, p. 1. See also analyses by the Russian General Staff, reported by Dmitriy Gornostaev/ Andrei Korbut, Nezavisimaya Gazeta, 4 December 1997, pp. 1-2 and Yevgeni Fedorov, Kommersant, 20 January 1998, pp. 23^26. 42 Aleksei Arbatov, "Military Reform in Russia. Dilemmas, Obstacles, and Prospects", International Security, Spring 1998, pp. 83-134, here p. 116f. 43 Yevgeni Fedorov, Kommersant, 20 January 1998, pp. 23-26. 41

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than silo-based ICBMs), simultaneously it will further weaken Russia's command and control safeguard system (because safeguards on mobile—ICBMs and SLBMs on submarines are inferior to those on silo-based ICBMs given communication problems and their vulnerable links).44 Dismantlement Challenges and Problems of Denuclearization

Russia is facing a large-scale dismantlement of at least 27.000-28.000 nuclear warheads over the remaining years of 1990 and beyond, regardless of its START-II ratification. It includes warheads, missiles, fissile material and installations like missile silos.45 Officially, Russia is supposed to dismantle 9.200-9.450 tactical warheads which included 5.000 nuclear artillery shells and mines, and warheads of tactical missiles, 1.250 warheads of antiaircraft missiles, 1.200 warheads for carriers that were standard equipment of the navy, and 1.750—2.000 nuclear air bombs and missiles.46 In many respects, the dismantling process of mass destruction weapons and their components is more challenging than constructing them.47 According to the earliest START-II obligations in the year 2000, more than 4.000 nuclear warheads will have to be scrapped each year. Although the international community and in particular the United States has been helpful by providing financial aid, technical expertise and practical material aid (like transportation containers), these problems will remain on the international agenda for many years to come: Short-term attention is directed toward storage and transport problems of nuclear weapons as officials of MINATOM and the Russian

44

Bruce Blair, "Command, Control, and Warning for Virtual Arsenals", p. 61. Oleg A. Bukharin, "Meeting the Challenges of Dismantlement", Transition, 17 November 1995, pp. 30-33, here p. 30. 4)

4fi

Colonel Sergey A. Modestov, Nezavisimaya Gazeta-Nezavisimoe Voennoe Obozrenie,

16 May 1996, p. 6. 4/ A good overview of the scale and costs of dismantling nuclear, chemical and conventional weapon systems as a result of the arms control treaties for Russia and the West is provided by Susanne Kopte/Michael Renner/Peter Wilke, "The Cost of Disarmament: Dismantlement of Weapons and the Disposal of Military Surplus", The Nonproliferation Review, Winter 1996, pp. 33—45. To the dismantling problems themselves see Frank von Hippel/Marvin Miller/Harold Feiveson/Anatoli Diakov/ Franz Berkhout, "Verschrottung nuklearer Sprengkoepfe", Spektrum der VVissenschaft, October 1993, pp. 32-38, and Karl-Heinz Kamp, "Probleme nuklearer Abruestung:


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Defence Ministry have confirmed.48 The process to withdraw strategic nuclear warheads from the other interim nuclear successor states Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine finished at the end of 1996. But many nuclear warheads have been stored in interim storage sites before they can be moved to the central storage facilities. From there, they will be transported to the MINATOM disassembly plants of one of the closed cities where the warheads have been made. But the withdrawals resulted in a shortage of Russia's storage capacity, compounded by the loss of almost 50 percent storage capabilities of the FSU after the implosion of the USSR. Currently, Russia has no more than 5-10 central storage locations,49 resulting in 17-120 percent over capacity in the existing facilities in 1992 and 1993.50 Although Russia claimed to have a theoretical dismantlement capacity of 5.000 6.000 warheads per year, it has never dismantled more than 2.000-3.000 warheads during the last years.51 After the demise of the FSU, reportedly only 500 experts capable of dismantling nuclear warheads remained at work in 1992.°2 But not only dismantling nuclear warheads remain an economic, financial, environmental and security problem, but also the need to draw off more than 100.000 tonnes of highly toxic liquid missile fuel, which afterwards has to be sent to factories in order to process it in a harmless environmental way. Although Russia has dismantled some of its strategic nuclear arsenal faster than the United States despite all problems,53 there are still about 1.200 metric tons of HEU (highly enriched uranium) and 150—200 metric tons of plutonium in various facilities throughout the FSU which demand Russian and Western attention. Currently, a huge nuclear storage site at the Mayak plant in the Urals is being Die Vernichtung von Kernwaffen in der GUS", Interne Studien und Berichte der KonradAdenauer-Stiftung (KAS), Sankt Augustin, 45/1993. 48 See, for example, Rady Ilkayev/Boris Barkanov, "Safety of Nuclear Weapons: An International Problem", International Affairs (Moscow) 9/1994, pp. 23-27. 49 O. Bukharin, "Meeting the Challenges of Dismantlement", p. 32. A. Surikov/ I. Sutyagin, "The Movement and Storage of Russian Nuclear Weapons", JIR, May 1994, pp. 202^203 concluded that Russia has 8 central storage sites, so-called 'Objects S\ 50 O.A. Bukharin, "Meeting the Challenges of Dismantlement", p. 32. The most probable level is being around 67 per cent—see A. Surikov/I. Sutyagin ibid. p. 203. 51 See also F. Umbach, "Das nukleare Erbe der militaerischen Supermacht UdSSR—Part I", Berichte des BlOst, No. 38, Cologne 1992, p. 12. 52 K. Belyanikov, Komsomol'skaya pravda, 4 February 1992, p. 3. 53 "U.S.-Russian Strategic Weapons Dismantlements", ACT, May 1995, p. 32.

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built with US support which will contain not less than 40 per cent of all Russia's weapons-grade plutonium. Nonetheless, these problems of safe storage, transport and dismantling will remain on the agenda also in the 21st century like the next ones. The demise of the Soviet Union did not leave only a huge nuclear complex and its infrastructure dispersed between almost all former Soviet republics, but also a dangerous toxic legacy. The environmental and radiation impact of at least 715 military tests of nuclear weapons54 (and additional ones for civilian purposes) over 41 years has already affected past and present generations of people living near those test sites or infrastructure facilities. The health damages suffered will be felt also in the next generations and confront those states with mounting health and social costs that they cannot afford in the foreseeable future. By the year 2000, Russia has to decommission some 200 nuclear submarines. 126 of them had already been decommissioned until 1995.35 Nonetheless, the naval infrastructure to handle the nuclear waste was unable to keep up with the original retirement of nuclear submarines, not to speak about the additional decommission of nuclear submarines as result of the nuclear arms control treaties. In 1993, Russia was using a total of 235 ships equipped with a total of 407 nuclear reactors, which was 60 per cent of the total number on all the world's ships with nuclear reactors. In the process of their operation, up to 20.000 cum of liquid radioactive wastes and 6.000 tons of solid wastes had been generated annually.06 Today, some 120—150 nuclear-powered submarines are rusting in the Northern Fleet and Far East as "potential Chernobyls".57 In 1993, 67 of Russia's 109 nuclear submarines were based in Murmansk.58 The Northern Fleet, Russia's largest, has 279 nuclear reactors (18 per cent of the world's 54

See also David Hoffmann, IHT, 28 October 1996, p. 1. °5 See also Douglas L. Clarke, "Naval Nuclear Waste Poses Immense Risk", Transition, 17 November 1995, pp. 34-38, here p. 34 and Joshua Handler, "Russia's Pacific Fleet—Problems with Nuclear Waste", JIR, March 1995, pp. 136-140. To the radioactive pollution of the oceans see Alexander Koldobskij, "Zur radioaktiven Verschmutzung der Meere und Ozeane", Oesterreichische Militaerische ^eitschrift (OeM^)

6/1994, pp. 625-632 and Tomas Ries, "The Nordic Region and Post-Soviet Radioactive Pollution", JIR, September 1993, pp. 398-400. 56

Andrei Baiduzhy, Nezavisimaya gazeta, 3 April 1993, p. 1. T.B. Cochran/R.S. Norris/O.A. Bukharin, "Making the Russian Bomb", p. 238 and Doug Clarke, OMRI Daily Digest, 29 September 1995. 08 On the situation of the Northern Fleet and Murmansk see the article by Vladimir Kucherenko, Rossiyskaya gazeta, 14 May 1996, pp. 1-2 and Joshua Handler, "The Northern Fleet's Nuclear Submarine Bases", JIR, December 1993, pp. 551-556. 57


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total),""9 including nuclear ice-breakers. Regular overhauls of active submarines have been suspended and crews are inadequately trained to maintain and operate the reactors due to failing resources. Current plans to decommission and dismantle 88 nuclear submarines are also hampered by high costs. In addition, at least ninety reactors are reportedly stored under "unsafe conditions". Ten of the submarines have defective reactors, which could sink at any moment, leading to "an ecological disaster", according to Admiral Oleg Yerefeev, commander of the Northern Sea Fleet.60 Furthermore, Russia's Northern and Pacific Fleet have accumulated 30.000 fuel cells weighing 535 tons in substandard temporary storage facilities. Reportedly, but unconfirmed, one nuclear submarine, called K-219, which sank in the Atlantic Ocean 600 miles east of Bermuda in October 1986 broke open in 1996 and unknown amounts of radioactive plutonium from its carried 32 nuclear warheads are now spilling into the Ocean.61 Environmental concerns arise particularly from the dumped reactors near the military closed island of Novaya Zemlya and in the Pacific. Since 1965, at least 20 reactors, seven of them are still of spent fuel, had been dumped of Russia's Arctic and Pacific coasts in violation of international treaties, lying to the International Maritime Organisation which enforces them. Norwegian experts estimate that 8.000 cubic metres of radioactive liquid waste in storage of the Northern Fleet might contaminate the whole Barents Sea or leak into the ground.62 Officially, since October 1993, all dumping of liquid and solid radioactive waste by the Russian navy has ceased. Although Japan, which is—with the bitter experience of Hiroshima and Nagasaki— in particular concerned about sunken reactors and suspected ongoing dumping of liquid nuclear waste in the Sea of Japan,63 has offered numerous aid, the Russian military seems to continue the dumping

59

Matthew Kaminski, FT, 21 August 1996, p. 2. Penny Morvant, OMRI Daily Digest, 19 September 1995. The Korean Herald (TKH), 26 November 1996, p. 1. ! An extensive treatment of the Fourth Defence Build-up Plan, and the political turmoil it caused, can be found in: Hirose Katsuya. 1989. Kanryo to Gunjin: Bunmin tosei no Genkai. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten. Especially pp. 137-154: "Nakasone Yojibo to Naikyoku". A brief English introduction to the National Defence programme

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The Outline of the proposal of the Fourth Defence Build-up Plan (abbreviated as: Nakasone Outline) argued that former plans had aimed for an "exclusively defensive defence" (senshu boei) posture, thereby basing themselves largely on long-term perspectives. Nakasone sought to replace this allegedly obsolete thinking with the idea of "autonomous defence". Jishu boei should thereby not be taken as identical to the pre-war ideas of autonomy; U.S.—Japan security agreements would still be valid, but were conceived of more or less as the NATO structure. However, the Defence Build-up Plan obviously mistakenly looked for connectivity at the wrong side of the binary code.04 Hence, the system had to re-arrange itself, put itself "to order" as quickly as possible (or decompose). Almost immediately thereafter, the famous KB-note {Kibanteki Boeiryoku) circulated; Kubo Takuya projected the concept of "basic defence capability" (kibanteki boeiryoku), which later evolved into "peacetime defence capability" (heiwaji no boeiryoku). Under Defence Agency Chief Sakata the important National Defence programme Outline (Boei keikaku no Taiko) was formulated; . . . and the rather aggressive self-description of jishu-boei-ron was significantly transformed into the low-profile dakkyoi-ron (threat removal).53 The whole incident proves furthermore a unnegatable case when considering the overarching and subtle importance of communication. As Hirose Katsuya so fortunately explains, one cannot underestimate the similarities between Nakasone's jishu-boei and Kubo's defence thinking, centring around the concept of kibanteki boeiryoku.56 Indeed, both lineages had the primary aim of justifying a considerable defence build-up:07 "Concerning [. . .] the concrete defence build-up aims, Kubo Outline can be found in: Holland, Harrison M. 1988. Managing Defence: Japan's Dilemma. Lanham and London: University Press of America. Pp. 21-23. 54 Consider for instance newspaper reviews of the Nakasone Outline: "In no way admissible." Asahi Shimbun, October 22, 1970. Interestingly, a lot of critique expressed the idea that "autonomous defence" tended to replace the "Basic Policy of National Defence" {Kokubo no Kihon hoshin) of 1957. 5) Unfortunately, an exhaustive treatment of this highly illustrative instance of Japan's post-war defence policy falls without the scope of this paper. As the incident can rightfully be seen as a moment in which the system is confronted with its paradoxical identity, the history of coping with the paradox is short but very dense. Only after a successful engagement could "business as usual" go on. We will later attempt to explore the full contents of the Nakasone gaiyo for the system. Such discussion can, however, best be conducted under the heading of "Binary code and programmes of the post-war Japan's defence policy". 56 Hirose Katsuya. 1989. Op. cit. Pp. 144ff. 57 Hirose Katsuya refers in this context to: Tajima Ryokai. 1971. "Dai yoji boeiryoku seibi keikaku no haikei to sono mondaiten." In Kokubo, Vol. 20, No. 9,

2ND ORDER CYBERNETICS AND "COMPREHENSIVE SECURITY"

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tried hard to flawlessly explain the contents of the Nakasone plan with the concept of a basic defence capability."08 Obviously, this cannot be taken to imply a sublimation of the difference between the Nakasone plan and Kubo's concept. As Hirose underscores, that difference is to be found on a symbolic, philosophical—systemic?— level. What Kubo realised, indeed, was a factual quietening of critique, gaining broad support concerning the defence policy. He did this, as he himself once explained, by the establishment of a policy framework, a defence "philosophy". Systems theory self-confidently adds that Kubo profoundly understood the code of the system. He fixed the connectivity, after which "usual" communication could go on.

Self-descriptions

Last but not least, I must address the highly interesting self-descriptions the system has supplied itself with—the self-descriptions of a policy in the country of self-descriptions, as it were. And it will be instructive to research into the way the paradox embodied in every self-description is dealt with, how it was (or: is) covered up. The first self-description to be tackled is one already encountered: Nakasone's jishu-boei, accompanying his Fourth Defence Build-up Plan. We remember what has been said about the binary code of the system: NMM, with NM being the connective side, and stress furthermore that this binary code is of a totalising nature in regard to the operations of the system. It is the difference that is at the core of all information processing in the system, including the self-descriptions the system produces. Hence, every self-description incorporates an unavoidable paradox: the self-description being a product of the system's code, it is an example of the system's attempt to found the code by means of the code. Together with every self-description, the system must thus produce a "de-tautologization" or "de-paradoxicalisation", to cover up the necessary arbitrariness of a self-description. One can then easily imagine the turmoil jishu-boei caused for Japan's defence policy; not only did the self-description struggle with the August. Pp. 35 51. According to Hirose, Tajima Ryokai is a penname which Kubo used to stress the similarities between the 4th Build-up programme proposal and the concept of "basic defence capability". 58 Hirose Katsuya. 1989. Op. cit. P. 150.

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paradox, it furthermore looked for connectivity at the reflection value of the code. One clearly feels the problematical nature of jishu-bdei in its justification: the White Book of 1970 referred to the earlier policy as a passive defence concept {shokyokuteki na boeikoso) and as "tarifri hongan", a Buddhist word expressing the mercy expected from the United States. The Nakasone proposal furthermore described the geopolitical situation as in extreme flux; still, large-scale conflicts were "almost unthinkable". Only limited conflicts were deemed foreseeable, and the "efficient defence capability" would have to be maintained exactly in order to discourage an invasion.59 As we know, the system quickly fixed connectivity of the code and replaced the former self-description with the dakkyoi-ron. And in turn, this self-description too had to cope with its arbitrariness. Kubo argued for instance that Japan differed considerably from foreign countries (!) in that it didn't had to cope with a direct threat; exactly because of the detente, Japan would have to establish a "smallest scale defence capability" (saisho gendo no boeiryoku): a "basic defence capability" or a "peacetime defence capability", as it came to be called afterwards.60 Interestingly, one sometimes invokes "national character" to justify the pacifist nature of the policy. Concerning the acquisition of nuclear weapons, for instance, Nakanishi argues that "if the Europeans excel in the game of strategic positive rationalism, the Japanese certainly are not poor players in the arena of political-strategic dialectics—what we call the software (as opposed to the hardware) approach."61 And one rare commentator uses a subtle nihonjinron tinge.62 Okazaki Hisahiko argues for instance that, because of the way the notion of conflict has been circumscribed in Japan, one may argue that Japan was "dragged" into the Second World War.63

59

Ibid. P. 140. Notice here the fact that the Nakasone as well as the Kubo self-description execute the de-paradoxicalisation by referring to the "same" international situation; still, the idea of detente served different purposes in the respective self-descriptions. 1)1 Nakanishi Terumasa. 1977. "U.S. Nuclear Policy and Japan." In Washington Quarterly, Vol. 10, No. 1, Winter. P. 88. ()2 Obviously, at this point the (originally innocent) self-description equips itself with some normative venom. fa3 Okazaki Hisahiko. 1983. Senryakuteki kangaekata to wa nanika. Tokyo: Chuko shinsho. Mentioned as well in Berger, Thomas U. Op. cit. P. 145. Obviously, the opposite arguments (i.e. arguments in favour of rearmament) exist as well: Ishihara Shintaro and Morita Akio. 1989. "No" to ieru Mhon. Tokyo: Kobunsha. Eto Jun. J.W. Garver. ''China's Push Through the South China Sea: The Interaction of Bureaucratic and National Interests", in: China Quarterly, no. 132, December 1992, p. 1015. If these figures are correct, the area of Spratly Islands contains oil reserves comparable to those of Kuwait. 11 Some clear examples on how claimants try to involve third parties to establish their claims is given by Koichi Sato, "The Japan Card", Far Eastern Economic Review, April 13, 1995, p. 32.

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and growth, environmental preservation and protection are nonissues. Only when economic development causes so much damage that it is life threatening for the middle classes and elites, are measures taken to check negative environmental effects, even when this will slow down economic growth. In almost all countries, developed as well as developing, the actions of environmental groups warning against damaging effects of human actions on nature can expect negative responses from governments. In most cases public awareness is limited and popular support is not a matter-of-course. States are even counteracting by labelling the protest as "running against national interests" or even "unpatriotic". Discussions about the environmental protection in the countries directly involved contain all the above mentioned ingredients. For almost the entire population of the area potential environmental degradation of the South China Sea is a non-issue. Only a few officials and scholars are aware of the environmental time bomb and try to alert the governments and the public about the consequences of their actions. Fishermen have already noticed that they have to venture out of their territorial waters because they can not catch enough on the traditional fishing grounds. Overfishing, water pollution and exploration of the seabed with explosives have destroyed parts of the ecosystem and disrupted migratory patters of fish. These development forced fishermen to leave their territorial waters and to take a double risk: with their often small boats, built for coastal fishing they have to face high seas in an area frequently struck by typhoons, and at the same time they take the risk of being captured (and often killed) by gunboats of other nations or by pirates.28 Some of the claiming states give active support to their fishermen to go beyond their territorial boundaries by subsidising the build-up of deep-sea fishing fleets. The issue of communication security in the South China Sea goes far beyond the confines of the Southeast Asian region. The possible threat to the free use of sea lanes within the South China is real since two parties in the dispute, China and Taiwan, claim sovereignty over all of the Spratly and Paracel Islands. In case one of the two could force their claim through and the whole area would become Chinese territory, this would have far reaching implications, not just for the countries in the region but on a global 28

China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Thailand frequently contact each other on the release of seized fishing boats and imprisoned or killed fishermen.

THE SOUTHEAST ASIAN APPROACH

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level. Seventy percent of all imports to and exports from Japan and South Korea passes through that area. In that case China could control most of the international trade from East and Southeast Asia. The implications would extend far beyond the region with serious consequences for South Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Europe. Communication security for the South China Sea seems to be well regulated in the navigational regimes described in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), adopted at the Geneva convention in 1958. That convention has been modified during the 1960 and 1982 United Nations Conferences on the Law of the Sea. The right of freedom of navigation on the high seas has been confirmed by UNCLOS III. But there are nevertheless two important issues which may cause conflicts on communication in the South China Sea. The first one concerns the status of the South China Sea. China and Taiwan consider that sea as an archipelago, constituted by the Spratly Islands and the Paracel Islands. The second is the "right of innocent passage" which applies to the territorial sea of a coastal state. It gives foreign ships the right of innocent passage through that part of the sea. But these concepts as defined in UNCLOS III have only complicated the situation in the South China Sea due to their ambiguous nature.29 Based on a closer look at the four above mentioned security issues, some conclusions can be drawn: firstly, all four are in one or another way related with each other; secondly, all are connected with the possibilities of rapid economic growth in the claiming countries; thirdly, all possess global dimensions apart from regional ones. This makes the chances to find a comprehensive solution highly unlikely. The claiming states seem to be aware of this problem and are on all levels engaged in the development of mechanisms to manage the conflicts.

CONFLICT MANAGEMENT AND COMPREHENSIVE SECURITY

All claiming states around the South China Sea are aware of the complexity of the conflicts. The chance of success of straightforward diplomatic talks on the South China Sea conflicts were limited. Due 29 Their nature is ambiguous because it defines on the one hand to some extent the right of freedom of navigation, but on the other hand coastal as well as

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to the complexity Indonesia took the initiative in January 1990 to sponsor a workshop on these conflicts in Bali. As a result of this first meeting, officials and academics of all ASEAN members, China, Taiwan, Vietnam and Laos attended a second workshop on this issue held in 1991 in Bandung. The second workshop resulted in the Manila Declaration, unanimous accepted and issued by the ASEAN foreign ministers in 1992 which urged all claimants to reject the use of force along with the principles of the ASEAN Treaty of Amity and Co-operation. The foreign ministers called on the contending parties to start discussions on all disputed claims and to make efforts in the direction of joint exploration and management of maritime resources. The ASEAN foreign ministers acknowledged implicitly that all claimants have their own security agenda and set priorities which differ not only from one state to another, but also vary within one state as well as among the conflicting parties. Starting negotiations by first establishing a set of priorities would invite failure. Nowadays most states refuse to narrow down security to military and geo-political issues. For quite some time a number of Asian countries try to develop more sophisticated approaches toward security. They consider security as a highly complex matter and this should be reflected in newly developed security concepts. Because they want concepts which are of practical use, these concepts should be comprehensive, i.e. inclusive and not exclude what they consider important security issues. A comprehensive security approach might be argued to lack theoretical rigour but has the advantage to encompass a more complete, interrelated set of security issues. There is a consensus among most Asian countries that different security regimes exist. In their search for modes of conflict management, researchers and governments are confronted with the major question how to interrelate the different security issues and to construct an apparatus for analysis. On the one hand the awareness among security analysts and politicians is growing that priorities change continuously and that it is therefore not realistic to present a fixed hierarchy in security issues. On the other hand, many analysts are not comfortable without a predetermined order at hand and archipelago states have the right to enact their own laws on vessels passing through their territorial sea or archipelago waters. Referring to the protection of their own security, they can (temporarily) suspend "innocent passage".


397

with a security concept which contains so many different elements. However compelled by past analytical failures and an ever stronger demand to approach the issues in a pragmatic and realistic manner, an increasing number of scholars are engaged in new security debates and feel a strong need to use a comprehensive approach to analyse security problems. Within Southeast Asia, conflicts about the South China Sea play a vital role in determining their mutual relationship. The ASEAN members are aware that they better engage China on a multilateral base when discussing their conflicting claims. But at the same time some of them try to deal with China bilaterally.30 The Treaty of Amity and Co-operation (TAC) which was signed dur-

ing the Bali Summit in 1976 did not provide the proper framework to solve the disputes on the South China Sea. While ASEAN members did establish a solid base of understanding of how they could manage inter-state relations in general and their disputes in particular among each other, there was no provision for relations and conflict management with non-member states. Therefore the heads of state of the ASEAN decided on their Third Summit Meeting in Manila on December 1987 to amend TAC by making the following provision in Article 1 of the protocol: "States outside Southeast Asia may also accede to this Treaty by the consent of all States in Southeast Asia which are signatories to this Treaty and Brunei

30

The Philippines for example tried to negotiate bilaterally with China on some territorial disputes a few weeks after the ASEAN decided in July 1995 to deal with China on South China Sea issues only on a multilateral level. Their bilateral negotiations resulted in the establishment of some confidence-building measures. Both countries agreed to abide by a code of conduct in the Spratlys to reject the use of force and the Philippine government believed to have created a rather safe security framework with China. At the same time the Philippines indicated that in case China would violate the code of conduct, the international community would be called in for support. During the two years after their bilateral agreement, the Philippines learned that the bilateral way only resulted in a power-play from the Chinese. Based on the violations of the agreement by Chinese vessels, the Philippine minister of foreign affairs Domingo Siazon abrogated the bilateral agreement in 1997 after Chinese violations by declaring that the South China Sea "is not only a matter between China and the Philippines, but China and the rest of its neighbors". He stressed that the South China Sea is not just a regional affair but that it also involved countries such as Japan, South Korea and the United States (FBISEAS-97-120). The Philippine government agreed a similar code of conduct with Vietnam in 1995. That agreement has not been violated and led even to the establishment of some bilateral working groups on security related issues such as the preservation of marine life.

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Darussalam."31 On the same occasion, a second amendment was made on the composition of the High Council. According to Article 14 of the TAC, representatives of the signatories had a place in the High Council which would deal with potential threats to regional peace and harmony and take cognisance of existing disputes. An amendment was made to Article 14 to include non-signatories in the High Council in case they were one of the parties in a dispute by stating: "However, this article [Article 14] shall apply to any of the States outside Southeast Asia which have acceded to the Treaty only in cases where the state is directly involved in the dispute to be settled through the regional processes."32 At the 31st ASEAN Ministerial Meeting in Manila in July 1998 a second protocol was adopted to amend Article 18 of the TAC. The TAC would be open for accession by non-Southeast Asian states, but only with the consent of all Southeast Asian signatories. This was an invitation to other countries to join Southeast Asian nations in their way to manage conflicts. The amendments can be considered as a direct invitation to China to join the ASEAN approach to conflict management. A cornerstone in ASEAN's way to handle disputes is the management of inter-state conflicts through peaceful means. Compared with the confrontational approach of ASEAN toward the Cambodia conflict at the end of the 1970s and the first half of the 1980s, the Southeast Asian states choose in the early 1990s for constructive engagement to manage conflicts.33 The policy of constructive engagement is the outcome of a process which started with the end of the dominant influence of the great powers in the region and the rapid economic development of Southeast Asia. The region was confronted with the growing power of China and had to formulate an answer which would not confront China. 31 Viraphol, S. and W. Pfenning (eds.), ASEAN-UN Co-operation in Preventive Diplomacy. Bangkok, 1995, p. 277. 32 Ibid. p. 278. With the wording of this amendment, the Southeast Asian countries prevented outsiders to interfere in intra-regional conflicts. 33 A good example of this change is the attitude of the ASEAN toward the military regime in Burma. After three years of isolation of that regime, ASEAN decided in 1991 to constructive engagement. The ASEAN members continued to oppose the regime but considered a critical constructive dialogue with the Burmese military as a more effective policy to solve their problems with the regime. This change of policy has not been well understood in the West. The admission of Vietnam (1995) and Burma and Laos (1997) as members of ASEAN should also be partly understood as a result of their policy of constructive engagement.


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At the same time it should be made clear that the region would not accept China as a new hegemon in Southeast Asia. A policy of confrontation would be detrimental to the region in general and economic growth in particular. The upgrading of the Chinese army, one of the four modernisations introduced by Deng Xiaoping in 1979, was perceived as a threat to the security of the region by neighbouring countries. It was one of the motives for Southeast Asian states to speed up arms sales which resulted in an arms race starting in the late 1980s. The budgets for defence spending of the ASEAN members showed a remarkable increase during the first half of the 1990s.34 At the same time ASEAN started its first attempts to engage China by inviting their powerful neighbour for multilateral forums to discuss matters of mutual interest. This policy of engagement was supported by the United States. Like all Southeast Asian countries, American economic relations with China grew rapidly in the 1990s and that made the United States all the more eager to better relations with that country. However, for Southeast Asia security issues were the principal motif to engage China while the American government was more interested in economic priorities. All Southeast Asian countries remained focused on the position of the United States vis-a-vis China because it is the sole (military) superpower and the security of some of the is even guarantied by the Americans through bilateral defence treaties. In their attempts to engage China, ASEAN and the United States followed the same strategy: multilateralism. According to both, China had to be incorporated in the international system through its admission and participation in multilateral organisations. The question how constrained China considers itself by the international system is crucial in the process of engaging the country.35 If China wants to become member of international organisations, it implies it will accept and comply with the ruling of these organisations. A similar problem involves China's view on international law. The other claimants on the South China Sea have no reason to believe 3i One of the effects of the Asian crisis is the cancellation of arms sales by Southeast Asian countries. Sales on the biggest arms exhibition ever held in Southeast Asia in Bangkok late 1997 were not up to the expectations. And Malaysia and Thailand called of negotiations with the military industry and tried (in the case of Thailand) to resell F-16 fighters. 3j The debates on China's admission to the World Trade Organisation which is already going on for years, is partly concentrating on this question.

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that China has changed its position vis-d-vis international law since the theoretical debates in China on that subject in the second half of the 1950s. International law has been and is still considered by China as a set of self-serving principles of international relations, as expressed by Zhu Liru: "If this instrument [international law] is useful to our country, to the socialist cause or to the cause of people of the world, we will use it. However, if this instrument is disadvantageous to these causes, we will not use it and should create a new instrument to replace it."36 Despite China's reluctance to comply with international arrangements, most security assessments about Southeast Asia conclude that multilateralism will prevail in the future, and most analysts agree upon positive developments with regard to security in Southeast Asia in the long-term future. Multilateralism has become more prominent in the last decade in the Asia-Pacific in the economic field. The establishment of the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) in 1989 and the East Asian Economic Caucus (EAEC),37 an exclusive Asian organisation for economic co-operation/8 were the first steps to promote economic co-operation after the founding of ASEAN. In the field of security, co-operation on a multilateral base started in 1994 at the initiative of ASEAN. The main objective of the organisation is to create a platform for a multilateral security dialogue for the Asia-Pacific. The ARF is unique because it is the only regional oriented security framework in the world in which Japan, China, India, Russia, the United States, and all major European powers (through the European Union observer status) are represented besides almost all other East and all Southeast Asian nations. One explanation for this unique situation is the view of the ASEAN that 36 Zhu Liru, "Refuting Chen Tiquang's Absurd Theory of International Law", in: Renmin Ribao, Sept. 18, 1957, p. 3, as quoted by S.S. Kim, "China's International Organisation Behaviour", in T.W. Robinson and D. Shambaugh (eds.), Chinese Foreign

Policy. Theory and Practice. Oxford, 1994, p. 404.

" The main objective of APEC is the liberalisation of trade between the countries surrounding the Pacific. 38 The EAEC was endorsed at a meeting of economic ministers of East and Southeast Asian countries in October 1991 after ten months of deliberations among these countries about an earlier proposal of the Malaysian prime minister Dr. Mahatir Mohamad to establish an East Asian Economic Grouping. The exclusiveness of the last did some countries hesitate because it could be regarded as a hostile act against the United States and, to a lesser extent the European Union. After another year of discussions, the heads of state of almost all East and Southeast Asian countries decided that EACE would function as a caucus within APEC.


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regional uncertainties and insecurity should be addressed by regional forces and leadership but under the aegis of external powers. China and Japan are placed in a difficult position. When a multilateral order is defined as "rules of conduct that are commonly applicable to countries, as opposed to discriminating among them, based on situational exigencies and particularistic preference"39 it is extremely difficult for China and Japan to comply with multilateralism due to its inclusive and non-discriminatory character. For (regional) superpowers it is always difficult to comply with rulings which are considered as running against their own interests. The United States is the best example of this and China and Japan are no exceptions to this rule.40 It can be seen as a success for ASEAN to engage regional as well as global actors with rather different and sometimes even conflicting perspectives on Asian security issues through ARF. But the position of the ARF has still to be determined. Evans and Grant correctly cast some doubts on the outcome when they conclude: "It is an open question whether, over time, the ASEAN Regional Forum will in fact evolve into an institution closely resembling the European CSCE model—let alone some more far-reaching collective security arrangements along the lines of NATO or the WEU. The latter aspiration still seems very far-fetched, given the history and extraordinary diversity of the Asia-Pacific region, but the former is much less so."41 With regard to some security threats, there exists a consensus among Asian countries on their problematic character. The recognition of the endangered environment is the most fully developed of these issues.42 All claiming countries around the South China Sea are in 39 Definition from Ruggie, J.G., "Third Try at World Order: America and Multilateralism after the Cold War", in: Political Science Quarterly, 109, 4, Fall 1994, p. 556. 40 In the case of the United States, their attitude toward some of the ruling of the International Court of Justice and the ruling of the General Assembly of the United Nations can be mentioned. 41 Evans, G. & B. Grant, Australia's Foreign Relations in the World of the 1990s. Second edition. Melbourne, 1995, p. 118 42 Numerous articles and books has been published on the relationship between economic growth and its impact on the environment. See for example: T. Panayotou, Empirical Tests and Policy Analysis of Environmental Degradation at Dijferent States of Economic Development. Report prepared for the International Labour Office, December 1992. On possible scenarios to achieve sustainable economic growth with regard to Asia: C. Brandon and R. Ramankutty, "Toward an Environmental Strategy for Asia", World Bank Discussion Paper, no. 224, Washington, D.C., 1993. Financing is most times regarded as the biggest stumbling block for sound environmental policies: Asian Development Bank, Financing Environmentally Sound Development. Manila, 1994;

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a stage of (rapid) economic development and are aware of the threats to environmental security when they do not reach binding agreements and obey their rules. The economic development and the resulting pollution in and around the East China Sea and the Yellow Sea are horrifying examples of environmental mismanagement. Without a multilateral approach and an international strong binding environmental regime, countries can not cope with this threat. But negotiations on such a pressing issue are extremely slow and often result in weak compromises. To tackle other security issues on a multilateral level has proven much more difficult. This is the result of different interests, differences in priority and the fear of regional powers to be submitted to the ruling of multilateral arrangements which can turn out to be adverse to their own particular policies. During the past ten years ASEAN has been successful in the establishment of some multilateral bodies which can serve as instruments for enhancing security in the region. The ARF is the best example of this policy. At the same time the ASEAN has succeeded in creating an atmosphere in which the tendency toward multilateralism prevails but which, at the same, leaves time and enough room for bilateral arrangements in fields where multilateralism is (not yet) suitable to discuss disputes. The other great achievement of the ASEAN is the way in which conflicting issues are dealt with. Disputes have to be discussed in a non-confrontational way in order to leave all parties enough room to manoeuvre in the direction of a solution. Solutions can not be pressed or forced upon contending parties according to this mechanism. The results of this approach to conflict management might look meagre to Western observers but the art of avoiding conflicts taking on a violent character deserve to be highly valued in the postCold War period.

I. Serageldin and A. Sfeir-Younis (eds.), Effective Financing of Environmentally Sustainable

Development. Environmentally Sustainable Development Series, no. 10. World Bank, Washington, D.C., 1996; Li Jingwen and Gong Feihong, "Environment and Chinese Economic Growth", in: Researches on Quantitative and Technical Economics, no. 1, 1994.

VIETNAM AND THE REGION


VIETNAM'S NEW CONCEPT OF SECURITY IN THE CONTEXT OF DOI-MOI NGUYEN VU TUNG*

A Vietnamese high-ranking politician and diplomat has remarked that with the Sixth National Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) held in 1986, the leadership in Hanoi "began a process of reshaping its world view and re-examining the country's reality" in order to face the challenges of a world in which the rules of the game were quite different from the country's practices, perceptions and experiences.1 About six years after that, in a speech given at the Third CPV Central Committee Plenary Conference held in June 1992, the then CPV General Secretary Do Muoi said that "a fundamental shift in thoughts and practices" in foreign policy had been made, thus helping to complete the search for a grand strategy for the country's developments in all fields.2 A question is, therefore, posed: how was Vietnam's concept of security formed in the above-mentioned process? Another question is also worth studying: what are the major guidelines for the country's policy in order to reflect its new thoughts about security? This chapter will make an effort to answer these questions from an international relations perspective, trying to see how Vietnam establishes links between security and economic developments as well as those between security and foreign relations. The chapter, therefore, * Professor Nguyen Vu Tung is researcher at the Institute of International Relations, Hanoi, Lang Thuong, Aongda. He has published a/o. 77 Conversations between Chinese and Foreign Leaders on the Wars in Indochina, 1964-1977, Nguyen Vu Tung, Odd

Arne Westad, Chen Jian, Stein Tonneson, James G. Hershberg, eds., Cold War International History Project Working Paper No. 22. Washington: Woodrow Wilson Center, 1998. 1 Nguyen Di Nien, "The World Is Changing: How About Us?" (The Gioi Dang Thay Doi, Con Chung Ta) in Vietnam Foreign Ministry, Integrating Into the World and Preserving Our National Identity, (Hoi Nhap Quoc Te Va Giu Vung Ban Sac),

(Hanoi: National Politics Publishing House, 1995), p. 33. 2 Do Muoi is quoted in Nguyen Manh Cam, "On The Way To Implement The Foreign Policy With New Directions," (Tren Duong Trien Khai Chinh Sach Doi Ngoai Theo Dinh Huong Moi) in Integrating Into the World and Preserving Our National Identity, p. 160.

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will be confined to discussing the Vietnamese concept of comprehensive security from the angle of international politics and diplomacy, which could affect its national external security. An integral part of comprehensive security, namely internal security, will be discussed in passing since it will not be a focus in my arguments. More than two years ago, I touched upon this topic in a short paper presented at the Conference on Concepts of Comprehensive Security and Co-operative Security organised by the CSCAP Working Group on Security Concepts in August, 1995 in Kuala Lumpur.3 By that time, concepts of security developed in Vietnam became clearer to those wishing to understand Hanoi's perspective in this regard. Since the Eighth National Congress was held in 1996, civilian and military groups, as well as both the elite and the people at large have accepted these concepts more broadly in Vietnam. At the same time, new elements have been added to these concepts as the process of Doi-Moi (renovation) continues, and especially as the current economic crisis affects the Asia-Pacific region. By studying major documents of the CPV and several writings by Vietnamese leaders on the theme, this paper also aims to update the evolution of the concept of security in the light of new developments in Vietnam in the context of the Doi-Moi reforms.

DEVELOPING A CONCEPT OF SECURITY AND ITS MEANS

From the second half of the 1980s, with the renovation (perestroikd) process starting in the former Soviet Union, with the consequent rapprochement between the United States and the Soviet Union and between the Soviet Union and China, as well as with the need for reforms becoming stronger in Vietnam, Hanoi began a review of major economic and foreign policies. Considering that changes in major powers' policies represented a golden opportunity for Vietnam to pursue the goals of peace and independence, extended foreign relations and development which were set since its foundation in 1945, Hanoi quickly shifted its overall perception and particularly 3 Nguyen Vu Tung, "An Initial Analysis of Vietnam's Concept of Security," in Mohamed Jawhar Hassan and Thangam Ramnath (Eds.) Conceptualising Asia-Pacific Security (Kuala Lumpur: Institute of Strategic and International Studies ISIS Malaysia, 1996), pp 55-59. 4 See Vu Khoan "The School Of Vietnamese Diplomacy" (Truong Phai Ngoai Giao Viet Nam), in Integrating Into the World and Preserving Our National Identity, p. 432.

VIETNAM'S NEW CONCEPT OF SECURITY

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that of security.4 The discussion began with a review of Vietnam's economic and social problems since the unification of 1975 as well as solutions to them; and as a natural side effect, Hanoi also went through a re-examination of its worldview. Gareth Porter has correctly observed that trying to re-enter the world and to find a place in the global division of labour became the main theme for the discussions among leaders in Hanoi at that time.3 The fast pace of regional and global changes toward the end of the Cold War and relaxation of global tension, as well as unprecedented developments in the global economy toward regional and global economic integration also helped quicken the outcomes from these discussions. A general consensus was reached in the Sixth Party Congress in mid-December 1986: while upholding the two strategic tasks of national construction and defence, Vietnam should start a process of economic reforms, accepting non-state sectors in the economy, and participate in the global division of labour. In this context, documents of the Sixth Congress on the one hand attached importance to consolidating the all-sided co-operation with the Soviet Union and considering it as a monolith in Vietnam's foreign policy. Yet, on the other hand, they also stressed the process of the "internationalisation of the forces of production" that led to an "inevitable demand for economic co-operation" and peaceful coexistence between different systems.6 This new policy had important implications for Vietnam's economic and foreign policies, which in turn reflected changes in Hanoi's perceptions as far as security is concerned. It seems that geo-economics had become another source of input to the leadership's thinking. As a result, Vietnam apparently gradually reduced its commitment to one big power, and at the same time became more inclined to see interdependence in a positive way. It thus can be said that the process of reshaping the worldview began in mid-1980s, more or less coinciding with perestroika that took place in the Soviet Union in 1986, further consolidated by the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. It took about a year and a half, however, before the CPV could further elaborate the concepts of security in the new national and global context. The thirteenth CPV Politburo Resolution adopted ' See Gareth Porter "The Transformation of Vietnam's World-View: From Two Camps to Interdependence," Contemporary Southeast Asia, Vol. 12, No. 1 (June 1990), pp. 1-19. (> Documents of the Sixth CPV National Congress, (Hanoi: Su That [Truth] Publishing House, 1986), pp. 34-35.

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on 20 May 1988, for the first time revealed the contents of a new concept, namely comprehensive security. "National comprehensive security", as it was termed according to the Resolution, will be enhanced by the combination of three factors: a strong economy, an appropriate defence capability and by expanding international cooperation.7 A major shift from the traditional thinking of security was thus realised. Influenced by experiences gained in the long history of defending the country from foreign invasion, the way to think about enhancing national security, according to a Vietnamese General, was mainly in terms of conducting war and taking military measures, such as building the people's armed forces and armies.8 The new approach to security represented a more balanced view. It tacitly recognised that military strength and limited external relations could not effectively ensure the country's security. Thus, it introduced the "comprehensive view" of security, and attached a diminished importance to the role of military strength by placing it second to the overall economic strength.9 In that context, the following argument has been officially accepted: it holds that "the global economic race is now replacing the arms race on the global scale and economic [strength] is becoming the decisive factor in the comprehensive strength of every country".10 The collapse of the Soviet Union in December 1991 heralded a new era for the world as a whole and for Vietnam in particular. "Life without the Soviet Union" on the one hand created a shock for those who were accustomed to relying on outside assistance. Yet, on the other hand, it was a chance for Vietnam to really depart from the mentality of being dependent on one big power for national construction and defence, and to adopt a foreign policy of multilateral' An excellent analysis on this issue has been offered by Ogasawara Takauki, "Vietnam's Security Policy in the Post-Cambodia Period: Diplomatic Dimension," in Dao Huy Ngoc and Matsunaga Nobuo (eds.) Asia-Pacific and Vietnam-Japan Relations (Hanoi: Institute for International Relations, 1994), pp. 107-108. 8 See Gen. Pham Quang Can, "Strengthening National Defence And Security And Defending The Socialist Republic" (Cung Co Quoc Phong Va An Ninh, Bao Ve Vung Chac To Quoc Xa Hoi Chu Nghia), in Tran Nham (ed.) There Is Such A Country Of Vietnam: Renovation And Development (Co Mot Viet Nam Nhu The: Doi Moi Va Phat Trien) (Hanoi: National Politics Publishing House, 1996), p. 322. 9 Ogasawara Takauki, p. 108. 10 See Tran Quang Co's article first appeared in December 1992, "The World After The Cold War And Asia-Pacific" (The Gioi Sau Chien Tranh Lanh Va Chau A-Thai Binh Duong), reprinted in Integrating Into the Worldand Preserving Our National Identity, p. 131.


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ising and diversifying its external relations. Again, it is worth noting that earlier, in June 1991, the Seventh National CPV Congress had asserted that "Vietnam wants to be a friend of all other countries in the world community", thus making a breakthrough in its world view, now characterised by the absence of a particular external enemy." The Second and Third CPV Central Committee Plenary Conferences, which took place during the first year following the Seventh Congress and discussed foreign policy issues, developed another idea of security, namely that of "mutual security". If the concept of 'comprehensive security' laid an emphasis on national capabilities, then "mutual security" attached great significance to the international context of its national security. The Resolution of the Third Conference pointed out that Vietnam should do more to expand, diversify and multilateralise its foreign relations. The new orientation might come from a greater need to find new partners to fill the vacuum in Vietnam's foreign relations created by the collapse of the Soviet Union and the absence of other former friendly socialist regimes in Eastern Europe. It was first and foremost based on the recognition of what Hanoi considered 'new and prevailing trends' in international life. These trends include priority for economic developments, diversification of external relations and an increase in regional co-operation, leading to an improvement in international co-operation between and among countries in the world regardless of differences in political and economic systems.12 Against that background, Ogasawara has correctly argued that Hanoi came to assert that the security of a country depended not only on its national strength, but also on the international and regional systems to which the country belongs.13 Therefore, improvements of the country's external relations would play an equally important role, together with that played by its economic capabilities in building national comprehensive strength. In other " Documents of the Seventh CPV National Congress, (Hanoi: Su That [Truth] Publishing

House, 1991), pp. 36-37. This perception was more consolidated in Vietnam's latest constitution adopted 1992 which mentioned no specific external enemy and asserted that "The Socialist Republic of Vietnam pursues a policy of peace, friendship and expanded international relations and co-operation with all countries in the world, irrespective of their political and social system, on the basis of respect for each other's independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity, non-interference in each other's internal affairs, equality and mutual benefits." See Article 14, the 1992 Constitution of Vietnam, (Hanoi: Su That, 1992). 12 Tran Quang Co, "The World After The Cold War And Asia-Pacific", pp. 131-133. 13 Ogasawara Takauki, p. 108.

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words, the role played by Vietnam's diplomacy—which has been claimed to have the tradition of "combining national strength with that of the era", i.e. combining all the forces of the country with the main trends of the world in order to have a comprehensive strength, in the words of a Vietnamese senior official and diplomat14—became superior to the diminished role played by military means.15 Hanoi has also defined the relationship between developing its economic strength and by promoting its external relations. In an important article on policy Tran Quang Co wrote: Recognising clearly that economic weakness is the possible source of disadvantages in political, military, social fields and international relations, our Party is determined to lead the country out of poverty and backwardness as soon as possible, thus considering the task of economic developments the top priority . . . In this period of historic significance, everything must be serving the goal of economic development.16 The highest goal set by Hanoi, therefore, is to develop the country's economy—the most important element of national strength. To this end, its foreign policy has two tasks. First, it has to create favourable external conditions for economic developments at home by normalising relations with major powers, especially with China and the United States, and promoting relations with neighbouring countries in the Asia-Pacific region. Second, it has to seek possible opportunities to expand foreign economic relations. Since global relaxation of tension has made the first task possible, the second task became more salient. Nguyen Manh Cam thus said, "foreign economic policy is now the basic content of our present foreign policy".17 In the same context, another Vietnamese senior official and diplomat also spoke of the relationship between security, development and influence in the country's external activities. The security objective of a country's foreign policy, according to him, includes the defence of its national sovereignty and security as well as territorial integrity, while the development objective involves making full use of interna14

See Vu Khoan "The School Of Vietnamese Diplomacy", p. 430. Ogasawara Takauki, p. 108. Tran Quang Co, "The Way Ahead" (Chang Duong Phia Truoc), in Integrating Into the World and Preserving Our National Identity, pp. 194-95. 17 Nguyen Manh Cam, "On the Way to Implement the Foreign Policy with New Directions," p. 166. 18 Vu Khoan, "Security, Development and Influence in International Relations" (An ninh, Phat trien va Anh huong trong Hoat dong doi ngoai), in Integrating Into 15

l(>

the World and Preserving Our National Identity, p. 205.


41 1

tional conditions conducive to developing the country and improving its foreign posture.18 With the impact of the scientific and technological revolution and with the internationalisation of economic life, he argues, the thought of self-reliance has proven outdated and has been replaced by those of the diversification of foreign relations and the exploitation of economic comparative advantages and market expansion. This should improve the possibility of ensuring an "optimal position in international relations," and better preserving independence and sovereignty. Promotion of the country's international relations, politically and economically, therefore, plays a more important role as compared with the role of force in the defence of national security.19 At the same time, promoting the country's political and economic international relations directly serves developmental objectives, as this may enhance predictability and stability in its relations with other countries, and Vietnam could seek more economic partners and broaden the markets for the country's exports. By placing the country in the mainstream of the world affairs, and by joining the world "its foreign policy can enhance its international posture and influence its internal weakness".20 In short, the overall objective of national economic development became the highest goal for Vietnam and opened, expanded and diversified foreign political and economic policies. They have served as indispensable tools for enhancing national strength and capabilities which, together with an adequate armed force, help ensure its security. Vietnamese Foreign Minister Nguyen Manh Cam, therefore, pointed out: "The new external posture of Vietnam has to be fostered by its new strength and its appropriate behaviour internationally together with its geo-political potential".21 It is also very important to study perspectives on security held by the military. It has emerged that the establishment has also revised thinking on security. Because of historical circumstances and experiences, the People's Armed Forces have always been placed under the leadership of the Party. This means that when the latter initiated the process of comprehensive reforms, accepting new concepts and adopting new methods, the former followed and did likewise. Acknowledging that non-military means are now being used in the struggle for national independence, and that Vietnam could no longer 19

20

Ibid., pp. 208-209.

Ibid., pp. 211-212. Nguyen Manh Cam, "On The Way To Implement The Foreign Policy With New Directions," p. 169. 21

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enjoy material and technological assistance from the socialist bloc, a general consensus has been reached within military circles to the effect that the "multi-sectoral commodity economy with market mechanism, state management and socialist orientations"—a tacit recognition of the market economy—now becomes a new economic and social basis for national defence and security.22 The argument went on to assert that in order to have an adequate strength to defend the country, [we should focus] first and foremost on economic, scientific and technological developments, [and also] on political stability, social equality and progress, as well as on the construction of the national defence capabilities and the people's armed forces sufficient strength . . . . [thus] the strategy for national defence and security must be an overall and comprehensive one, combining national defence and security with promotion of international relations and economic developments.23 There is a distinction between the tasks of national security and national defence. While the former involves ensuring political and social stability, the latter includes the construction of a deterrence capability against foreign invasions. Carrying out these two tasks together with promotion of international relations, the Vietnamese leadership hoped to create stable internal and external conditions conducive for economic development. In fact, as it was observed, Vietnam's military strategy has undergone several important adjustments. The focus has been shifted from preparations for a "regional war" and a "multi-sided war of sabotage" towards responding to "peaceful evolution". The size of the armed forces has been reduced, while the 'quality of the regular forces' has been enhanced. In the 1990s, a phased large demobilisation of armed forces took place. At the same time, the number of military enterprises and businesses rose, as the armed forces now have a new task of participating in the course of national modernisation and industrialisation. To summarise the discussions on national defence and security, the new Defence Minister wrote Thinking on national defence, which customarily emphasised military means, preparing for big-scale wars, and building up the armed forces, has shifted to a more comprehensive view. This new perspective lays, on the one hand, an emphasis on the task of defending the country 22 Gen. Pham Quang Can, "Strengthening National Defence And Security And Defending The Socialist Republic", pp. 317-319. 23 Ibid., p. 324.


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in peace time, and on the other hand on combining national defence and security with foreign relations, economic developments.24 Thus we can say that Vietnam has reached a national consensus on the revised concept of security. National security and defence are now seen in a broader context. The former emphasis on building military strength, and reliance on one military big power, as well as adopting an inflexible approach to international relations has been replaced by an emphasis on an all-round approach that focuses on building economic strength by carrying out a friendly-to-all foreign policy abroad, and enhancing social and political stability at home. The Eighth GPV National Congress held in 1996, therefore, continued to consider peace, independence and development as the top priorities for Vietnam into the year of 2020.25 There are also other elements of this comprehensive approach to security. As it has been discussed before, Hanoi's approach to security now rests on economic developments which can be achieved by an expanded and diversified foreign policy, political and social stability, and armed forces at a minimum level. Cultural, traditional, human and other factors have also been referred to. Documents of the Eighth Congress already mentioned the task of "making the full use of every source" to develop the economy. Greater emphasis on "internal strength, however, has been voiced in the most recent discussion within the Party. The Fourth CPV Central Committee Plenary Conference held in December 1997 made it clear that experiences of successes and failures of many countries have proven that if a country wishes to achieve economic developments, it first and foremost must make the fullest use of internalfactors ofstrength that include its human resources, geographical conditions, natural resources, the nation's intelligence as well as its historical and cultural traditions. Effective economic co-operation with foreign countries can only be achieved by making the best use of internal factors of strength.26

24 Gen. Pham Van Tra, "Build Up And Make The Revolutionary People's Army Standardised, Well-Trained And Gradually-Modernised In The Period Of Accelerating Industrialisation And Modernisation" (Xay Dung Quan Doi Nhan Dan Cach Mang Chinh Quy, Tinh Nhue, Tung Buoc Hien Dai Hoa Trong Thoi Ky Day Manh Cong Nghiep Hoa, Hien Dai Hoa), Tap chi Cong San (Review of Communism), December, 1997, p. 14. 2:1

Documents of the Eighth CPV National Congress, (Hanoi: Su That [Truth] Publishing

House, 1996). 2b Text of the Conference Resolution in Nhan Dan (People's Daily) 25 December 1997.

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Several reasons account for this new emphasis. Firstly, Vietnam's international co-operation has been expanded to a great extent, but lacked domestic resources to sustain this enlarged co-operation and to make it really effective. In this context it has been argued that foreign policy was moving too fast, thus creating new problems for the country's international economic co-operation to keep up the pace. For instance, economic domestic conditions are still not sufficient for Vietnam to adopt a too liberal economic policy, especially as far as participation in several regional tax-reduction schemes is concerned. Secondly, the on-going economic crisis in East Asia has alerted Hanoi that the strategy of considering economic development as a prime goal could pose new problems to national social and political stability. In other words, both underdevelopment and development can be very challenging. The case of many Southeast Asian economies showed the dangers of being highly dependent on foreign investments while having weak economic management and institutions. At the same time, social and political changes in the neighbouring countries affected by the crisis also alarmed Hanoi of the negative side of regional and global economic integration and its impacts to national stability. In fact, there has been reason to be concerned. Though less affected by the crisis, potential causes for future economic turmoil have been observed in the Vietnamese economy. They include ineffective macro-economic management, increasing gaps in the level of economic development among different regions and sectors, and an extravagant mode of consumption. Besides several cases at the provincial and district levels have shown that political and social stability have been threatened as a result of insufficient participation of people in the process of all-sided renovation. Therefore a call was made for more focus on self-reliance, i.e. on internal factors. Yet, the greater emphasis on self-reliance does not mean the avoidance of further integration to the region and the world. Instead, it is seen as a serious effort aimed at building and strengthening the domestic base for better integration into the region and the world. The Conference in December 1997, therefore, confirmed that Vietnam would continue its course of comprehensive reforms. With that affirmation, there is no dramatic change in the "grand strategy" for economic developments of the country. It also means that Hanoi's concept of comprehensive security is kept intact, considering national modernisation and industrialisation the foundation of the enhancement of its security, and considering promotion of external co-operation


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together with exploitation of all internal sources the keys for success of economic developments. This takes into account both positive and negative aspects of economic integration as well as interaction with the rest of the world. With that, one can say that a more balanced view on security has been provided.

CONCEPT OF THREATS

Developing new concepts of security always implies the way the leadership perceives threats to its state.27 The next question, therefore, is: what kind of challenges does Vietnam perceive, and how are they reflected in the discussions by its elite on economic and foreign policies. Joseph Nye once said that "security is like oxygen—you tend not to notice it until you begin to lose it, but once that occurs there is nothing else that you will think about".28 This seemed to be the case for Vietnam when the Cold War ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the communist bloc. Since the early 1980s Vietnam was facing "the threat of being politically isolated and economically encircled".29 With the Cambodian issue not yet solved, the Soviet Union and other socialist countries in Eastern Europe focusing on domestic reforms, then ceasing to exist, while relations with the United States and China had not yet been normalised, small wonder that as we move into the 1990s Hanoi felt all the more threatened by an intensified state of isolation from the rest of the world. This anxiety was real for various reasons. Ideologically, Vietnam's policies and practices were based on its membership of the socialist bloc, and Vietnam's commitment to the socialist ideology had deep roots. Therefore, some in Hanoi felt disoriented and thought that Vietnam was left alone to face the attack of the West, headed by the US, on the remaining socialist countries. Indeed, at that time almost all sources of economic assistance and sources of credits dried up, 21 See David A. Baldwin, "The Concept of Security," Review of International Studies, Vol. 23, (1997), pp. 5-26. 2R Josef S. Nye, Jr., "East Asian Security: The Case for Deep Engagement," Foreign Affairs July/August 1995, p. 91. 29 Tran Quang Co, "The World Situation And The Opportunity For Our Country," (Cue Dien The Gioi Va Van Nuoc), Integrating Into the World and Preserving Our National Identity, p. 101.

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and markets for Vietnam's exports and imports shrank considerably. Moreover, military protection and supplies from the Soviet bloc dried up, while Vietnam did not have normal and necessary international relations with other countries. In response to that threat, the Seventh Congress in June 1991 began a reorientation of its foreign policy aimed at multilateralisation and diversification of the country's foreign relations. About six months after the collapse of the Soviet Union, at the Third CPV Central Committee, Hanoi gave this policy a more specific content: solution to the Cambodia problem, participation of regional co-operation, normalisation of relations with the US and China, expansion of relations with other countries and enhancement of relations with important international organisations and institutions. Favourable external conditions, i.e. the relaxation of global tension based on the ease of the ideological competition and the need for Vietnam's integration into the rest of the world for economic and strategic reasons were the main factors that helped the country to successfully carry out its new foreign policy. It turned out that Vietnam had seized the right moment to improve its posture in the region and the world. The collapse of socialist regimes in Europe ironically gave impetus to the further development of Vietnam's international relations. The Eighth Party Congress thus claimed that Vietnam had "strongly developed its external relations with the rest of the world, getting out of a state of isolation and blockade and actively participating in the international life". To date, Vietnam has established diplomatic relations with 163 countries and maintains normal relations with all big powers of the world; it is also a member of many regional and international organisations, especially ASEAN and APEC. Vietnam maintains economic relations with more than 120 countries, enjoyed about US$32 billion dollars of FDI by 54 countries and territories, and US$8.7 billion dollars of Official Development Aid (ODA) by major donors that include both countries and the world's financial organisations.30 Efforts at promoting the country's external relations, therefore, reveal one of the basic features of its security policy: with the long-time allies no longer in existince, it tried to find more friends, and by so doing, reduced the possibility of having external enemies. In other words, the more intense its participation in international life, the safer it feels.31 Certainly, this reflects 30

Documents of the Eighth CPV National Congress, (Hanoi: Su That [Truth] Publishing

House, 1996). 31 Nguyen Vu Tung, "An Initial Analysis of Vietnam's Concept of Security,"


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Hanoi's view of the linkage between foreign relations and security. Yet, if seen in the context of the current crisis in Asia, some in Vietnam would argue that the more the country participates in international life, the more it is exposed to negative developments taking place elsewhere, thus making internal developments less predictable and more unstable. No one, however, questions the open-door policy. Besides the tangible benefits of participation, the thought of not being left out has made Vietnam feel at ease. The thirteenth CPV Politburo Resolution adopted in 1988 said, among others: "Economic backwardness and political isolation will pose a big threat to Vietnam's security and independence".32 The improved external relations have eased the threat of isolation. This means that for the first time in the modern history of Vietnam, threats to its national security from outside are not perceived as dominantly as they were in the past. Greater emphasis is now being laid improving its external relations by creating external conditions conducive for national construction and exploiting external sources for economic developments. Therefore, there has been a shift in threat perception. Hanoi now tries to address another threat, namely the the threat of "poverty". Tran Quang Co said: "The present enemies of Vietnam are poverty and backwardness. . . Friends of Vietnam are all the ones who are ready to co-operate and to assist Vietnam in the fight against poverty and backwardness".33 The roots of this perception of threat can be traced to the first days of the Republic. Ho Chi Minh, the founder of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, said in 1945: After we have gained freedom and independence, if our people still continue to die of hunger and cold, this freedom and independence will become meaningless. The people will understand the value of independence and freedom only when they are free from wants.34 p. 58. Yet, if seen in the context of the current crisis in Asia, some in Vietnam could argue that the more the country participates in the international life, the more it is exposed to negative developments taking place elsewhere, thus making internal developments less predictable and more unstable. i2 The analysis below is mainly based on my paper read at the Conference on Concepts of Comprehensive Security and Co-operative Security organised by the CSCAP Working Group on Security Concepts in August, 1995 in Kuala Lumpur. See Nguyen Vu Tung, "An Initial Analysis of Vietnam's Concept of Security," pp. 56-59. 33 Tran Quang Co, "The World After The Cold War And Asia-Pacific", p. 108. 34 Ho Chi Minh, "A Letter to People's Committees of All Provinces, Districts and Villages," (Thu gui Uy ban Nhan Dan Cac Tinh, Huyen va Lang) carried in Cuu

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Yet, due to its historical experiences, Vietnam had to spend its resources on the cause of national independence and unification and could not focus on national construction. Once national independence and reunification were achieved, and when external threats eased, the Vietnamese people came to realise the greater need for a better life, especially when comparing their living standards to that of its neighbouring countries. After the Cold War ended, the Vietnamese leadership and people realised hat without economic development the hard-won national independence could not be firmly preserved, and peace and stability in the country would endure. That is, poverty and backwardness breed insecurity. This new perception has been more than once expressed in terms of 'the threat of economically lagging behind other countries in the region and the world'. This threat perception deserves several layers of analysis. Firstly, the process of economic development—after all—is the essence of the process of building national strength. A sustainable economic growth and a strong economy greatly contribute to building overall national strength, thus representing decisive factors to ensure Vietnam's security and independence. The linkage between security, international relations and economic development has been seen by leaders in Hanoi as follows: a low level of economic development does not afford a strong national defence and an improved international posture.30 Secondly, lack of economic development as well as failure to manage the process of development will lead to internal instability. Observing some cases of failures in economic development elsewhere, Hanoi came to a greater understanding that Realities in many countries have shown that the threat to a state's sovereignty and security as well as its territorial integrity lies within its borders. They have also shown that in many cases, even in the absence of foreign invasions, sovereignty and security were challenged, territories were divided . . . due to failures of economic, cultural, religious and ethnic policies . . . The backward levels of developments can erode the people's confidence, cause many serious social problems and inevitably threats to security, public order and even the existence of the regime.36 The task of achieving economic development is very difficult, seen Quoc Daily of October 17, 1945. The Complete Works of Ho Chi Minh (Ho Chi Minh Toan Tap) (Hanoi: The National Politics Publishing House, 1995), p. 56. :to Vu Khoan, "Security, Development And Influence In International Relations", p. 210. 36 Ibid., pp. 209-210.


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Vietnam's lack of skilled human resources and a legal and infrastructure base, as well lacking efficient policies to make use of its comparative advantages to effectively compete with many regional states that have already achieved higher levels of economic development. These signify the fact that for several decades to come, Vietnam will be much preoccupied with its problems at home, building a strong economy together with a prosperous civil society. In this context, the Sixth National Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) laid an emphasis on the course of renovation, especially on the shift to a market-oriented economy, and considered that its highest priority. "The long-term strategy for socio-economic developments for Vietnam into the year 2020" was subsequently worked out and reiterated by the Seventh and the Eighth Congress. There is another domestic aspect to this threat. The process of nation building involves the task of building consensus among the Vietnamese people. The reason for it is simple. In this new and peaceful age, when society is opening up, the need to participate in society, when new interest groups emerge, consensus building becomes the order of the day. Besides, as is the case with other ASEAN states, economic development itself poses new problems. In the short run, managing a society in transition requires much energy and resources. In the long run, great and profound changes will take place in a more developed and opened society. The process that Vietnam is going through has not been experienced before. This process is, of course, time-consuming and painstaking. Twenty years after unification the process has just begun. That is to say, internal problems are and will be the focus of attention for Vietnam. Thirdly, Hanoi also perceived the existence of an external threat, they way it saw fierce economic competition as a possible source of conflict between and among nations, especially in the context of the current crisis. Viewing the need for (re)gaining economic growth now prevails in strategies and policies of all countries, Hanoi on the one hand acknowledged the trend toward more co-operation. On the other hand, however, it considered that the more this need became urgent, "the fiercer the competition for market and economic partners would be", and asserted that "in the time of war, there was only one enemy; but in economic competition, all are potential enemies".37 From this 37

Vu Khoan, "Security, Development And Influence In International Relations", p. 211.

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perspective, poor starting conditions for improving economic development in Vietnam mean that the threat of never catching up with its neighbours is a real one. As an overall target set forth by the Vietnamese leadership, by the year 2000, Vietnam's Gross National Product (GNP) per capita should be doubled, amounting to US$500. Even if that is achieved, however, Vietnam will surely still be one among poorest countries in the region and in the world. If the thirteenth CPV Politburo Resolution considered economic backwardness and political isolation a big threat to Vietnam's security and independence, the Mid-term CPV National Congress held in January 1994 resulted in Hanoi updating and introducing a new list of four threats. The list includes poverty and lagging behind other states economically, corruption and inefficient bureaucracy, peaceful evolution, and complex developments in the Asia-Pacific region. Corruption and an inefficient bureaucracy have also been considered a

dual threat as the former breeds discontent among the population, while the latter has clearly become a big obstacle to economic development. Both have great consequences for internal stability. Hanoi also sees a link between failure to achieve economic development and internal security and the threat of interference posed by external countries, or in Vu Khoan's words, a combination of internal and external threats at the same time.38 In this context another threat is perceived by Hanoi, namely that of peaceful evolution, a term used to describe attempts by the West to interfere in the domestic affairs of the country. Therefore, Hanoi stressed both the need for deeper integration with the rest of the world and resistance to losing its identity. It stressed both "co-operation and struggle" with regard to foreign relations. Yet, Hanoi also acknowledges that peaceful evolution is not as dangerous as the threat of poverty. This can be dealt with by economic development as well as by the promotion of cultural and traditional values. In addition, there is the common belief that as the country gets stronger, it will have more resources to resist possible pressures exerted by foreign countries. Thus, the challenge posed by poverty, corruption and inefficient bureaucracy became more salient. It seems that the current economic crisis with social and political repercussions in the neighbouring countries helps to strengthen this interpretation. For many in Vietnam the most dangerous out38

Ibid., p. 209.


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comes of the crisis have been interference of international monetary and financial institutions, ranging from foreign mutual funds to the International Monetary Fund, to the policy-making process of many regional countries, the contagion effects from the economies in crisis and the fiercer competition economies wishing to get out of the crisis by looking after themselves first. The overall effect has led Vietnam to believe that the country may lose the grip on forming and conducting its own strategy for development as well as controlling developments inside the country. In that context, the above-mentioned call for internal strength to face external threats of interference now have both political and economic implications. It seems that the expression "complex developments in the AsiaPacific region" used by Hanoi refers to possible challenges to regional peace and stability as another threat. It is not difficult to see why Vietnam is concerned with regional peace and stability even though it can feel safer by maintaining good relations with almost all countries in the world. Firstly, the success of its new and overall policy for reforms largely depends on a very important condition, i.e. stability, both internal and external. At home, consensus has been reached on the importance attached to stability, especially political stability; and in fact, internal stability in Vietnam for the last several years proved to have contributed to the achievements in economic and social fields. At the same time, when Vietnam's integration with the regional and international communities gathers speed, its stability is closely related to that of the region and of the world to a greater extent. Secondly, even though there is now peace and stability in the region, there are still threats to regional peace and stability. As observed by many in Vietnam, there are three categories of threats which may originate from: (1) territorial disputes, (2) spill-over effects of crisis, including economic, political, environmental ones that have their origin in neigbouring countries, and (3) uncertainties in the relations among great powers. If the above-mentioned potential dangers develop unchecked, they will certainly lead to regional insecurity, which in turn will endanger economic successes of many countries in the region, including Vietnam. As many have argued, territorial disputes seem to combine all kinds of conflicts between and among parties concerned. Vietnam is still involved in both bilateral and multilateral conflicting territorial claims. Some territorial disputes between Vietnam and several other member states of ASEAN have been settled satisfactorily. Yet,

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others remain, especially the dispute over the Spratly Islands. From national and regional perspectives, territorial disputes are closely related to the question of sovereignty and independence in an environment where nationalism is on the rise in the region.39 This makes territorial disputes a sensitive issue in the national agenda, and "compromises" over territories may seem impossible at least for the foreseeable future. Thus, the threat to security posed by threat to territorial integrity seems a permanent one, and the drive to develop economic and military capabilities to address this kind of threat seems to lead towards a regional "security dilemma". Spill-over effects of the on-going economic crisis threatens the prosperity of the regional states, and reveals the instability of the globalised market, as well as new challenges posed by increasing interdependence. It is widely acknowledged that the ongoing crisis has been in part initiated by mistakes in many regional states' macroeconomic policies unable to show flexibility in the face of fundamental changes in the regional and global political and economic situation, and was also due to weak institutions, especially financial ones. Yet, the pace at w7hich the crisis spread to the other regional countries and other regions indicates instability in the global economy. What has happened reflects the lack of a regulating body above the national level with regard to international financial and stock markets whose integration is proceeding with increasing speed. Instability in the regional and global economy, therefore, is perceived to be a source of threat to Vietnam, which is increasingly concerned over beggar-thy-neighbour policies. This is closely related to Hanoi's talk of a global order. Tran Quang Co has, for example, raised several questions about this: Will the 1990s be a respite for major powers before a hegemonic struggle among them or a prelude for an era of peace and developments for the mankind? Will the world economic and political order be the one of equality, justice and mutual benefits for all or the one imposed by a "closed club" of big powers?40

39 See, for example, Kenneth B. Pyle, "Old New Orders And The Future Of Japan And The United States In Asia," in IHJ Bulletin, A Bi-annual Publication of The International House of Japan, Vol. 17, No. 2, Summer 1997. 40 Tran Quang Co, "The World Situation and The Opportunity for Our Country," p. 97.


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The notion of world order reflects Hanoi's perception of a profound danger that Vietnam, as a small country placed in a strategically important geographic location, once again will be drawn into the big powers' games as a result of their failure to respect Vietnamese independence. Since relations between and among the major powers of the world are still in a stage of flux, this situation gives rise to uncertainties in response to which Vietnam can not entirely devote its resources to economic development and the welfare of its people. As instability breeds insecurity, this situation also makes existing and emerging disputes, especially those involve conflicting claims over territories, more complicated, thus enabling old-aged suspicions as well as political, cultural and religious differences to grow. This thinking has been largely influenced by the country's historical experiences in which the pursuit of hegemony has led to negative impacts on its political independence and economic development.

CONCLUSION

For the first time in its modern history, internal and external conditions are favourable for Vietnam to focus on the process of nation building. Vietnamese nationalism has been consolidated with its national independence and unification, and now the country seeks to strengthen it with policies that support economic, political reforms and promotion of international relations. These policies have become the key factors for the country to achieve the goal of "a prosperous population, a strong country, and a civil society" which now serves as the rallying-point for the leadership and the Vietnamese people. From this perspective, a realist/neorealist approach to security may be a suitable tool to explain the country's concepts of security and threats. Making full use of all domestic resources and expanding foreign relations for building national capabilities, first and foremost economic strength, seems to be the way Vietnam seeks to address threats to its security posed by the state of poverty and underdevelopment domestically and by the absence of an established order regionally and globally. In other words, Vietnam's new concept of security has become a comprehensive one, taking into account both internal and external aspects, balancing both independence and interdependence, and attaching importance to all economic, military and other means.

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Greater emphasis has been laid on overcoming poverty and underdevelopment, which present the biggest threat to Vietnam. Thus, the security perception is domestically oriented, which has important and long-term implications for the country's foreign policy. The more Vietnam is occupied with building its own capabilities, the more it needs to enjoy friendly relations and effective co-operation with the rest of the world.

THE EUROPEAN APPROACH TOWARDS REGIONAL COMPREHENSIVE SECURITY


EUROPEAN VIEWS ON COMPREHENSIVE SECURITY KEES HOMAN*

1. INTRODUCTION

In the political environment in Europe after the end of the Cold War the long-term objective should be to establish a comprehensive, indivisible and co-operative security regime.1 The concept of this regime was developed by the Organisation of Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). Since the concept of security has changed fundamentally in recent years, the foundations of past strategy—based on the preparation for military confrontation—have become obsolete for meeting the challenges Europe faces ahead. Comprehensive security based on co-operative security can be considered as the most desirable and adequate concept for an European security regime. It seems that Europe is the best testing place for co-operative security. In no other region of the world has more progress been made toward mutual regulation of military capabilities and operations. I will deal here with the concept of comprehensive, indivisible and co-operative security in general and the activities of the OSCE in the field of conflict prevention and arms control in particular.

The Challenges of Change Revisited

Since the crumbling of the communist regime in Europe, the challenges to security in Europe have changed. We will have to adjust * Major General (ret.) Kees Homan RNLMC retired from the Dutch armed forces on 1 October 1998. His last position was Commandant of the Netherlands Defence College. He is now a senior research fellow at the Netherlands Institute of International Relations Clingendael in The Hague, and he is a member of the OSCE Working Group of the Netherlands Helsinki Committee (NHC). He is the author of numerous articles in political and military journals and daily newspaper on issues of peace, security and defence. 1 See Ashton B. Carter, William J. Perry and John D. Steinbruner, A New Concept of Co-operative Security, Washington DC: The Brookings Institution, 1992; and Janne

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to greater uncertainty regarding time and place of tension and/or conflict and we will have to anticipate that the causes of conflict may become more complex and will consist of a larger variety than in the past. At present the following challenges to European security can be considered as the most important: a) Conflicts are increasingly changing in character. The change in character from international conflict to internal conflict has influenced the thinking about the concept of sovereignty and the right of the Security Council of the United Nations to intervene in a conflict. The changing concept of sovereignty has become visible in the acceptance by the participating states of their mutual involvement in each other's internal affairs within the framework of the OSCE. b) Actors are different and multifaceted. They are far more difficult to identify than previously. Since conflicts tend to be more often of an internal character, non-governmental actors play a prominent role. Conflicts often involve ethnic minorities or sub-national groups as we have seen in Kosovo recently. We can also see a more prominent role for national or international non-governmental actors on the side of those trying to defuse tension and prevent conflicts. c) Approaches to security have changed from an exclusively politicomilitary state-to-state affair to a comprehensive concept. Security, or the lack thereof, has a much broader basis than political-military power. The internal character of many conflicts has made us aware that the political-military power play between state-actors is responsible for only a small part of the conflicts we are presently facing. Many other facilitating conditions determine the power relations between the actors. These include, inter alia, the distribution of wealth and property rights, the attitude of majority vis-a-vis minority groups and the extent to which democratic rights are guaranteed and human rights are respected. These various aspects can, under certain circumstances, easily lead to growing tension and possibly to conflict. Conversely, changes for the better in these aspects can contribute to the delusion of tensions and the prevention of conflicts.

E. Nolan (ed.). Global Engagement. Co-operation and Security in the 21st Century. Washington

DC: The Brooking Institution. 1994.

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Comprehensive, Indivisible and Co-operative Security as a Response

The Organisation on Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) has responded to the challenges to security in Europe by developing the concept of comprehensive, indivisible and co-operative security. The OSCE was created in the early 1970s.2 Under the name of the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE), it was called upon to serve as a multilateral forum for dialogue and negotiation between East and West. On the 1st of August 1975 in Helsinki, the Heads of State or Government of the thirty-five participating states signed the Helsinki Final Act of the CSCE. This Act established basic principles for behaviour among the participating states towards their citizens. The Helsinki Final Act laid the basis for further development of the CSCE process. The document is not a treaty, but a politically binding agreement. It is divided into three main parts, or "baskets", concerning: 1) Questions relating to security in Europe; 2) Co-operation in the field of economics, science and technology, and the environment and; 3) Co-operation in humanitarian and other fields. The document called for regular follow-up meetings to review the implementation of CSCE agreements, to set new standards and norms, to expand co-operation and to maintain political dialogue. At these meetings of Heads of State or Government of OSCE participating states priorities are set and orientation is provided at the highest political level. At the 1994 Budapest Summit, the then 52 Heads of State or Government from CSCE participant states renamed CSCE the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe. The priorities of the OSCE today are: to consolidate common values and build civil societies; to prevent local conflicts, restore stability and bring peace to wartorn areas; and to overcome real and perceived security deficits and to avoid the creation of new divisions by promoting a co-operative system of security.

2

OSCE Handbook, Vienna: Secretariat OSCE, 1996, pp. 5-10.

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KEES HOMAN The Concept

The concept of comprehensive, indivisible and co-operative security to which the OSCE adheres makes it unique among the Euro-Atlantic security organisations, since most of these security organisations focus exclusively on the political-military dimension of security.3 Contrary to these organisations, the OSCE presumes a direct relationship between peace, stability and wealth on the one hand and the development of democratic institutions, the rule of law, respect for human rights and the rights of minority groups and development of a market economy on the other hand. This presumption is embodied in the OSCE's concept of comprehensive security. The indivisibility of this comprehensive security concept implies that an increase in security for some participating states should not be detrimental to the security of other states. Security in the OSCE area should not be a zero-sum game. Instead, security should be an asset of equality among the members of participating states. The security-interests of the participating states may differ according to their individual security-requirements, yet the retention of their individual security is inextricably interrelated. The interrelationship of individual security-interests and—requirements is expressed in the co-operative aspect of the OSCE's concept of security. Whereas comprehensive security denotes a conceptual approach to security, co-operative security could be defined as the method, which facilitates achievement of the objective of comprehensive security. Co-operative security is aimed at the prevention of security threats rather than at preparations to counter them. Furthermore, co-operative security is designed to prevent aggression, rather than deterring it. In general, a system of co-operative security implies general acceptance of (binding) commitments limiting military capabilities and actions.4 Instead of mistrust, deterrence and enforcement, a cooperative security regime rests on: 3 See Netherlands Helsinki Committee, A Focus on the Future: Using an Enhanced Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe, Utrecht, December 1995; and Ibid. Complementarity and Co-operation: the OSCE as part of a European Security Model for the 21st Century, Utrecht, November 1996. 4 SIPRI, Final Report of the Independent Working Group on "A future security agenda for Europe", Stockholm, October 1996.


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confidence based on openness, transparency and predictability; co-operation and reassurance; and legitimacy, which depends on the acceptance by members that the military constraints of the regime in fact substantially ensure their security. This facilitates a system of security in which military constraints substantially ensure security and which directs international involvement, with the consent of the parties concerned, to a conflict between two or more participating states or within a participating state. In practice, co-operative security in Europe has relied, inter alia, on an increasingly sophisticated and intrusive set of confidence—and security-building measures (CSBMs) and an increasing transparency through the implementation of the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE)-treaty provisions. In other words: co-operative security replaces preparations to counter threats with the prevention of such threats in the first place and replaces the deterring of aggression with actions to make preparation for it more difficult. The concept of co-operative security differs from the idea of collective security as much as preventive medicine differs from acute care. Co-operative security is designed to ensure that organised aggression cannot start or be prosecuted on any large scale. On the other hand, collective security is an arrangement for deterring aggression through military preparation and defeating it, if it occurs. However, the one strategy does not preclude the other and both are, in fact, mutually reinforcing. A fully developed co-operative security framework would include provisions for collective security as a residual guarantee to its members in the event of aggression. Examples of co-operative security arrangements are: the establishment of strict controls and security measures for nuclear forces, building on agreements of the recent past; a regime for the conversion of defence industries whose excess capacity could lead to unwarranted global weapons proliferation and thus threaten international stability; co-operative agreements regulating the size and composition of forces to emphasise configurations and also to restrict the flow of dangerous technologies; articulation of an internationally supported concept of effective and legitimate intervention, in which the use of force is always multilateral and used only as a last resort; and

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the promotion of transparency and mutual interest as the basis for monitoring agreed upon constraints, including those on the diffusion of advanced technologies. In fact, the contributions of the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) accords that are most relevant at present are the advances in transparency. But European co-operative security has also relied on increasingly sophisticated and intrusive CSBMs. Another important contribution towards a co-operative security regime in Europe should be the co-operative limitation of arms production and sales. Arms industry consolidation and internalisation have significant implications for co-operative security. The opportunity for arms industry downsizing should be seized at this critical juncture of budgetary constraints in the Post Cold War environment in order to maximise standardisation of equipment, training and military planning. Furthermore, enhanced internalisation in the arms sector could facilitate harmonisation in the development of new arms export control regimes. Eventually, the new provisions could then gradually be spread eastward to incorporate other states in Eastern Europe and the CIS. There should also be an immediate effort to increase transparency and information sharing and to establish either an arms register or a continuous European-wide monitoring system of arms production plans and the specifics of sales and licensing abroad.

2. CO-OPERATIVE SECURITY AND CONFLICT-PREVENTION IN EUROPE

Conflict prevention has become a key concept in the discussion of Europe's new security and peace organisation. The OSCE established a Conflict Prevention Centre in November 1990 whose work was supplemented in December 1992 by the High Commissioner on National Minorities.1 The concept is not new; in his Agenda for ' The OSCE created the post of High Commissioner on National Minorities (HCNM) to respond, at the earliest possible stage, to ethnic tensions that have the potential to develop into a conflict within the OSCE region. The HCNM functions as an instrument to identify—and promote the early resolution of—ethnic tensions that might endanger peace, stability, or relations between OSCE participant states. Former Netherlands Minister Max van der Stoel was appointed the first High Commissioner in December 1992. The Budapest Ministerial Council (December 1995) extended Mr. van der Stoel's mandate for another three years.


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Peace, a blueprint for the United Nations, Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali gave conflict prevention top priority. The Organisation of African Unity also adopted at its Cairo meeting in December 1993 a mechanism for handling impending conflicts.

The Concept

The concept of "conflict prevention" refers to two types of efforts: those which prevent behaviour defined as undesirable; those which attempt to confine conflict behaviour within clearly defined limits of permissible activity. Older terms such as preventive diplomacy, crisis-prevention or deterrent diplomacy all refer to the same phenomenon.

Conflict Prevention, Early Warning and Preventive Policy

The OSCE, also referred to as the Helsinki process after the city where the famous Final Act was signed, is only one of a number of security organisations active in Europe, most of which are much stronger in terms of money, hard military options or other means. Nevertheless, the OSCE has a substantial role to play in addition to those of other bodies. Of all security organisations, it seems best placed to engage in conflict prevention and crisis management in a wider sense, meaning not only the immediate prevention of violent conflict but also the process of long-term peace building. Indeed, one could say that in this way the OSCE gains meaning as a community of purpose.

Short-term and Long-term Conflict Prevention

In the light of OSCE's comprehensive approach to security, conflict prevention is an affair of multiple dimensions and involving various time frames. It is therefore useful to distinguish between short—and long-term conflict prevention. Short-term conflict prevention aims at the prevention or containment of an immediate development towards escalation. This preventive action may also involve heading off or immediately correcting flagrant violations of human rights commitments

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and violations, which may cause an immediate escalation of tensions. In the military sphere, timely information about activities contributes to dispelling rumours which increase tensions and/or helps to rule out aggressive options. The durable prevention of conflict in Europe, however, also requires a long-term perspective. It involves building a viable democracy and its institutions, creating confidence between the government and the population, structuring the protection and promotion of human rights, eliminating all forms of gender or racial discrimination and respecting minorities. However, many new democracies have discovered problems in reconciling group rights and individual freedom with political stability. Durable prevention of conflict also requires the peaceful transition from a rigid state-commanded economic order to a flexible marketoriented system which increases prosperity while paying regard to social justice. As we can see in Europe, such a transition is not painless, and we should try to limit the pain created by such a transition to as little as possible and not let it lead to dangerous tensions. In some post-Communist countries, violence, corruption and predatory behaviour associated with emergent Mafia formations jeopardise democratic reforms and generate nostalgia for authoritarian rule. At the international level, building long-term peace also requires the development and maintenance of stable interstate relations, e.g. with kin-states, including continued international arms control and the ongoing use and improvement of regimes of military transparency. These short-term and long-term aspects of conflict prevention should be seen as part of an integrated strategy and indeed in practice they can hardly be separated.

Early Warning and Preventive Diplomacy

It is particularly in the framework of short-term conflict prevention that early warning and preventive diplomacy need to play their crucial roles. These key concepts are not defined, at least in OSCE documents. Nevertheless, based on High Commissioner experience we can make some assumptions. Early warning should provide the relevant OSCE bodies with information about escalating developments, be they slow and gradual or quick and sudden, far enough in advance in order for them to react timely and effectively. If possible, this early warning notification should leave OSCE decision-making struc-


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tures with enough time to employ preventive diplomacy and other non-coercive and non-military preventive measures. As far as preventive diplomacy is concerned, it should contain particular disputes and threats and prevent them from escalating into armed conflict. If possible it should try to resolve those disputes. The actual and definite resolution of the problems may be too much of a task for preventive diplomacy alone. In most cases, longer-term efforts will be needed. One should distinguish between early and late preventive diplomacy. "Early preventive diplomacy" attempts to resolve disputes well before eruption into armed conflict appears likely. The objective of early preventive diplomacy is to encourage and support efforts by the contending parties to seek accommodation. "Late preventive diplomacy" is to persuade parties to abstain from violence when eruptions seem imminent. Obviously the OSCE's prime task, and certainly that of the High Commissioner, should be to engage in the earliest possible preventive diplomacy so that we never need to resort to an early warning of imminent conflict, let alone have to engage in conflict management. This understanding is clearly reflected in the Helsinki Document of 1992 which emphasises conflict prevention at the earliest possible stage. In concept, the distinction between early warning and preventive diplomacy should be clear: early warning has the function to provide the information on the basis of which preventive diplomacy can take place. In practice this distinction is often blurred as activities have characteristics of both. It may be that the mandate of an instrument combines both elements, as is the case with the High Commissioner. In general, early warning and preventive diplomacy should be seen as a continuum of activities. The central question is of course what happens if the OSCE early warning system does produce a warning, whatever form it may take. Early warning and preventive diplomacy by OSCE instruments can only be as effective as the political response of the participating states. The participating states must be prepared to give concrete political and material support to these conflict prevention efforts.

OSCE Organs and Instruments for Conflict Prevention

Given its comprehensive approach to security, it is necessary that the OSCE has at its disposal instruments corresponding to the various

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security dimensions. As many OSCE bodies, instruments and procedures can indeed be considered to include conflict prevention aspects, most of the OSCE's area of activity seems to be up to the task. The full body of participating states plays a crucial role. Overarching, the comprehensive political discussions by the Senior Council and the Permanent Council6 are an essential means of guiding the process, making adjustments where necessary. The Permanent Council in Vienna is the most important OSCE conflict prevention body. In the terms of the Budapest Document of December 1994: "The Permanent Council will be the regular body for political consultation and decision-making". In this framework, the Permanent Council carries primary responsibility for early warning and preventive action through the discussions which take place in that framework and the decisions taken there. The Senior Council is not intended to engage in regular short-term conflict prevention and crisis management. With respect to long-term conflict prevention, how?ever, it has a crucial role to play: "The Senior Council will meet in Prague twice a year, at the minimum. An additional meeting will be held before the Ministerial Council Meeting. It will discuss and set forth policy and broad budgetary guidelines (and) will also be convened as the Economic Forum". If high-level consultations are needed at very short notice, the Senior Council could still be convened through the implementation of the so-called emergency mechanism. When meeting as the so-called Economic Forum, the Senior Council can continue to give political stimulus to the dialogue on the transition to and development of free-market economies as an essential contribution to the building of democracy. The Chairman-in-Office is responsible, on behalf of the participating states, for the co-ordination of and consultation with other

h The Senior Council is responsible for the overview, management and co-ordination of OSCE activities. It discusses and sets forth policy and broad budgetary guidelines. The OSCE participating states are encouraged to be represented at the level of political directors from capitals or at a corresponding level. The Senior Council meets at least twice a year in Prague and once a year as the Economic Forum. The Permanent Council, which is based in Vienna, is responsible for the day-to-day operational tasks of the OSCE under a representative of the Chairmanin-Office. Its members, permanent representatives of the OSCE participant states, meet weekly at the Hofburg Congress Centre. The Permanent Council is the regular body for political consultation and decision-making and takes decisions on all issues pertinent to the OSCE. It can also be convened for emergency purposes.


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international bodies, primarily the United Nations and the Council of Europe. Supported by the Secretary-general, the Chairman-inOffice is not only charged with preparing and chairing the meetings of the OSCE bodies but he or she can also undertake preventive diplomatic activities in the field, in the first place by travelling to areas of tension personally or by sending so-called Personal Representatives. In addition, there are many other possibilities for the OSCE to become active in conflict prevention. The various possibilities the participating states have to despatch "ad hoc missions" are very useful. "Long-term missions in the field", more often than not have an explicit prevention component in their mandates. They are logistically supported by the Conflict Prevention Centre (CPC) in Vienna.

Food for Thought

When we speak about the place of the OSCE and its relationship with the NATO, the EU and the Council of Europe, we should keep several things in mind. One buzzword in this regard is "complementarity": there is no need and there are no resources to duplicate the efforts of other international bodies. If concurrent activities do take place, they should reinforce each other. The other buzzword, then, is "interlocking institutions". If the international organisations work together, each will be able to contribute its particular "comparative advantages" to the combination. The question obviously is how to make them interlock instead of "interblock". Regular consultations both at the political and the working level are necessary, as well as, a commitment to transparency with regard to activities and structures. If need be, the Chairman-in-Office and Secretary General should be requested to come to an agreement with relevant international organisations. The relationship between the OSCE and other international bodies could of course vary and develop over time; it is important to remain flexible in this regard.

A Focus on Conflict Prevention?

The OSCE has at its disposal a number of characteristics and assets, which make it wrell placed to engage in conflict prevention. It is also

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important to realise that no other international body is engaged in comprehensive conflict prevention in Europe. Thematically, it is the OSGE's comprehensive approach which is essential in allowing for a broad approach in problematic situations. Institutionally relevant is the co-ordinating and initiating role, under the Chairman-in-OfBce, of the Permanent Council as the regular body for political consultation and decision-making with a thematically broad agenda. It carries primary responsibility for early warning and preventive action. OSCE conflict prevention can be considered a "soft" field of activity, since almost exclusively non-coercive means are employed. Cooperative implementation of commitments, programmes and measures is the key to the OSCE way of doing things. For this, the consensus rule would seem to be adequate. If there is one lesson we can draw from previous OSCE experience, then it is that we should only be ambitious within a realistically defined framework. A focus on conflict prevention sets an objective which is ambitious enough in itself but very well suited to the particular "comparative advantages" which the OSCE possesses. Such a focus does not require a wholesale institutional restructuring of the OSCE or a desperate establishment of new bodies, nor incisive changes in decision-making procedures. Why should the OSCE consider exercising "harder" options? For one thing, conflict prevention can be necessary at higher levels of the escalation ladder. Crisis management is also part of the OSCE's tasks. It is not defined in OSCE documents, but can be considered as conflict prevention in a crisis situation in the very last phases of escalation towards violence. The means to be employed will have to answer to requirements of urgency and high political investments, and perhaps even more substantial input is needed such as; emergency aid programmes, preventive deployment or peacekeeping operations. We are then entering into the realm of "hard" options and moving on to situations in which the consensus rule may stand in the way of timely and effective decision-making. OSCE options for conflict prevention and/or peace preservation should therefore encompass the entire range short of coercive measures to provide the OSCE with the necessary flexibility. Additionally, it will give the OSCE a higher visibility and credibility in the eyes of the public, which up until now perceives the OSCE as a weak-bodied organisation composed of all talk and no action.


439

Thematic Aspects

Thematically, it is the OSCE's comprehensive approach, which is essential. In the long term, conflict prevention involves building a viable democracy and its institutions, creating confidence between the government and the population, structuring the protection and promotion of human rights, eliminating all forms of discrimination and respecting minorities. It also requires the peaceful transition from a rigid state-commanded economic order to a flexible and humanoriented system, which increases prosperity while paying due regard to social justice. In addition, building long-term peace involves continued international arms control and using and enhancing the regimes of military transparency. Thus investing in building the peace and preventing conflict in Europe requires a long-term perspective. However, these long-term aspects cannot be separated from shortterm conflict prevention. Efforts at laying the groundwork for a real democracy are in vain if in the meantime tensions escalate into a bloody civil war or an international conflict. Short-term conflict prevention aims at the prevention or containment of immediate escalation towards violence.

Institutional Aspects

Given the OSCE's comprehensive approach to security, many OSCE instruments can be considered to have early warning aspects. In the military sphere there are the traditional confidence—and securitybuilding measures and the agreements on conventional arms reduction, both entailing a detailed and sophisticated verification regime. Furthermore, OSCE states have at their disposal the procedural options for discussing at short notice so-called unusual military activities or military activities of a hazardous nature. More generally applicable are such OSCE tools as the emergency mechanism adopted in Berlin in 1991 and various procedures for the peaceful settlement of disputes. Well known are the more specific human dimension mechanism and the various options contained therein. Moving from the procedural to the more institutional side, we should give due attention to the important work done by the missions in the field. Increasingly, the mandates of field missions cover a broad range of issues—a development that can only be applauded and encouraged. Specifically

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for the human dimension, there is the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHIR) which, through its human dimension activities, is actively contributing to the long-term prevention of conflict. Finally, there is the already mentioned OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities (HCNM) whose establishment in 1992 fits into the increased emphasis which the OSCE states placed on conflict prevention and crisis management. The HCNM has a two-fold mission: to contain and de-escalate tensions involving national minority issues which have the potential to develop into a violent conflict and to alert the OSCE whenever tensions develop to a level at which containment by the High Commissioner is no longer possible. The present High Commissioner is clearly satisfied with his mandate. He has not embraced suggestions that his recommendations should be upgraded to binding conclusions or that states should be obliged to report regularly on the implementation of his recommendations. At the present stage, amending the HCNM is not necessary. However, the Budapest decision to enhance his resources is most welcome. In a presentation to the relevant Working group in Budapest, the High Commissioner requested a modest increase in his support staff, a small budget for newspapers and literature, and a link-up to the OSCE communications network.

3. Co-OPERATIVE SECURITY AND ARMS CONTROL

Arms control is another essential element of co-operative security. It is fair to say that, for the greater part, arms control, in the classical sense, has become obsolete. The classic arms control concept was that security and stability could be achieved through formal negotiated agreements, primarily, between the United States and the former Soviet Union. The objective of these agreements was to provide greater security at lower levels of forces and budgets. The emphasis on the numbers game in the East-West context has led to the misunderstanding that arms control is always about reductions in the number of weapons, the size of the armed forces or the elimination of complete classes of weapons. However, this is only part of the picture. In the process of arms control, stability should be the overriding concern. In the post Cold War era the central idea in arms control should be emphasised—the contribution it can make to security and stability or the confinement of conflicts, whether this is done


441

by reductions, limitations or co-operative and unilateral measures.' The arms control regime in Europe is based on four cornerstones, namely the CFE-Treaty, CSBMs, the Open Skies Treaty and the overarching Framework for Arms Control.

Conventional Forces in Europe

(CFE)-Treaty

The Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE)-Treaty is a legacy of the Cold War which I consider an important building block for an European co-operative security regime." The Treaty was originally signed by NATO countries and by the then members of the Warsaw Treaty Organisation as a result of twenty months of negotiation at the Conference on European Security and Co-operation on 19 November 1990 in Paris. The aim was to establish lower arms levels than before the crumbling of communism in Eastern Europe. The agreement determined for the existing two military blocs the quantity of conventional arms within five categories: main battle tanks, armoured personnel carriers, artillery pieces, combat aircraft and attack helicopters. As a result of changes concerning the status of certain countries that signed the agreement and the relationship between the states both during the negotiations and during the implementation process, the basic concept of the agreement has been slightly modified. By the November 17, 1995 deadline for full implementation, more than 58,000 "treaty limited equipment" (TLE) had been destroyed.'1 At the Lisbon Summit of the OSCE on 2 and 3 December 1996, the parties to the CFE-Treaty adopted a document on the scope and parameters for negotiations on a revision of this treaty. The broadening of the existing CFE regime seems to me to be an obvious first step in this revision. It seems worthwhile to attempt to expand the CFE treaty regime, with its critical limits and verification provisions, to the non-CFE members of the OSCE. The optimal solution would be adaptation and adoption of the full CFE measures: ' Jeffrey A. Larsen & Gregory J. Rattray (eds.), Arms Control Toward the 21st Century, Boulder and London: Lynne Reinner Publishers, 1996. i! Jeffrey D. McCausland, Conventional Arms Control and European Security, Adelphi Paper 301, The International Institute for Strategic Studies, London 1996. !) IISS Strategic Comments, "NATO enlargement and the CFE Treaty", Vol. 3. No. 2, March' 1997, pp. 1-2.

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limits in terms of national ceilings, constraints on transfer and force generation, and the full programme of monitoring, inspection, and verification. Another set of actions falls within the OSCE's Forum for Security Co-operation charge to harmonise all arms control arrangements. Of clear advantage to the smaller states, but also to the Russian sceptics, would be an integration and consolidation of the regular inspection and reporting requirements of the CFE, the CSBMs and Open Skies when it enters into force. However, while there is little argument about the CFE-Treaty's important contribution to European security, its future is uncertain at this moment. Still, the CFE-Treaty is likely to be one of the main means to reduce Russia's concerns with NATO enlargement. The Treaty can be revised to contribute not only to the resolution of this issue, but also to emphasise the importance of a more co-operative approach to security.

Confidence and Security Building Measures

(CSBMs)

The OSCE has also proven to be an important framework for the agreement of Confidence and Security Building Measures (CSBMs).10 CSBMs are usually seen as soft security arrangements regulating interstate behaviour, in contrast with hard security agreements such as Nato's mutual assistance guarantee. One may wonder whether this is a very helpful approach. Particularly in the post-Cold War era it seems more fruitful to place CSBMs on a continuum, ranging from unilateral declarations to military co-operation. CSBMs can provide reassurance by reducing uncertainties and increasing predictability and create security by constraining opportunities for exerting pressure through military activity and by military co-operation. What are the most important achievements in the European area? Clearly the Helsinki Final Act has been the starting point. The declaratory part of the document, which theoretically should be less important than the inspection regime, has exerted far greater influence. Particularly the principle of nonviolation of borders by force (which strictly speaking is a political, not a military CSBM) has been of great importance, not only to stabilise the situation between West and East Germany at the time but 10

Marie-France Desjardins, Rethinking Confidence-Building Measures, Adelphi Paper

307, The International Institute for Strategic Studies, London, December 1996.


443

also once the communist world started to crumble, the Warsaw Pact was dissolved and the USSR fell apart. It is right to say that, apart from the nuclear arms limitation agreements, the Helsinki Final Act has been the most important European CSBM of the Cold War era. From 1989 onwards the OSCE has been able to develop more sophisticated CSBMs. The Vienna Document was updated for the last time in 1994 and contains a rich catalogue of measures including information exchange on military forces, doctrines and strategic planning, exchange of annual calendars, notification of military activities, on site inspections of military bases and facilities, constraining provisions concerning military activities beyond certain levels and consultation regarding unusual military activities. Hence the Vienna Document includes various levels of confidence and security building: transparency measures (information exchange, observation, inspection) are followed by constraint measures (limitation of military activities beyond certain levels). The consultations about unusual military activities take a somewhat exceptional position: on the one hand they can be seen as transparency measures, on the other hand they can lead to conflict prevention efforts. The issue most often raised nowadays, however, is the wish for regional CSBMs. Some examples of regional CSBMs are more frequent or lower limits for notifications and inspections between neighbouring countries. In this respect the implementation of article V of annex IB of the Dayton agreement, which consists of CSBMs for the former Yugoslavia, might be important for future developments.

Open Skies

A last important arms control agreement is the Open Skies Treaty. This treaty was signed at Helsinki on the 24th of March 1992." It obliges the parties to submit their territories to short-notice unarmed surveillance flights. The area of application stretches from Vancouver, Canada, eastwards to Vladivostok, Russia, and represents the most widely ranging international effort to date to promote openness and transparency in military forces and activities. All NATO countries " Stefanie Bailer, The Treaty on Open Skies, in: SIPRI Yearbook 1995: Armaments, Disarmament and International Security, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995, pp. 821-825.

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and former Warsaw Pact countries are state parties. It is the first treaty developed within the OSCE context that extends confidence building measures to the North American continent and beyond the Urals. In essence, the Open Skies Treaty is a confidence and security building measure. It is legally binding and it is of unlimited duration. All territory is accessible for aerial observation and observation flights can only be restricted for legitimate reasons of flight safety. Because Russia has still to ratify it, the treaty has not yet entered into force. Treaties, after they have been signed, generally must be ratified by the governments before they take effect. At present, 24 of the 27 states have done so. The holdouts are Russia, Belo Russia and the Ukraine. The Ukraine is expected to ratify the treaty in the not too distant future. The Ukrainian administration has put the treaty forward twice for ratification but could not get the required two-thirds majority in Parliament. One major concern for them is resources. Russia is another case altogether. The Duma has not been enthralled by the treaty. Also, they link everything these days to NATO enlargement and president Yeltsin may well have other things on his mind at the moment. It is any body's guess when the Duma will take it seriously.

A Framework for Arms Control

Finally, the Framework for Arms Control which was adopted at the Lisbon Summit on the 2nd and 3rd of December 1996, considers interlocking and mutually reinforcing arms control agreements as the logical consequence of the principle of the indivisibility of security. Drawing on past experience, the OSCE participating states have developed the following principles, to serve as a guide for future negotiations:12 Sufficiency. Arms control regimes should contain measures designed to ensure that each participating State will maintain only such military capabilities as are commensurate with legitimate individual or collective security needs, and will not attempt to impose military domination over any other participating State; 12

Lisbon Document 1996, A Framework for Arms Control, FSC. Dec/8/96.


445

Transparency through information exchange. A key element of an effective arms control regime is provision for complete, accurate and timely exchange of relevant information, including the size, structure, location and military doctrine of military forces, as well as their activities; Verification. The measures adopted should be combined, when appropriate, with verification that is commensurate with their substance and significance. This could include verification sufficiently intrusive to permit an assessment of information exchanged and of the implementation of agreed upon measures subject to verification, thereby enhancing confidence; Limitation on forces. Limitations and, where necessary, reductions are an important element in the continuing search for security and stability at lower levels of forces. Other constraining provisions on armed forces and security building measures continue to be significant elements in the quest for stability.

CONCLUSION

What is the status of the OSCE at this moment? The last important event in the OSCE was the Summit Meeting in Lisbon on the 2nd and 3rd of December 1996 which adopted a "Lisbon Document 1996". The document includes the Lisbon Declaration on a Common and Comprehensive Security Model for Europe for the Twentyfirst Century, a Framework for Arms Control and a text under the title "Development of the Agenda of the Forum for Security Cooperation". The main results of the summit are related to arms control: the agreement to start negotiations on the revision of the CFETreaty and a new arms control agenda for the following years, the above mentioned "A Framework for Arms Control". The two years of discussion within the OSCE about a "Security Model for the 21st Century" which should have been consecrated at the Lisbon Summit, ended however in an anti-climax. The only result was a few long, but vague titles for papers such as: "The Lisbon Declaration on a Common and Comprehensive Security Model for Europe for the Twenty-first Century". The only concrete agreement was the decision to continue negotiations aimed at "considering" whether a Charter on European Security should be developed "which can serve the needs of our peoples in the new century".

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After the two rather fruitless years of discussions since the Budapest Summit, it is hardly likely that this agreement will result in anything substantial in the foreseeable future. Still, because much has been achieved, the question arises: "What might be the next steps in the evolution of the European security regime?" The broadening of the existing CFE-CSBM regimes seems to be an obvious first step. It seems worthwhile to attempt to expand the CFE treaty regime, with its critical limits and verification provisions, to the non-CFE members of the OSCE. The optimal solution would be the adaptation and adoption of the full CFE measures: limits in terms of national ceilings, constraints on transfer and force generation, and the full programme of monitoring, inspection, and verification. In conclusion: As I mentioned before, in the political environment in Europe after the end of the Cold War, the long-term objective should be to establish a comprehensive, indivisible and co-operative security regime. Although a lot of progress has been made, what is lacking at present is the political will to make real substantial steps toward a European co-operative security regime. Yet there is every reason to support and to extend the present co-operative security regime in Europe. Implementation and further development of the CFE Treaty and CSBMs are essential. The Framework for Arms Control, which was adopted at the Lisbon Summit in December 1996, can play a leading role in forging a common understanding of the current and likely future military security challenges, devising measures and approaches appropriate to specific problems arising from regional tensions and instabilities while ensuring complementarity between regional and OSCE-wide approaches. All states involved must take robust action that reflects the belief that the benefits of co-operative security continue to outweigh the risks. In short: synergy and harmony should be promoted between the institutions who are dealing with the different dimensions of security.

INDEX

ABC-weapons, 67 ABM-treaty, China and Russia, 109 absorption model for Korean unification, 336 acid rain, 136, 156 ADB, 54 Afghanistan, 228 Agenda for Peace, 433 aggression, acts of, 31 Agreement on the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, 155 Ahadab oil field, 198 aid and environmental protection, 150 Green Aid Plan, MITI, 152 air pollution, 137 Akama Bunzo, 283 Akchubinsk oil field, 204 Akchubinskmunei, 199 Alfaya oil field, 198 alliances, 21 Allison, Graham, 241 American decline, 26 American Heritage PYmndation, 363 ANSCO (Asia Nuclear Safety Consultation Organisation), 322 anthrax, 117, 119 anti-communism, 220 antinuclear movement, South Korea, 313 APEC, 25, 32, 50, 147, 213, 368, 400, 416 meeting on environment 1994, 148 APPCED (Asia-Pacific Parliamentarians Conference on Environment and Development), 154 Arab-Israeli War in 1973, 92 Arbatov, Aleksei, 79 on START-II, 81 ARF, 50, 179, 400 ASEAN Regional Forum, 32 Armageddon, 118 arms modernisation, 24 competition in East Asia, 68 control, 440 control regime and China, 106 control regimes, 444 industry, 432

ARPC, 209 Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution, 34, 236, 246 origin, 260 Arzamas-16, 73 Asahara, leader of Aum Shinrikyo, 115 ASEAN, 32, 50, 55, 147, 157, 227, 270, 381, 416 programmes on environment, 147 regional market, 213 ASEAN Declaration of 1967, 382 ASEAN Declaration on the South China Sea, 179 ASEAN Free Trade Area Conference Fourth Conference 1993, 213 ASEAN Industrial Co-operation, 286 ASEAN-9 nation system, 212 ASEAN-Four, 209 Asia Development Bank, 150 Asia Pacific Fishery Commission, 155 Asian & Pacific countries in the UN, 225 Asian crisis, 41, 161, 168, 227, 363, 422 and trade surplus, 213 historical context, 63 Asian Currency Crisis, 208 Asian Monetary Fund (AMF), 54 Asian values, 37, 256 Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation meeting 1996, Green Aid Plan, 152 ASIATOM, 127, 317 Aum-Shinrikyo, 8, 70, 91, 114, 115, 118, 120, 121 and Australia, 385 authority, political, 46 autopoietic, 242 badao, 220

bakumatsu period, 258 Bali Workshop on South China Sea, 396 Balkan, 50 Bandung Conference, 381 Bandung Workshop on South China Sea, 396 Bangkok Declaration, 382 Bangkok Summit Declaration 1995, 179

448 Baranovichi, 73 Barents Sea, 85 Barshefsky, Charlene, 367 Bateson, Gregory, 253 Belarus, 67, 72 Belo Russia, 444 Berlin Wall, 57 bilateral alliance arrangements, 52 Binary codes, 253 binary principle, 48 biodiversity, 136, 146 Biological Weapons Convention, 229 bioterrorism, 121 bi-polarity, 379 Blair, Bruce, 76 BMD (Ballistic Missile Defence), 111 Bogor Declaration, 213 Bosnia, 183 Botulism, 117 Boutros Boutros-Ghali, 433 brain drain, China, 177 brain drain of nuclear experts, 89 Brand to Brand Complementary Scheme, 286 Brandt, Willy, 331 Brazilianisation of China, 166 breeder reactor, Joyo, 311 Bretton Woods Agreement, 220 Briton, Sir Leon, 187 Brookings Institute, 303 Budapest Document of December 1994, 436 Budapest Summit of the CSCE, 429 Bush, George, 92 Butler, Lee, 67 caesium, 120 calculus of indications, 242 Cambodia and currency crisis, 212 Cambodian conflict, 384 Cambodian war, 235 Camp Schwab, 290 Canada, 48, 197, 387 capital markets, 41 capitalism, 21 "speculation" as spiritual basis, 59 crony, 30 Indonesian monarchical capitalism, 45 Korean state capitalism, 45 laissez-faire, 24 carbon dioxide, 140, 348, 372 Carlson Group, 238 Carroway, Paul, 292

INDEX

Carter's China policy, 185 CBTB, 172 CFE (Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty), 431, 441 Ch'ongjin, 94 chaebol, 27, 335

Chang, Soon-Heung, 322 Chatan, 291 Chatichai Choonhavan, 387 Chechen terrorist attack 1995, 120 Cheget, 76

Chekov, 76 Chelyabinsk-70, 73 Chemical Weapons Convention, 229 cheque-book diplomacy, 123 Chernobyl, 84, 316 Chernomyrdin, 200 Chevron, 204 China accession to WTO, 367 American image of, 363 and global economic system, 357 as challenger, 357 as emerging great power, 358 as ideological challenge, 64 as ideological threat, 359 as market for US, 365 as nationalistic, 60 as receiver of direct investment, 209 as rising power, 52 as superpower, 23 bilateral relations with Russia, 101 as coal superpower, 194 coal and hydropowrer resources, 344 coal resources, 189 containment of, 359 crime, China, 166 delay in joining WTO, 217 economic development, 159 economic growth, 345 elite, 178 " energy demands and South China Sea, 392 energy resources and production, 194 energy security, 202 energy strategy, 349 energy supplies, 194 energy supply and demand, 347 engagement of, 359 engagement policies towards, 64 environmental pollution tax on unwashed coal, 355 goods made by prisoners, 364 human rights, 364

449

INDEX

hydropower, 353 in competition with ASEAN, 212 influence on North Korea, 333 market mechanism in energy markets, 354 military strength, 176 nationalism, 362 Ninth Five-year plan, 195 nuclear forces, 101 nuclear strategy, 105 oil strategy', 351 Most Favoured Nation status, 366 policies of containment against, 56 prospects for economic growth, 363 reforms, 63 restructuring industries, 354 security interests, 159 socialist market economy, 63 strategy7 of diversified energy consumption, 350 threat to national economic security, 348 US assessments, 361 Village and Township Enterprises, 351 China and Russia's Strategic Partnership 1997, 205 China and Taiwan relations, 184 China and Vietnam, confrontation 1988, 389 China Petroleum and Gas Corporation, 352 China State Electricity Corporation, 353 China threat, 362 China-US joint communique, 371 China-US economic and trade relations, 365 China-US relations, 357 Chinese economic development and pressure on world resources, 188 Chinese energy strategy, 343 Cholla province, 335 Chongqing Industrial Pollution Project, 150 Chun, Dohwan, 335 CIA: nuclear arms estimates, 72 CIS, 432 Citizens' Nuclear Information Centre, 312 civil societies, 429 civil society in Vietnam, 423 clash of civilisations, 173 Clausewitz, 105

clean energy, China, 195 climate change, 136 Clinton directive for US nuclear forces, 66 speech "China and the State Interest", 369 visit to China, 184 visit to China, 64 Clinton-Hashimoto Joint Declaration of April 1996, 35 Clinton-Hashimoto talks, 289 CNOOC (China National Offshore Oil Company), 195 CNPC (China National Oil and Natural Gas Company), 196 coal, 138 cognitive biology. 242 Cold War, 22 thinking, 359 colonial constructs in Southeast Asia, 380 colonial possessions of France, 181 colonialism, 23, 60, 134, 158, 381 mission civihsatrice, 62

Western, 24 command and control system (C2), 102 command, control, communication and intelligence facilities, 73 command-and-control (US), 160 commercial reactors, South Korea, 312 communism, Chinese, 37 comprehensive security, 48 and ODA, 274 and regional nuclear co-operation, 307 and South China Sea. 379 definitions, 227, 240, 271, 307, 427 during Ohira cabinet, 49 indivisibility of, 430 sogo anzen hosho, 256 Vietnamese concept, 408 comprehensive war, 50 Conference on European Security and Co-operation, 441 conflict management, Organisation of African Unity, 433 Conflict Prevention, 437, 46 Conflict Prevention Centre, OSCE, 432 Confucian society, South Korea, 334 "Confucian" values in the two Koreas, 340 conscription system, 45 constructivism, 241

450

INDEX

containment, Soviet Union, 126 Convention on Biological Diversity, 146 Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, 145 conversion of defence industries, 431 co-operative security, 430, 440 co-operative security regime, 427 Coopers and Lybrand Associates, 277 corruption China, Indonesia, India, Russia, Nigeria, 168 South Korea, 334 Vietnam, 420 Council of Europe, 437 Cox-report, 112 CPC (Communist Party of China), 357 CPC (Conflict Prevention Centre), 437 crises and global restructuring, 51 regional, 46 CSBM (Confidence- and Security-Building Measures), 69, 129, 431, 441, 442 CSCAP, 51, 323, 406 CSCE (Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe), 182, 401, 429 CTBT, 179, 191, 228 Cuban Missile Crisis, 21 Cultural Revolution, 178 culture, Asian, 24 currency policies and direct investment, 209 currency crisis, 210 Dai Xianglong, 161 Daqing, 344 Daqing oil, 201 datong, 220

Dayton agreement, 183, 443 Declaration of ASEAN Concord, 383 deforestation, 136 democracy, 246, 359, 434 Asian, 24 liberal, 24 parliamentary, 43 democratic ideals, 58 democratic rights, 428 democratisation, 21, 144 Denisov, Valeri L, 92 denuclearisation, 67 detargeting of all strategic missiles, 79 detente, 266

detente in Europe, 49 DFI (Direct Foreign Investments), Europe, US, Japan compared, 180 Diaoyu lieyu (Senkaku Islands), 51, 203 Diaoyutai (Senkaku Islands), 179 division of labour in security and international relations, 57 Dnepropetrovsk, 73 Do Muoi, 405 Dobbie, Charles, 182 Doi-Moi, 405 dollar, 35 dollar system, 210 Dongfeng-31, 107 Dongfeng-41, 107 DPP (Democratic Progressive Party), 186 Drifte, Reinhard, 240 dual purposed weapon systems, 101 dual-use advanced technology, acquisition by China, 177 dual-use paradigm, 268 Dulles-Yoshida negotiations, 258 Duma, 444 EAEC (East Asian Economic Caucus), 33, 400 Mahathir's proposal, 54 early warning, 434 early-warning capability, 108 East Asian Crisis (1997), 24 East Asian-Pacific Strategy Report, 302 East China Sea, 203 East Siberia, 205 East Siberia Natural Gas Pipeline Project, 205 East Timor, 50 East Turkestan independence movement, 204 Eastern Europe, 432 ebola, 117 EC Environmental Action Programme, 156 Eco Asia, 152 economists, 45 economy, planned, 21 ecosystem, 31, 150, 394 EEC (European Economy Community), 156 EEZ, 391 egalitarian societies, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, 167 Egypt, 92

INDEX

elites, globalised, 43 Endaka, 271 endangered species, 136 energy consumption per capita, 137 energy demand, 69 and South China Sea, 391 energy security, 307 China, 202' energy supplies, 307 internationalisation of, 206 engagement, constructive, 398 Environment Agency, Japan, 152 Environment Programme, UN, 137 Environmental Congress for Asia and the Pacific, 152 environmental co-operation, 150 environmental institution building, 142 environmental mismanagement, East China Sea and Yellow Sea, 402 Environmental network building, 153 environmental norms, 143 environmental pollution, 372 environmental problems, 28 environmental protection regional, 146 environmental regime, 30, 136 environmental security, 34, 48, 49, 57, 68, 70, 71, 74, 76, 79, 81, 86, 91, 92, 93, 94, 96, 97, 100, 101, 102, 104, 105, 107, 108, 109, 112, 121, 123, 126, 130, 132, 134, 135, 139, 141, 148, 150, 173, 179, 181, 225, 227, 231, 232, 233, 234, 235, 236, 237, 238, 239, 252, 257, 258, 259, 267, 269, 274, 288, 297, 303, 308, 314, 379, 384, 406, 408, 411, 412, 415, 416, 417, 418, 419, 427, 430, 441, 443 ESCAP (Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific), 149 ESDI (European Security and Defence Identity), 181 EU (European Community), 28 leadership, 47 model for ASEAN, 32 Eurasia, 56 structural differences, 44 EURATOM, 317 Euro, 28 impact on Asia's currency system, 219 in Asian yen markets, 219 Euro-Atlantic security organisations, 430

451

Europe, 22 and nation state, 47 social policy, 156 European Coal and Steel Community, 134, 157 European Community, 28, 134, 156 European Economic Community, 134 European economic interests, 180 European Enlightenment, 374 European enterprises in Asia, 287 European integration, 43 European Monetary Union, 333 European Parliament, 28 European process of integration, 43 European security, 184, 427 European Union, 46, 48, 63, 134, 138, 155, 156, 157, 158, 169, 174, 181, 225^ 235, 331, 400 EU-Taiwan co-operation agreement, 187 Evans and Grant, 401 exchange rates, yen, dollar, 174 Export-Import Bank of Japan, 272 Exxon, 201 FAO (Food and Agricultural Organisation), 226 fascism, 64 FBR (fast breeder reactor), 121, 310 FDI in Vietnam, 416 Felgengauer, Pavel, 80 Feng Lanrui, 164 financial markets, transparency, 58 fisheries, depleted, 136 fisheries agreements, Russia and Japan, 155 fishing related disputes, 141 Fissile Material Cut-off Convention, 228 flexible response, China, 105 foreign policy and currency stability, 209 forest fires, 141 Framework Agreement between US and North Korea, 314 Framework Convention on Climate Change, 146 Framework for Arms Control, 441, 444 France, 183 as colonial power in Southeast Asia, 380 French Revolution, 45 Frog artillery rockets, 93

452

INDEX

FS-X controversy, 250 fuel-cycle, 129 multilateral centre, 129 fuels and pollution, 137 Fukien Oil Refining, 201 Fukuyama, Francis, 37 Futenma Marine Corps Air Station, 289 G-7, 235 G-8, 228, 235 GATT, 220 GDR (German Democratic Republic), 331 Geneva agreement on Korea, 336 Geneva agreement of 1989, 327 Geneva Convention in 1958, 395 geo-economics, 407 Georgia, 90 German unification, 325 Germany, 183 and environment, 156 embassy in North Korea, 326 fall of the wall, 235 leadership, 57 moral burden, 44 West and East, 442 Ghauri-missile, 96 Gini-Coefficient, 165 Ginowan, 289 glamost, 77

global currency system, 219 global economic system and China, 357 global market access, 62 global order and justice, 27 Green, 28 global restructuring, 62 global system, conceptualisation, 61 global warming and China, 190 globalisation of economies and spread of technologies, 70 globalised economy, 58 GLOBE (Global Leaders for a Balanced Environment), 154 Golden Triangle, Korea, 337 Goodpaster. Andrew J., 67 Gore, Al, 153, 372 governance, international, 52 GPS (Global Positioning System), 108 Gramsci, 27 grassroots movements, 303 Great Britain, 183

defence role in Southeast Asia, 382 Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, 35 Green Parties, Germany, 157 Greenspan, Alan, 59 Guam, 94,' 292 Guidelines, revisions of Guidelines in Japan, 52 Guinea, 198 Gulf of Siam, gas discovery, 277 Gulf War, 44, 52, 128, 175, 235, 293 Guomindang, 186 Hainan Island, 203 Hallstein doctrine, 331 Hamaji, 198 Hamburg Institute of Asian Affairs, 326 Hashimoto, Ryutaro, 322 Hashimoto-Clinton statement in April 1996, 238 Hawaii, 94 HCNM (High Commissioner on National Minorities), 440 hegemon, regional, 26 hegemonic stability, 46 hegemony cultural, 24 Gramscian, 25 US, 42, 62 Heilongjiang, 165, 344 Helsinki Document of 1992, 435 Helsinki Final Act, 442 of the CSCE, 429 Heng Samrin, 385 HEU, 83, 87 hierarchy in Asia, 51 Higa Tetsuya, 290 Hirose Katsuya, 264 Hiroshima and Nagasaki, 85 historians, 45 Ho Chi Minh, 417 Hong, Joo-bo Hong, 320 Hong Kong, 188 and Asian crisis, 215 return to Chinese sovereignty, 357 wrong forecasts for, 364 Hoseini, 198 Hu Angang, 202 Huai River Basin Pollution Control Project, 150 Hubei Urban Environment Project, 150 Human Development Report, 165

INDEX

Human Poverty Index, 165 human rights, 220, 428. 433 Hun Sen, 212 Huntington, Samuel, 173 Hwang Jang-yop, 332 hydroelectric power China, 194 IAEA, 314, 321, 327 opposition by North Korea to inspections, 92 IAEA agreements 1992, 92 ICBM, 66 ICOR (incremental capital/output ratio), 169 ideologies, Asian, 24 ideology in post war Japan, 258 IEA, 343 Iejima, 291 IMF, 3L 54, 57, 220 and Asian crisis, 215 International Monetary Fund, 25, 421 predictions, 42 IMF system, 210 imperial overstretch, 34 imperialism, 134 Western, 24 India. 40, 47, 67, 113. 139, 170, 181, 232, 386, 400 as emerging great country, 360 China policy, 55 China's war with, 178 Indian-Pakistan conflict, Kashmir, 228 India-Pakistan nuclear arms race, 70 Indonesian Biodiversity Conservation Programme, 153 Information Age, 375 infrastructure, China, 168 insurgencies, 21 integration in Asia Pacific, 50 international community, 388 International Conference on Kampuchea, 386 International Court of Justice, 67 International Energy Resources Organisation, 372 international law, China's view, 399 international order, dominated by US, 363 International Political Economy, 61 international relations, system of, 45 International Science and Technology Centre (ISTC), 90 international system, 22 in East Asia, 51

453

Internet and nuclear proliferation, 91 investment, excessive, in China, 168 investment-export correlation, 210 Iran, 95, 112, 183, 190, 191, 200, 204 and North Korea, 95 relations with Japan, 95 Iraq, 88, 112, 183, 198 IRBM, 102 Irkutsk gas fields, 201 Ishihara Shintaro, 268 Islamic countries, 190 Islamic states, 180 Ismail, Razali, 233 Ismailovo Park, 120 Israel, 67 Israeli-Palestinian question, 183 Italy, 233 JAEC (Japan Atomic Energy Commission), 311 Japan active nuclear fuel cycle programme, 311 anti-Japanese feelings, 272 Asia policy, 54 Basic Policy of National Defence 1957, 263 Defence Guidelines 1978 and 1997, 263 defence philosophy, 263 defence policies and principles, 255 direct investment and regional stability, 270 economic security, 270 Fourth Defence Build-up Plan, 263 gross domestic product, compare with China, 175 in the Security Council, 226 International Peace Co-operation law, 236 KB-note, 264 Kibanteki Boeiryoku, 264 moral burden, 44 multilateral diplomacy, 235 National Defence Programme Outline 1976 and 1996, 263 Networks in Southeast Asia, 270 New Defence Guidelines, 238 New Guidelines, 360 ODA, 271 pacifist constitution, 259 passive defence concept (shokyokuteki na boei koso), 266 PKO participation, 236

454

INDEX

production networks in Southeast Asia, 286 regional role, 226 transfer of management techniques, 278 transfer of technology processes, 278 US bases, 293, 304 Japan Atomic Energy Commission, 323 Japan Atomic Industrial Forum, 323 Japan Small Business Corporation, 272 Japan Socialist Party, 304 Japan Tropical Action Network, 145 Japan-China relations and environment, 151 Japanese Export-Import Bank, 279 Japan-US Summit Conference 1996, 302

JETRO, 272 history, 283 Jiang Zemin, speech at Harvard University, 369 Jiang Zemin 1996 visits to India, Pakistan, Nepal, 113 visit to the US in 1997, 357

JICA Japanese International Co-operation Agency, 277 jishu-boei, 256, 263 Jiulong-2, 107

Johnston, Alastair Iain, 105 Joyo, 311 juche, 336 Kadena Air Base, 292 Kanemaru Shin, 294 Kantor, 27 Kashmir, 228 Kathmandu Process, 229 Kazakh Republic of the Soviet Union, 204 Kazakhstan, 67, 72, 198 co-operation on oil with China, 204 Kazakhstan Oil Company, 199 Kazbek, 76

KEDO, 228, 314, 336 Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organisation, 97 keiretsu, 27, 287

Kennan, George, 64 Kennedy, Paul, 33 KFEM (Korean Federation for Environmental Movement), 145 Khmer Rouge, 385 Kiko Forum, 145

Kim Dae-Jung, 238, 328 Kim Il-Sung, 326 Kimjong-H, 97, 326 Kim Young Sam, 328, 333 Kissinger, Henry, 363 KMT (Kuomintang), 186 Kobikchenskoe, 200 Korea Four Party Peace Talks, 44 North and South joining UN, 226 Korea Electric Power Company, 320 Korea Worker's Party, 327 Korea-Japan Agreement on Environmental Co-operation, 152 Korean denuclearisation, Joint Declaration of the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula 1991, 92 Korean unification, 325 Korean War, 43, 134 Kosovo, 428 Koza Riot, 292 Krugman, Paul R., 64 Kubo Takuya, 263 Kuril Islands, 134 Kurop-to, 313 Kuwait, 199 KWP (Korea Worker's Party), 327 dissolution, 337 Kyongsang province, 335 Kyoto Conference, 145 1997, 31 Kyoto Conference 1997, 139 labour unrest, China, 164 Laem Chabang, 277 land reforms, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, 167 Lanzhou, 314 laser arms, 118 late preventive diplomacy, 435 Latin America, 47 Latvia, 73 LDP, 273 leadership regional by Germany and Japan, 57 US, 59 Lee Teng-hui, 186 visit to US, 373 legal system, China, 168 Li Lanqing, 200 Li Peng, 352, 372 visit to Kazakhstan, 200 liberal conception of economic materialism, 31

INDEX

Liberal Paradigm, 36 Libya, 95 light-water reactors, 97 limited deterrence, China, 105 Lisbon Summit December 1996, 444 LNG (liquid natural gas), 197 Look East policy, 278, 286 LSD, 119 Luhmann, systems theory, 240 Lyaki, 73 Maastricht conditions, 333 Maastricht Treaty, 157, 181 Macao, 188 MacArthur, 260 MAD, 21 Mafia, 434 Mahathir, M., 54, 286 Mahathir, support for Japanese UNSC membership, 237 Malacca Oil Field, 197 Malaysian State Company, 197 Manila Declaration on South China Sea, 396 market democracy, 45 market economy, socialist market economy, 63 market mechanism, 44 market rationality, 58 marketisation, failing, 64 markets and justice, 59 freedom of speculation, 58 market-type reforms, 163 Matsumoto, 117 Matsumoto Jqji, 261 Maturana, 244 Mayak, 83 Mekong Basin development, 274 Mekong River delta development project, 230 mercantilism, 62 Mexico, 48 MFN (Most-Favoured Nation), 177 Mi-1 7 helicopter, 117 middle class, 29 middle classes, 46 Eastern Europe, Asia, Latin America, 57 Middle East, 197 European policy, 183 Mikhaylov, V., 72 militarism, 250 Japan, 123

455

military strength, China, 176 military-technological revolution, 26 MINATOM, 72, 82, 90 minorities China, 192 Chinese in Southeast Asia, 388 High Commissioner on National Minorities, 432 minority groups, 428 MIRV, 104 Mischief Reef, 179 missile tests, China near Taiwan, 186 missiles China, 176 Japan, 176 MITI, 275, 283 Green Aid Plan, 151 Mitsubishi Motors, 286 Mochizuki, Mike, 303 model the US as model, 63 models in politics and economics, 61 Mongolia, 205, 229 Mongolian Fuel, Geology and Mining Ministry, 201 Monju, 311 Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, 146 Moody's, predictions, 42 MOX (Mixed Fuel Rods), 121 MTCR (Missile Technology Control Regime), 112 Mukatchevo, 73 multilateral dialogues, 51 multilateral diplomacy, Japan, 235 multilateral engagement of China, 397 multilateral negotiations, South China Sea, 380 multilateralisation, 416 multilateralism, 56, 230, 399 multinational corporations, 26 multipolarity in Asia, 225 multi-sided war of sabotage, Vietnam, 412 Murai, Hideo, member of Aum, 115 Murayama, Tomiichi, 116 Murmansk, 84 mustard gas, 292 Mutual Assured Destruction, 21 mutual security, Vietnam, 409 Mutually Assured Destruction MAD, 42 Mutually Assured Instability, 40

456

INDEX

MAI, 42 Myanmar, 202 NAC, 218 NACC (North Atlantic Co-operation Council), 182 Nago, 289 Nakanishi Terumasa, 266 Nakasone cabinets, 271 Nakasone Yasuhiro, 272 Fourth Defence Build-up Plan, 263 NAM (Non Aligned Movement), 227 Nansha islands, 203 Narita Airport, 303 nation building in Southeast Asia, 380 National Oil Company of Saudi Arabia, 201 nationalism, Korean, 340 nation-state abolition of, 47 weakening of, 303 nation-state system, 28 NATO, 7, 43. 44, 67, 72, 77, 82, 90, 110, 134, 181, 182, 183, 192, 235. 264, 383, 401, 437, 441, 442, 443, 444 military doctrines, 182 natural gas, China, 194 navigational security, 206 Nazarbayev, 200, 204 Nazarbayev, Nursultan, 73 Nemtsov, 200 neo-classical economists, 163 neo-classical market economy, 220 Nepal, 113 Nerlich, Uwe, 120 Network of Aquaculture Centres in Asia and the Pacific, 155 networks, 243 New Deal, 64 Newly Industrialising Economies, 22 NGO, 153 Nguyen Manh Cam, 410 NIEs, 22, 208 Nihonjinron, 256 Nixon visit to China, 185 Nodong-1, 93, 94, 95, 128 Nodong-2, 94 Non-Aligned Movement, 227 non-governmental actors, 428 non-governmental organisations, 143, 153, 158 non-linearity, 243 non-nuclear principles, Japan, 121, 250

non-nuclear status, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, 91 non-nuclear weapon status, Japan, 121 non-proliferation policy, US, two-tier policy, 313 non-state issues, 362, 371 Nordpolitik, 328 North, countries of the rich, 22 North Korea, 88, 325 and nuclear brain drain, 88 attack on South Korea, 228 embassy in Germany, 326 food situation, 336 missile programmes, 92 NPT inspections, 97 nuclear ambitions, 91 nuclear policy, 314 plan to attack South Korea 1975, 92 rockets, 55 US-North Korea Principle Guidance on the Military Doctrine of the Russian Federation' in November 1993, 97 Norwegian missile, Russian alert, 77 Novaya Zemlya, 73 NPT, 228, 314 extension, 107 Japanese ratification, 121 North Korean membership, 92 North Korean withdrawal, 92 nuclear archipelago, 73 arms register, 131 arms race in South Asia, 96 control, triple key system, 76 co-operation, regional, 320 co-operation, 317 emergency search, US Energy Department, 120 energy and environment, 139 energy, civilian and military use, 70 energy programme. South Korea, 312 exports, control system China, 112 forces of China, 101 control and security measures, 431 fuel cycle, 309 fuel cycle programme, 311 initiatives 1991 in Korea, 92 material, theft of, 86 power, 69 principles, four n.p. of Japan, 127 proliferation, 66 reactors dumped in the sea, 85

INDEX

retaliation, 67 safety, 309 Nuclear Safety Commission of Korea, 322 nuclear strategy China, 105 ' Russia, Principle Guidance on the Military Doctrine of the Russian Federation' in November 1993, 79 US, 1997 and 1981, 66 nuclear submarine, sinking of, 85 technology, China, for electricity generation, 190 terrorism. 120 Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of 1963, Partial NPT, 125 nuclear test explosions, India and Pakistan, 228 threats North Korea against Japan 1996, 96 threshold states, 125 umbrella, US, 70 umbrella for Japan, 125 waste, 309 Code of Practice on the International Transboundary Movement of Radioactive Waste, 315 Taiwan, 100 Taiwanese shipment to North Korea, 145 waste management, 314 weapons. China, 176 command and control. 68 nuclear-free zone in Northeast Asia, 71 NVVFZ (Nuclear Weapon-Free Zones). 127 Nye Initiative. 302 Nye, Joseph, 302. 415 ODA and comprehensive security. 274 Japan. 271 to Vietnam, 416 ODA Charter. Japan 1992, 151 ODIHIR (Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights), 440 OECD, 162 OECF, 275 in Thailand, 276 Ogasawara. 409 Ohira, 271 Ohira cabinet. 49

457

oil, China, 194 oil crises of 1973 and 1978, 307 oil production in Central Asia, 190 oil resources, China, 189 oil shock of 1973, 156 Okazaki Hisahiko, 266 Okinawa and Vietnam War, 292 Battle of Okinawa, 291 Committee for Okinawa's return to the Homeland, 293 North Korean ability to strike, 94 rape of school girl by US Marines, 295 reversion to Japan, 291 role in defence strategy, 289 self-government, 292 Okinawa Crisis 1996, 289 Oksenberg, Michel, 186 Open Skies Treaty, 441, 443 order ecological, 23 globalist, 23 periphery-centre, 23 state-centric, realist paradigm, 23 Organisation of African Unity, conflict management, 433 OSCE (Organisation on Security and Co-operation in Europe). 134, 427, 429 Ostpolitik, 331 Ozawa Ichiro, 274 Ozawa Ichiro, 268 ozone depletion, 136 P5 (Permanent Members of the Security Council), 230 PACATOM. 127 PACIFICATOM, 317 pacifism, 247, 250 Japan, 121 Pakistan, 40, 47, 67, 95. 96. 112. 113. 170, 181. 190, 191 Papua New Guinea. 198 Paracel Islands, 389, 395 paradigm, dual-use, 268 paradigms of world order, 23 Patriot missile. 99 Pax Americana, 25. 220 Pax Britannica, 220

Pax Nipponica, 35 Pax Sinica, 35 Pax Sovietica. 25 peaceful evolution, 412. 420

458

INDEX

peace-keeping doctrines, 182 people's war, China, 105 Perimetr, 76

periphery, 21, 26 Periphery, East Asia, 23 Petrovietnam, 393 PICES (Convention Establishing a Marine Scientific Organisation for the North Pacific Region), 155 Pinghu gas field, 203 PKO, 226 Chinese participation, 234 Japanese participation, 227, 245 PLA (People's Liberation Army), 104, 41 Plant Protection Agreement for the Asia and Pacific Region, 155 plutonium, 83, 87 North Korea, 327 reprocessing and civilian use, 310 shipment from France to Japan, 311 weapon grade, 176 Pol Pot, 385 Polanyi, K., 64 political economy, 21 global, 26 pollution, 135 popular culture, 62 Porter, Gareth, 407 Post-Cold War, 22 postmodernist theory, 48 poverty, 57 fight against in Europe and Japan, 42 Human Poverty Index, 165 struggle against, 40 Pramoedja Ananta Toer, 275 preventive diplomacy, 434 Primorski Krai, 86 private, 62 privatisation, 45 China, 168 proliferation challenge of Soviet nuclear legacy, 71 dangerous technologies, 431 proliferation challenge, 71 proliferation network Pakistan-North Korea, 96 property rights, 428 Protocol for the Prevention of Pollution of the South Pacific Region by Dumping, 155 public, 62 Q-fever, 117 Qian, Qichen, 368

radioactive waste, 85 RAINS-Asia model, 150 Rajin, 326 Reagan, 66 realism, political, 241 Realist Paradigm, 33 realist theorists, 56 realist theory, 52 realist/neorealist, 423 regime, special legal regime (EEZ), 391 regional conflicts, 21 regional currency, 26 regional order in the Asia Pacific, 225 Regional Order and Great Powers, 35 regional war, preparation for, Vietnam, 412 regionalism and Korean unification, 335 register of nuclear arms, 131 religion, 32, 116, 253 religious sects, 115 Rengo, 297 Rengo Okinawa, 298 resource related disputes, 141 resources, competition for, 188 restructuring in Europe, 63 Rio Conference 1992, 31 Rodong 1, 327 rogue countries, 191 rogue states, 46, 87 Roh Tae-Woo, 333 Rokkasho-mura, 311 rural communes, China, 166 Russett, 232 Russia, 40, 197, 229, 400, 443 and START, 66 National Security Concept 1997, 80 nuclear brain drain, 89 peace treaty with Japan, 135 restructuring, 63 Russia's Strategic Nuclear Armed Forces, 71 Russia's Strategic Nuclear Forces, 75 Russian Far East, 140 Russian-Soviet empire, 43 Sakata, Japanese Defence Agency Chief, 264 Samuels, Richard J., 257 SANWFZT, 384 Sarin, 115, 117, 118, 119, 131, 292 Saryshagan, 73 satellites, export to China, 177 SBDB (Small Business Development Bureau), 278

INDEX

Scud-B, North Korea, Egypt, 92 Scud-C, 93 sea lane security, 205 sea lanes, 181, 170 SEANWFZ 1995 (South East Asian Nuclear Weapon Free Zone), 68, 33 SEATO, 21 secured insecurities, 380 security, non-military security. 262 Security Council, 25, 28, 230, 31 Brazilian membership, 234 Japanese membership, 273 membership for Japan and Germany, 233 Security Council reform, 225 ASEAN Foreign Ministers' declaration, 237 membership for India, Pakistan, Indonesia, 237 Open Ended Working Group on the Question of Equitable Representation . . ., 232 security regimes, 396 security treaties, US-Japan, 250 self-referential social systems, 242 self-reliance, Vietnam, 411 Senegal, 230 Senkaku islands (Diaoyu lieyu), 203 Senkaku Islands Diaoyu lieyu, 51 Diaoyutai, 179 Sevastopol, 73 Shahab missile, 98 Shanghai Communique, 185 Shengli Oil field, 201 Shidehara Kijuro, 260 Siberia, 197 ' Silk Road, 190 Singapore Declaration, 213 Sino-Soviet rift in the 1960s, 225 Sino-US nuclear co-operation agreement, 364 Skrunda, 73 SLBM, 66 SME (Small and medium sized enterprises), 278 Smith, Adam, 220 SMSIDC (Small and Medium Sized Industries Development Corporation), 278 socialism, 21 socialist bloc, aid to Vietnam, 412 Soman, 117 Sonbong, 326

459

Soros, George, 38, 58 South, countries of the poor, 22 South Africa, 67 South China Sea, 111, 178, 238, 389 and multinationals, 393 Asean Declaration on the South China Sea, 179 communication security, 394 conflict management, 395 environmental protection, 393 fishing, 390 food, energy, environmental, communication security and, 390 mineral resources, 391 Southeast Asian Approach, 379 South Korea, nuclear waste storage, 314 Southeast Asia arms race, 399 perceptions of Japan, 275 Southeast Asia Nuclear Weapons Free Zone Treaty, 384 Southeast Asian economies interdependence with Japan, 272 Southeast Asian Nuclear Weapon Free Zone, 33 sovereign power, 47 Soviet nuclear forces, 71 Soviet Union, 172 August-putsch 1991, 74 collapse, 22, 408, 40 collapse and nuclear button, 74 Special Economic Zone, North Korea, 337 special economic zones, China, 166 special economic zones, China and North Korea, 326 Spencer-Brown, George, 240 Spetsnaz, 117 SPNFZT, 155 SPNWFZ (South Pacific Nuclear Weapon Free Zone), 68 Spratly Islands, 134, 179, 393, 395. 422 START-I, 66 START-I and -II, 86 START-II, 66 START-III, 66, 72, 110 START-IV, 111 state, developmental, 24 state enterprises in China, 41 state-owned enterprises, China, 162 state-run enterprises, 217 states and their personality, 61

460

INDEX

Stockholm Conference, 157 strategic balance, global, 26 strategic culture, 242 Sudan, 197 Sugi Michisuke, 283 Suharto government, 382 sulphur dioxides, 138 sunshine-policy, 328 supercomputers, export to China, 111 sustainable development, 372 Sverdlovsk, 119 Sweden, 326 systemic predictability, 45 T-72, 117 Tabun, 117 TAC (Treaty of Amity and Co-operation), 397 Taepo Dong-2, 94 Taepo-dong-I, 94, 95 Taipovver, 315 Taiwan arms export to, 181 nuclear waste storage, 314 UN membership, 230 and China, relations overview, 184 crises 1995 and 1996, 52 issue, 373 missile crisis, 129 Taiwan Relations Act, 184 Taiwan Strait, military exercises 1995, 373 Taiwan's admission to the United Nations European Parliament resolution, 187 Takagi Jinzaburo, 312 Takayanagi Kenzo, 260 Takeshima (Tokto) Islands, 179 Takeshita cabinet, 271 Taliban, 228 Tanaka Kakuei, visit to Bangkok, 272 Tarara oil field, 197 tariki hongan, 266 Tarim Basin. 195 TBM, 128 tech-nationalism. 258 Tengis oil field, 204 territorial disputes, 134, 421 territorial issues, China, 179 terrorism, 114, 117. 119, 120 bioterrorism, 121 terrorist, 8. 70. 73. 87. 114, 115, 116. 117. 119, 120. 126, 131 terrorists, 73, 87 Thai Eastern Seaboard Project, 276

Thailand, 198 Theatre Missile Defence, 52 theory of communication, 243 theory of evolution, 243 threat concepts, 415 threats, definitions of, 57 Three Gorges Dam, 139 Tiananmen Incident, 40 Tiananmen Square massacre, 153, 186 Tibet in US China relations, 364 TLE (treaty limited equipment), 441 TMD, 101, 109. 128 Tokai-mura, 311 Tokto Islands (Takeshima), 179 Tokuchi Masahiro, 297 Tokushu Ginko, 279 Tokushu Hojin, 279 Tokyo Conference on Nuclear Safety in Asia, 322 Ton Du Jyong, 296 Toyota Astra Motors factor}'. 275 Tran Quang Co, 410, 417 transparency military, 434 of financial markets, 58 Treaty of Rarotonga 1985 SPNWFZ, 68 Treaty of Rome, 156 trilateralism, 58 truth serum, 119 Tu-16 'Badger', 102 Tu-22 'Backfire', 102 Tumen River, 326, 337 Tumen River programme, 229 Turkey, 183 Turkmenistan, 200 two Chinas, 1 34 Ukraine, 67. 72, 444 Umetsu Hiroyuki, 258 UN Charter, Article 43, 236 UN Regional Centre for Peace & Disarmament in Asia Kathmandu Process, 229 UNCED (United Nations Conference on Environment and Development), 157. 149 UNCLOS (United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea). 395 UNCLOS III (Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea:. 391 UNDP (United Nations Development Programme). 229

INDEX

unemployment and inequality, China, 169 China, 162 United Arab Emirates, 199 United Nations, 437 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in 1992, 145 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, 149, 156 United Nations Conferences on the Law of the Sea, 1960 and 1982, 395 United Nations Register of Conventional Arms, 229 UNROCA (United Nations Register of Conventional Arms), 229 UNTAC (UN Transitional Authority in Cambodia), 226, 227 uranium, 87, 118, 121, 310, 313 urbanisation, 137 US 1998 Trade Policy Agenda, 48 as market for China, 365 global strategy, 47 "Energy Star" eco-labeling programmes, 153 deficit in trade with China, 365 US Japan defence co-operation, 360 world view, 184 US-China relations, 357 US-Japan Environmental Executive Leadership Conference, 153 US-Japan Regional Security Agreement, 295 USSR, collapse, 443 Uzensk oil field, 204 values American, 24 Asian, 24 Confucian, 24 Van dc Velde, James R., 259 Vancouver, 443 Venezuela. 198 Vietnam concept of security, 405 unification, 407 Vietnam embargo, lifting of by US, 393 Vietnam War, 134, 147, 49 and Okinawa, 292 virtual arsenals, 78 Vladivostok. 443

461

VTE (Village and Township Enterprises), 351 Vu Khoan, 420 VX, 117 Waltz, Kenneth, 52 wangdao, 220

wars of independence, 134 Warsaw Pact, dissolution, 443 Warsaw Treaty Organisation, 441 WEU (Western European Union), 181. 401 Whitney, 261 WHO (World Health Organisation), 226 WMD (weapons of mass destruction), 46 Woollacott, Martin, 183 World Bank, 25, 31, 150 World Health Organisation, 137 World Human Rights Declaration in China-US joint communique, 374 World Oil Conference, 198 world order, 21, 22, 29 alternative, 28 competing paradigms, 29 International Organisation-centred. 28 liberal, 29 radical Green, 30 realist model, 29 UN-centred, 28 World War II, 134 WTO admission by China and Taiwan, 188 China's accession, 163, 177, 51 China's membership, 229 delay in China joining, 217 Taiwan accession, 60 Wu Bangguo, visit to Myanmar, 202 Wu Yi, 367 WW II, 258 Xinjiang, 204 Yaichcng gas field, 203 Yangtze River, 139 Yeltsin, 200, 444 Yeltsin and nuclear control, 74 yen adjustment of weak, 218 as regional currency, 26 Yerefeev, Oleg, 85

462 Yomitan, 291 Yongbyon, 98 Yoshida-Dulles negotiations, 258 Yuan (China), 215 yuan (Chinese currency), devaluation, 41 Yugoslavia, 183, 330, 443 Yunnan province, 202

INDEX Zangger Committee (NPT Exporters Committee), 113 Zhou Lukuan, 164 Zhou Yongkang, 200 Zhu Liru, 400 Zimbabwe, 387 ZOPFAN (Zone of Peace, Freedom and Neutrality), 383

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