Regional Conflict Management

Asia-Pacific is a Cold War era par préférence. This means that previous conflicts have had a strong element of external superpower intervention in accordance with the Cold War pattern. This situation is now changing quite dramatically, and more traditional rivalries are resurging, more similar to a 19th century Europe-type situation. The larger Asia-Pacific "region" (or rather geographical area) was most affected by the Cold War, and the recent lifting of the superpower overlay therefore has created a kind of vacuum and a great uncertainty in the security field. Several powers (great powers and middle powers) have more or less open regional ambitions, which must be related to turbulent and highly unpredictable domestic situations in the countries concerned. Regarding the China-Japan relation, Barry Buzan has made an interesting comparison with the role of restless Germany, now played by China, in 19th century Europe, whereas the British role as the global power fully satisfied with the status quo is played by Japan (Buzan 1996). The avoidance of a replay of this drama is obviously necessary for regional peace. Korean unification is another key to real regional cooperation. Considering the economic superiority of South Korea and the political lag in North Korea, such a reunion may take different forms: war, a spontaneous process of the German type (an "Anschluss") or a more organized path through preparatory negotiations. Regional conflict management is thus an important step towards further regionalization. At the same time the overall regional framework for conflict resolution is weak, hardly existing in East Asia, and so far confined to one of the two subregions in South-East Asia.

Stable peace in the larger region would change the basic parameters for the way ASEAN operates at present. As the superpowers pull out, old rivalries are emerging, at the same time as the objective preconditions for a cooperation encompassing the whole region in the longer run are improving. This trend will be reinforced by great power ambitions in the larger Asia-Pacific area, where South-East Asia is sandwiched between East Asian (China, Japan) and South Asian (India) regional powers. There is a strong feeling of encirclement and external penetration in the South-East Asian region, coexisting with a tradition of reliance on external security support. Somehow this contradiction must be overcome.

The Cambodian conflict has been of major concern for the ASEAN countries, and has been compared to a "Bosnia" in the region (FEER, 27 May 1993). The history goes much further back, actually to the Viet Nam war. The ultra-leftist Khmer Rouge regime pursued an extreme autarkic line which included the physical elimination of urban ("cosmopolitan") elements. The first intervention was of the unilateral (neighbourly) kind. The Vietnamese intervention led to a sharp polarization both at the regional and the global level. In 1991, when the Soviet veto had disappeared from international decision-making, an agreement in the Security Council (permanent five) on the "framework for a comprehensive settlement of the Cambodia conflict" was reached and the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC) was created. This, the largest UN operation so far, was the beginning of the peace process and included a democratic election. The non-participation of the Khmer Rouge in the elections fueled the fears that the guerrillas planned a division of the country. However, their political strength was much less than generally expected. They had become "rebels without a cause" (Theyer 1995). The turnout of the voters, on the other hand, was much larger than expected and was a triumph for the UN. The operation gave an opportunity for Japan to participate in a large international operation, probably indicating a more far-going security interest in the region. For Cambodia several question marks remain, above all the question of how the Khmer Rouge may rejoin the national community and on what conditions. Only when this problem has found a solution, is it possible to talk about real conflict resolution. So far this is rather a case of multilateral conflict management with a strong regional component. Cambodia has strongly declared its intention to become a member of ASEAN, and this co-optation (which can be compared to the inclusion of Greece, Spain and Portugal in the EEC) is also seen by the regional organization as a stabilizing measure. Whether this implies the survival of democracy (particularly of the kind imposed by the UN) remains to be seen (Öjendal 1996b).

Date: 2015-01-11; view: 897