By Benny YP Siahaan
I recently attended the Asia Society’s seminar in New York titled “Securing Peace in Asia: Time to Build an Asia-Pacific Community?” The topic was very intriguing with a list of speakers who are distinguished in their respective fields, such as Marty Natalegawa, former Indonesian Foreign Minister and Thomas Donilon, former Deputy US National Security Adviser. The seminar was chaired by Kevin Rudd who currently presided over the Asia Society Policy Institute in New York.
In essence the seminar was discussing whether it the time is ripe to establish the Asia Pacific Community (APC) in view of the worrisome recent development in the region’s flashpoints, notably the South China Sea and North Korean Peninsula, among others. According to Rudd, the worrying trend of peace and security in the region should be anticipated early and the region could not afford to wait for a World War to happen first, like Europe before they established the European Steel and Coal Community (ESCS) and European Economic Community (EEC).
While the speakers and the chair tend to agree on the idea of establishing such an institution with a possibility of taking ASEAN and East Asia Community (EAS) as the model of departure, the larger questions regarding the practicality and urgency of establishing APC remain at large to the audience, including me. It is easily guessed that Kevin Rudd is the main force behind this seminar as he has incessantly been selling the concept since 2008, since he was Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Australia, up to the present. He envisioned that such a mechanism would be established by 2020. If it is established APC will be the biggest regional mechanism since it will comprise 60 percent of the world's population.
The quest for world order and effective international cooperation seems to be becoming increasingly sought after in recent years due to the shift of global geopolitical and geoeconomy, characterized by anarchical world politics particularly after the Cold War, and compounded by the rise of emerging powers like India and notably China as a potential superpower and its increasingly assertive behavior.
Theoretically this condition more likely fits as described by International Relations (IR) theorist Kenneth Waltz on anarchic structure of world politics, in which he argued that when it comes to the study of international politics (state interactions) it’s about how to conceive of an order without an orderer and of organizational effects where formal organization is lacking. Hence, the deficiency of a world authoritative body, trust and cooperation that supposedly arises from a condition of anarchic self-help is considered to be the basis of sovereign world politics.
This, multilaterally, can be seen from the failure of the UN to address major conflicts and failures of other multilateral institution like the World Trade Organization who failed to achieve a major round since replacing GATT in 1994. The World Bank, IMF, and Asian Development Bank also waned in its control and legitimacy while China and BRICS countries established parallel institutions like the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and New Development Bank (NDB) respectively. On the other hand, local conflicts tend to multiply.
In this anarchical world politics, the immediate logical question is why are states not always at war with one another if there is no authoritative power to respect and obey? Waltz argued that while anarchy is somewhat vulnerable to war, the self-help structure that arises between states coerces them to balance against one another and avert war at all times if possible, largely due to its devastating consequences, or in Marty Natalegawa’s words, it is “dynamic equilibrium” that ensures order. This may partly explain that although the Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT) has so far failed to address the discrimination between nuclear and non-nuclear states, the concept of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) is widely accepted among the nuclear power countries to prevent the next World War due to its mutual annihilating consequences. But it has produced proxy local military conflicts including the recent ones such as in Crimea and the Middle East.
Instead, since there is no authoritative body or country that keeps countries safe from one another and they cannot fully rely on the cooperation of other states, Waltz argues that states should exert their maximum capacity to ensure their survival. This involves building up their military capabilities, alliance-building and intelligence. In that regard, in the last decade we have seen the biggest military buildup in history in the Asia Pacific region; even the NSA’s PRISM clandestine surveillance program of foreign nationals and leaders is part of this context.
Nonetheless, although many consider anarchical world politics to be an issue that needs to be addressed, few think it is possible. Even worse, some consider the international anarchy as a fact of life, and even somewhat a “norm”.
Hence, although we have seen that the media and commentators seem to portray that there is a tendency of China to challenge the US’s dominance in military, political and financial/economic fronts, hence possibly creating an impression that there is possible split or conflict between China and the US in the region, I think we should not be too anxious since the rise of China is a fact and we have to accept that China is now a US balancer in the region. The most important thing is to keep both superpowers from opting for a zero sum game, which I think is also unlikely anyway.
Indonesia as a middle power may seek a role in bridging these two great powers.
Against this backdrop, the issue of whether we need an Asia Pacific Community has become less relevant in this regard. As long as there is a dynamic equilibrium serving to build trust among each other through dialog within existing mechanisms in the region (ASEAN, EAS, etc.), any new mechanism will need to be thoroughly scrutinized for its merits.
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