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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