Focus on confidence-building steps

By Amit Baruah

HANOI, JULY 25. The ASEAN Regional Forum today called for greater bilateral, regional and international cooperation to fight transnational crimes such as piracy, terrorism, illegal migration, drug trafficking, money- laundering and cyber crime.

The Forum, whose session continued throughout the day, emphasised that ``confidence-building'' was essential to and remained the foundation and main thrust of the ARF process.

While acknowledging the overlap between confidence-building measures (CBMs) and preventive diplomacy, the ARF, clearly, wants that primacy be given to the CBM process.

Several ARF countries, including China and India, are against putting too much stress on preventive diplomacy in this multilateral forum.

(The Chinese Foreign Minister, Mr. Tang Jiaxuan, in his statement before the ARF, said: ``....given the diverse political, economic and security concern in the region, we believe that the Forum should retain its nature as a political and diplomatic forum and still focus on confidence-building....'')

Interestingly, the ARF Chairman's statement (prepared by Vietnam in that capacity) did not directly refer to the U.S. proposal of National Missile Defence (NMD). However, the Chinese and the Russians referred to the issue and the U.S. Secretary of State, Gen. Colin Powell, explained to member nations the U.S. proposals.

The Chairman's statement said: ``The Ministers shared the view that on the whole, the situation in the Asia-Pacific region remained relatively stable. The Ministers noted that despite certain challenges and uncertainties, and differences in political and strategic perceptions, the (Asia-Pacific) region continues to enjoy peace and stability.

''The Ministers acknowledged the importance of peaceful and stable relations between major powers as key to regional peace and security, and believed that the major powers would continue their efforts to improve and develop their relations so as to contribute to the maintenance of peace and stability in the region.``

The Chairman's statement said that members discussed issues relating to ''proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery as well as the implications of missile defence systems``. ''They noted expressions of support for the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) as the cornerstone of the global non-proliferation regime. The Ministers also took note of the call for all States to sign and ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and to accede to the NPT. The Ministers urged all States to maintain existing moratoria on nuclear testing,`` it said, referring to issues of relevance to India.

On Fiji, the members noted the situation prevailing there and expressed the hope for a positive outcome to the elections to be held in the Pacific island nation in August.

As expected, the ARF Ministers welcomed the election of the Indonesian President, Ms. Megawati Sukarnoputri. ''The Ministers expressed the hope that this orderly and peaceful transition would lead to political stability and accelerated economic recovery in Indonesia.....``

The ARF meeting also adopted papers on the enhanced role of the ARF Chair and on preventive diplomacy.

In his address, the Chinese Foreign Minister, Mr. Tang Jiaxuan, said following a period of difficulties, Sino-U.S. relations, which capture universal attention, had recently been ''on the way to improvement``.

''The Chinese side attaches importance to its relations with the U.S. It welcomes a positive, constructive role of the U.S. in the Asia-Pacific region and is ready to work with the U.S. side to maintain peace and security in the Asia-Pacific region.``

Mr. Tang also pointed to the existence of certain destabilising factors. ''The economies of South-East Asia are yet to emerge completely from the shadow of the financial crisis that at present face some new difficulties. Trans-national problems have also become more prominent, posing a new threat to regional security.

``Insistence on developing missile defence programme will upset global strategic equilibrium, undermine regional peace and stability and adversely affect international arms control and non-proliferation process and will do no good to trust and cooperation between countries,'' said the Chinese Minister.

``The Cold War is over. The security we seek is mutual. Security built upon other countries' sense of insecurity can neither be stable not last long. The ARF has been able to bring us all together precisely because it pursues common security for the entire region.''

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