ASEAN must review its non-interfere (r)

[cylin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

On  4 Sep 97 at 8:29, thawma@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:


> Thawma'88
I would like to echo Thawma's views that the Asean must review its so-called 
non-interference policy. The following is an article written by Gerald Segal, 
the senior fellow of the International Institute for Strategic Studies on the 
Annyal Report of 1996 Economist (pp. 65-66). Segal gave a very good 
explanation on how the Asia countries insist their so-called non-interference 
policy. 


Chau-Yi Lin at Taiwan
-------------------------------------
An un-Pacific Asia

Gerald Segal
(Gerald Segal: Senior Fellow at the International Institute for 
Strategic Studies and director of Britain's Pacific Asia Programe.)

The collective confidence of East Asia is due for some tough knocks 
in the remaining years of this century.  The inability of Asia's many 
successful economies to ward off the old tensions of ethnicity, 
power and undermocratic politics will become increasingly clear and, 
therefore, worrying. East Asia is reminiscent of 19th-century Europe: 
its sovereign nations have strong ideas of self-interest but little 
idea of how to resolve these interests when they come into conflict 
with eath other.

The worries to come in 1996 can be traced to the tremors of 1995. 
Take, for example, the nasty and futile dispute between the United 
States and Japan over trade. That is a mere precursor to a wider 
problem: the need for the two countries to rewrite the rules of their 
relationship into the twenty-first century. Or look at China's 
military muscle-flexing. In 1995, after Taiwanese leaders seemed to 
be gaining greater international recognition. China unilaterally shut 
sea and air lanes near Taiwan and test-fired missiles in the area. 
These sudden flare-ups of anxiety indicate both the extent to which 
the balance of power is shifting in East Asia and the inability (or 
unwillingness) of anyone to do anything about it. 

East Asians hope that those who meddle with the balance of power will 
realise that they are foolishly putting at risk the remarkable 
economic prosperity in the region. The problem is that East Asians 
grew used to not paying attention to regional security during the 
cold war. They took for granted their habit of relying on the United 
States to provide stability. But East Asians now find that they are 
being left alone to deal with their indigenous insecurities. So far 
they have proved remarkably bumbling in their attempt to build 
regional security. There have been no serious efforts to deal with 
either the trans-Pacific rows between Japan and the United States or 
China and the United States, let alone to constrain Chinese military 
activity in South East Asian waters.

In 1996 the problems will grow more acute. This is a year when the 
central question of regional security will be put to the test-will 
China's nationalist instincts be constrained by economic 
interdependence? In March 1996 there will be presidential elections 
in Taiwan, when the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party 
(DPP) is likely to make a strong showing. The risk that the DPP might 
come to power will make China even more jumpy about issues of 
sovereignty. There are powerful conservative nationalist forces in 
Beijing, especially in the armed forces, which are convinced that the 
civilian leadership is already taking too soft a line on questions of 
national sovereignty. The continuing uncertainty in China about 
post-Deng Xiaoping policies has given such nationalists scope to 
demand tougher policies. Hence the ever-increasing military activity 
in the region. 

China's factional struggles will not cease after Deng. The debates in 
China are not just about personalities, they are about the tough 
choices China must make in domestic and foreign policy. Will China 
continue with economic reform when this means a continuing 
decentralisation of power? Will China continue to depend heavily on 
external investment and access to foreign fuel, food and markets? As 
China grows more dependent, nationalists will worry that China will 
abandon its territorial objectives and will be tied down by the 
international system. China is the only great power not to be content 
with its neighours' existing borders. And with its rising economic 
power it has a sense that it can re-order the world. 

Yet it should not be surprising if in 1996 the people of Taiwan 
resist Beijing's attempts of tell them how to vote. The most likely 
outcome of the Taiwanese election is a victory for the current 
president, Lee Teng-hui, but the usuall posturing and histrionics of 
election campaigns, especially in a volatile Taiwan, will not be well 
understood in Beijing. Threats will be liberally tossed across the 
Taiwan Straits.

Matters will be made worse by the fact that in 1996 the "laboratory" 
of Hong Kong will reveal how China handles democratic politics on its 
doorstep. In September 1995 the last elections for a democratic 
Legislative Council in Hong Kong elected a new cohort of democrats 
committed to fighting the authoritarian instincts of Chinese rule. 
Now that the governor, Chris Patten, has retreated from the front 
line, the struggle for a democratic Hong Kong will be carried on by 
the Democratic Party, If China is clever, it will try to build 
bridges to the Democrats, but if it remains in a belligerent 
nationalist mood, it will continue to deflate confidence in the 
colony by trying to silence the voices of those elected by the Hong 
Kong people. 

As if this spate of elections were not enough, 1996 will also see 
elction in the United States. The signs are already clear that a 
resurgent Republican Party is prepared to take a tougher line against 
China and is equally prepared to undermine President Clinton on major 
foreign-policy issues. 

Although these trends are relatively easily foreseen, what is less 
clear is how other East Asians will react. So far, the tendency of 
many has been pre-emptively to concede Chinese claims in the South 
China Sea and to the control of Taiwan. There is an exaggerated 
sense--particularly in South-East Asia--of China as an inevitable 
powerful state and an inadequate sense of how much China is, at least 
for the time being, and incomplete superpower with vulnerabilities. 
In North-East Asia, and especially in Japan, there is a growing 
feeling that China needs to be tied down. Witness the row with China 
over nuclear-weapons tests. This will require a more active, and 
perhaps more Asia-oriented foreign policy. The challenge for Japan is 
to speed up the evolution of its own status as a great power. But 
that will bring it into conflict with the United States, China and 
its smaller neighbours. Hence East Asia's uncomfortable future. 


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