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As the global significance of the Asia-Pacific continues to rise, the area's regional security is arousing more concern. To improve security in the Asia-Pacific, should a new security architecture be established? What institutions should be counted on to guarantee the region's peace and stability? What is the role of the U.S. alliance system? During the World Peace Forum held by Tsinghua University on July 7-8 in Beijing, scholars from China, Malaysia, Thailand and the United States shared their opinions on these topics. Excerpts follow:
Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Director of the Institute of Security and International Studies, Thailand: It is very clear from the Chinese world view that [regional security] is a positive sum. But in other places, I think there are some negative-sum mindsets and mentalities. I know that in some higher education classes in the United States, there is a fixation—a deterministic fixation with the kind of realistic view that it has to be a zero sum. I don't know how that will turn out, but it is important to be able to convince our mindsets, to think of the architectural investments, as a positive sum.
For the last 500 years, Asia was never really that important. It was about the West, the Europeans, and then the Americans. Now it is very clear we are a dynamic region. The economies of East Asia will continue to grow robustly. But the gap is we don't have the security mechanisms to provide not just the prosperity which we are likely to have but the peace we also need—the peace and stability that have to go with the prosperity. That is the main problem of East Asia for the next five decades.
One would wish that we could have a NATO in Asia, but we have a different background. NATO was designed after decades of war and conflicts. In this region, we have a very different makeup, different constraints and different imperatives. We cannot import or even be inspired by the NATO or European models.
Cui Liru, President of the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations: The current security architecture of the Asia-Pacific is not functioning so well. Economies in the region have been very dynamic. Economic cooperation has dominated the relationships among countries in the region. This, to a large extent, may have covered up many of the problems that still exist there. Security and stability are the basic conditions for continuing economic development of the Asia-Pacific. To that end, we need to form a security architecture that covers the whole of the region. I think that is also the aspiration of the vast majority of the countries within the region. However, this is still an ideal prospect that cannot be realized in the short term.
So in my point of view, in the whole transitional period, the Asia-Pacific security relationship and security activities will go forward on two tracks. One is to manage the situation, using the existing mechanisms to strengthen dialogue and communication. I think the overall situation is controllable because over the years we have formed reliable, mature dialogue mechanisms. The second track is to explore new ways to improve the regional security situation including the regional security architecture. China and the United States need to establish a new type of relationship between major powers. Security is a significant component of their relationship.
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