June 3rd 2002
Leaders share Washington's concern about Islamic extremism, but India-Pakistan tensions and Chinese ambitions are still the big questions for many of them
Reports Alexander Nicoll
"Our war is your war", was the message that US officials took to a high-level Asian security conference that ended in Singapore yesterday. And on the surface at least, most of the Asian countries represented did embrace the high priority that America is placing on the war against terrorism.
For instance, Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore's senior minister and the region's predominant elder statesman, startled the audience with a graphic account of the activities of al-Qaeda-linked groups in south-east Asia. "The immediate threats to security in the region... come from non-state Islamic groups," he said.
And General Angelo Reyes, defence minister of the Philippines, where US troops are helping to deal with insurgents, said a co-operative south-east Asian effort to counter terrorism was "our duty to the whole of humanity".
But in the - by Asian standards - informal atmosphere of the conference, it was evident that the response to American evangelism was more nuanced. For many countries in the region, terrorism was but one of a number of threats, and might be closely interlinked with domestic problems. The regional aims of China still loomed large as the big question for some governments. For many people, the risk of nuclear escalation in Asia, with Indo-Pakistani tensions at their height, was paramount.
The conference provided an unprecedented opportunity for countries with an interest in Asian security to vent these views without having to come up with formal positions and communiques. Organised by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), it was an innovative effort to foster regional security by bringing together ministers, senior military officers, civilian defence officials and academics for informal, mostly off-the-record discussions.
One view on which all delegates appeared united was that, because of the inadequacy of existing official regional forums, the IISS venture must be repeated next year.
A linchpin of Asian security is the network of bilateral relationships between the US and the Asian powers. Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy US defence secretary, who has considerable knowledge of south-east Asia, led a US delegation that included two prominent senators, Republican Chuck Hagel and Democrat Jack Reed. Mr Wolfowitz talked of the "gathering storm of terrorism" that, if not checked, would "unleash its fury on us all".
Major-General Zhan Maohai, a senior Chinese defence official, spoke of Beijing's opposition to terrorism and of its co-operation with the US campaign - China has a border with Afghanistan and a significant Muslim minority. But he also spoke at length of China's other foreign policy goals, particularly reunification with Taiwan, prompting Harry Harding, an American China expert, to ask: "How much has changed in Chinese thinking since September 11?"
Matori Abdul Djalil, defence minister of Indonesia, which is seen as particularly vulnerable to Islamic militancy, said: "Combating terrorism only constitutes one priority when maintaining territorial integrity, recovering the economy, and resolving communal conflicts have to be given high priority in the national agenda."
He and others could not resist pointing to the "north-south" gap, suggesting poverty was a "breeding ground for terrorism".
However, other south-east Asians confessed to shock that well-off Muslims in prosperous, ordered societies such as Malaysia and Singapore could be seduced by Islamic extremism. There were fears of "losing a generation" in religious schools.
Singapore's Mr Lee asked: "What drove these Singaporean Muslims to support such goals? None complained about racial or religious discrimination. All were educated in our English-language schools, held steady jobs and owned their homes. All said they had nothing against Singapore. Their target was the US, and their aim to Islamise the region. If in the process innocent Singaporeans, including Muslims, had to die, it could not be helped."
Malaysia's defence minister, Najib Razak, said such people were being exploited by militants as pawns: "We need to open the closed minds of Muslims who have taken the parochial view of Islam."
While such statements echoed US concerns, some proposed solutions emphasised regional rather than global action on terrorism. Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines recently signed an agreement on a transnatioal approach, and Gen Reyes called for more specific moves such as a regional research facility on terrorists, the suppression of financing, common military exercises and "war-gaming", and shared disaster responses.
Some delegates were concerned that governments could use terrorism as an excuse to lock up opponents for their own domestic political purposes. A poignant reminder that regional disputes remain important was the presence of the defence minister of the world's newest country, East Timor, which has just won independence from Indonesia after a long struggle in which militant leaders were frequently jailed. A short intervention from Roque Rodrigues, the East Timor minister, won spontaneous applause.
