Questions and Answers
Dr John Chipman
Thank you very much. All three presentations have advanced our debate on different issues that have been bourn in mind as an Asia-Pacific community is worked towards; many of you will have other comments and questions to thicken up our discussions.
Katsuhisa Furukawa, Senior Fellow, Centre for Safety and Security Research, Research Institute of Science and Technology for Society, Japan Science and Technology Agency, Japan; IISS Member
I had a comment and a question for Lee Sang Hee and Dr Wayne Mapp; I completely agree with your view that Asia-Pacific countries require more intense international cooperation in these new areas, such as disaster relief, counter-terrorism, or non-proliferation. In order to enable our effective multinational cooperation on these issues, we also need very proactive cooperation from other entities, extending beyond the diplomatic and defence communities to entities such as law enforcement authorities, scientific communities or public health authorities. In most countries these new stakeholders in today’s security arena happen to have a very domestic focus, and they are not accustomed to foreign or security affairs. My question to the two ministers is, in order to enable your proposals, how best can we engage these new organisations to be more closely linked to this diplomatic initiative to construct a community in the Asia-Pacific region?
Professor Dr Dewi Fortuna Anwar, Deputy Chairman, Indonesian Institute of Sciences, Indonesia
My first question is to Minister Sudarsono; in your presentation you have just emphasised more sub-regional clusters, while in the presentations from the South Korean and New Zealand ministers of defence are much more persuaded towards a step-by-step approach to an Asia-Pacific community. I wonder whether the three of you can come to some middle ground, is there somewhere we could meet? We know that Indonesia is reluctant to adopt a comprehensive over-arching regional architecture, but we know that in South Korea, Australia and many other countries in the region, there is the desire to move in that direction. Yet, from Dr Mapp we also saw that you would like to have a more Asia-Pacific security architecture, which is opposed to what Mr Rudd has proposed, that is, a more comprehensive, multi-disciplinary approach, covering politics, economics, and so on, in the Asia-Pacific community; can you flesh that out? All of you referred to Mr Rudd, but you all came up with very different suggestions, and we would like to come up with some ideas as to where we should be heading.
Secondly, how does the development of an Asia-Pacific security community square with the tendency in a number of countries towards increasing its military procurements? In particular, Minister Sudarsono, given Indonesia’s very low defence budget, how does the Ministry of Defence react to the risks and publication of the Australia Defence White Paper.
Manish Tewari, National Spokesperson, Indian National Congress, India
The need to have a security community in the Asia-Pacific region has been on the agenda of various Shangri‑La Dialogues over the years; it has also been on the agenda of various other conferences that take place in the region, I recall the conference of Asian political parties, which was held in Seoul in September 2007. The Korean Defence Minister was rightly pointing out that there exist a number of political, economic and security structures that extend from north east Asia to west Asia, and naturally there is an overlap between their mandates, charters, and the kind of functions they perform. The question for the panel is; do you not think that it is time that these entities start talking to each other to really move this idea beyond the ideational stage, beyond the conversations that we have been having around it over the years?
Kishore Mahbubani, Dean, Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore
I want to strongly endorse the idea that Minister Juwono Sudarsono put forward, that we should get officials from across the region to study in the same schools together, and here I can highly recommend the Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. More seriously a question related to that; Minister Juwono was right in suggesting that there is an intergenerational difference in attitudes, for example, my generation understand the value of ASEAN, because we remember how difficult and fractious south east Asia was before ASEAN came along. However, the younger generation takes ASEAN for granted, and does not see the real value that it contributes on a daily basis to south east Asia. My question to Minister Juwono is, how do we make the younger generation in ASEAN more aware of the importance of ASEAN to the future of south east Asia?
Vice Admiral (Retd) Hideaki Kaneda, Senior Research Advisor on National Security, Mitsubishi Research Institute, Japan; IISS Member
My question is to Minister Lee Sang Hee, about the possibility of a Japan and ROK military corporation against North Korea’s recent dangerous behaviour, including nuclear and ballistic missile tests. Both Japan and ROK now seem to face the more imminent military challenge from North Korea, do you think ROK would need to propose more realistic and substantial military cooperation to Japan, while cooperating with the US, in order to deter, suppress and even counter, properly and visibly, North Korea’s realistic and existing threat?
Minister Sudarsono
The issue of building a comprehensive structure has to be seen in the practicalities of each region, in terms of the levels of economic development, but also in terms of the cultures in these regions. North east Asia is much more stringent, disciplined and focused; largely monolithic in terms of culture and structure, whereas south east Asia is much more diffused, much more dispersed in terms of perception, and the south Pacific is easier because it is basically one culture across the regions. A more practical step would be to build up on the sub-regional structure, rather than build a comprehensive structure at the beginning, because the question will be who has decided the terms and conditions of the comprehensiveness; is it the US, simply because it is the most powerful power politically, economically and militarily? Is it a question of delegating the regional partners comprising Japan and South Korea, and perhaps with China, because they are fused economically with the US through the assets that they have? These have to be spelled out in terms of practicalities at the ground level, and I am more conscious about comprehensiveness, because it is probably too wide to encompass and difficult to comprehend in terms of the level of capacities in each of these countries.
In my country in particular there is a sudden leap of information and comprehensiveness that has to be done at the level of negotiating at global, regional, national, provincial and local levels, that is too difficult to be able to be effectively done. With countries like Singapore, because of its compactness and its reliance on hi-tech and services, it is more easily built into the global and regional architecture. My preference, in contrast to my colleague, the Defence Minister of Singapore, is not so much architecture, but perhaps horticulture; it is placing the seeds of cooperation between generations, and those clusters lead towards the comprehensiveness. In that sense the terms and conditions of these sub-regional corporations can complement with existing macro structures envisioned by the US and Australia.
As for the intergenerational aspect; it is important to view that diplomats, businessmen and soldiers of the region are defined by the perception, by the fact that if one was born in the 1940s or 1950s, then the defining paradigm of security is the Cold War paradigm. If one is born in the 1970s, a much more open and liberating issue of comprehending security is existing in the region of the countries concerned. We see generations in Vietnam and Cambodia transcending the conflicts of the 1970s; generations in China, Korea and Japan hopefully will transcend the acute sensitivities of the Korean and Vietnam Wars. I am hoping that these young people, be they from the military, business or civil society will be able to transcend these perceptions of the past, defined by certain periods encompassed by their predecessors.
My view is that in Indonesia today we have a younger generation born in the 1960s and 1970s that are more confident about the challenges of globalisation, including security in this region. I am viewing this in terms of the affordability of the defence of Indonesia; our defence budget is smaller than the defence budget of Singapore. For a country of this size, 235 million, the defence of Indonesia is the bare minimum essential force, but we have to yield to the priorities of economic development and social protection programmes, because if you do not put emphasis on economic development and social problems you have massive poverty and there will be no Indonesia to defend. In that light, the budgets of existing regional partners, either Singapore, Malaysia or Australia, we hope will complement the need for Indonesia to be defended on its own terms, despite the low budget, but banking on the fact that it is in the interest of Australia, Singapore and Malaysia and other countries that Indonesia remain intact politically and economically, because an implosion of Indonesia will be against the security interests of these countries.
Dr John Chipman
I will ask Minister Lee to answer the points raised to him, he will make his remarks in Korean and they will be translated.
Minister Lee
I am sorry for the communication; I would like to use my interpreter.
Translation from Korean: [I would like to give my answers for two things. Firstly, regarding the concern that obviously building a comprehensive cooperative body will be good but it will be better to take real measures and real steps for cooperation in the areas of police, marine affairs and science. I believe a multilateral community begins with sharing of risks and benefit together. Of course, as I mentioned earlier in my presentation as well, we are currently witnessing change in the types of threat we face. That is, we are facing not only military threat but also non-military and trans-national threats as well. There are many areas of cooperation perhaps in terms as we share this non-military threat. My presentation proposes not only sub-regional cooperation but also lower level cooperation as well so that our effort will be pulled together to tackle various issues as we go from big issues to small issues and from small issue to big issues and so on, as we work together to create this entity.
Secondly, regarding the possibility of military cooperation between Japan and the Republic of Korea. Korea, with any of its neighbours, is strengthening its military cooperation. And this applies to the US, Russia, China as well as Japan. And the factors that limit military cooperation between ROK and Japan more than anything are political and diplomatic factors. I will give an example of that. When I was the Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff I had a chance to have discussion with other chiefs of defence forces but I could not have discussion with my Japanese counterpart. And of course as the top military commander of our respective services we wanted to have discussion with each other. But every time we attempted such discussion, there were some political statements that came out and just limited our opportunity to discuss together. Therefore it is my belief that once we change historical perception and build up mutual trust, we can further strengthen military cooperation between our two nations. That will be all. Thank you.]
Minister Mapp
The first question related to myself related to how you get cooperation around disaster relief relating to agencies like customs and NGOs, Red Cross, etc.; and the second question related to what was termed a divergence of view between Dr Sudarsono and myself in terms of sub-regional groupings, three of them, or whether you have a broader regional grouping. If you had three very big events happening in the region, perhaps interstate conflict, clearly that would always be moderated at the UN Security Council level, in any event. What we are talking about, and we both have essentially the same approach here, is an evolutionary process. That is why we focused on the ARF; it is an existing organisation focused around dialogue. The challenge is to shift it from dialogue to action, and that is why we suggested, as a first step, the development of a secretariat and a secretary general. It does two things; it enables a more effective means of dealing with the sorts of issues you would expect a regional architecture to focus on, things that we can all agree on relatively easily; for instance, disaster relief and humanitarian assistance, transnational crime, environmental issues. To do that effectively you need an organisation structure that can put the partners together quickly and effectively, as is needed in particular in humanitarian and disaster relief.
That also, in a sense, answers the first question as well, which is how you interact with NGOs, customs and the like. Again, having an organisational structure, a secretariat, enables that kind of dialogue or discussion to occur, which if the organisations keep solely at a dialogue level, that is actually very difficult. That is why the ambition as set out by Prime Minister Rudd will clearly take time, and will challenge a lot of nations, and people have to carefully consider to what extent it is achievable. There are things that we can practically do that affect us commonly that we would all want a joint resolution to be able to do, that extends beyond each of the sub-regions within the broader Asia-Pacific region. That is why I took heart from what the Secretary General of the UN referred to; he built on existing organisations and then said, how do you move them, at least at least in the first step, from a dialogue focus - which has been important, because as was mentioned, it has been a pathway to reduce what was quite a fractured region 30 or 40 years ago, to a much more cooperative region. The dialogue matters, but the next stage is the first embryonic steps towards a more action-orientated approach, and then defining it probably quite narrowly in the first instance, as to what those things might potentially be.
Dr Jonathan D Pollack, Professor, Asian and Pacific Studies, Naval War College, USA; IISS Member
The panel has highlighted the tension between the pursuit of a security community in the face of non-universality in membership. We see this most acutely in the case of North Korea in north east Asia, so let me focus on that briefly and pose the question. Obviously under the extant circumstances that we confront with North Korea there seems very little alternative for the present, but to pursue a strategy that might focus on inhibition, constraint, containment, and risk mitigation; that is fine, I do not question those. However, it seems fundamentally the issues here have less to do with the DPRK’s apparently identified security goals than the very internal structure and composition of the system itself. My question is posed mainly to Defence Minister Lee; can one imagine a change of the sort that would be required to induce North Korea’s participation, involvement and inclusion in the absence of some kind of transition or outright change in the very nature of the regime itself? Can we, for example, pursue these longer-term goals, in essence leaving an empty seat at the table?
Associate Professor Nick Bisley, Convenor, Politics and International Relations, School of Social Sciences, La Trobe University, Australia
It seems to me that the idea of improving multilateral cooperation and security is something that everyone can agree on to some degree, as improving talking and communication is a good thing. The ministers have each laid out slightly different proposals as to how to build more concrete cooperation, but it seems to me that the biggest challenge lies in investing leadership in this, and it seems to be a pretty significant political problem in the region. That is to say, where is this leadership going to come from, because historically any developments in multilateral cooperation of the security kind that have had substance have been driven by either specific states or very clear and strong institutions, and it is not clear to me where this leadership is going to come from, or at least not in an unproblematic fashion.
Barry Desker, Dean, S Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore; IISS Member
My question is to Ministers Mapp and Juwono Sudarsono; even if there is an ARF secretariat or secretary general it would be essentially a foreign ministry-led institution. Surely the time has come for us to consider meetings of defence ministers as a counterpart to the ARF foreign ministers’ meetings. I am including Minister Juwono Sudarsono since the initiative for this would have to come from the ASEAN defence ministers.
Mark Fitzpatrick, Senior Fellow for Non-Proliferation, IISS
My question is to Minister Lee; North Korea has responded in every case in the last two months with a further escalation in rhetoric and action. When the Security Council comes out with a resolution, North Korea is likely to further escalate the situation. If North Korea fires on South Korean fishing vessels or takes more hostages, or takes other provocative steps along the Korean Demilitarised Zone (DMZ), how will South Korean defence forces respond?
Admiral (Retd) Arun Prakash, Former Chairman, Chiefs of Staff Committee and former Chief of Naval Staff, India; IISS Member
I am not quite sure about the origin of the term Asia-Pacific, but I presume it was coined to include America in this part of the world, which is perfectly all right. As an Indian, every time I hear the term Asia-Pacific I feel a sense of exclusion, because it seems to include north east Asia, south east Asia and the Pacific islands, and it terminates at the Melaka Straits, but there is a whole world west of the Melaka Straits. This morning Admiral Sureesh Mehta mentioned the Indian initiative, about an Indian Ocean Naval Symposium, so my question to the distinguished panel is two fold; one, do you see a contradiction between the terms Asia-Pacific, Asia and the Indian Ocean region? Secondly, is Prime Minister Rudd’s proposal too all-encompassing and too ambitious, will it flounder somewhere, and should we stick to sub-regional and regional groupings?
James Hackett, Editor, The Military Balance and Head, Defence Analysis Department, IISS
My question is slightly differently focused, and it is addressed to Defence Minister Mapp; there have been reports of a review or White Paper process underway in the New Zealand Defence Establishment. Given the centrality of regional security to New Zealand security, as you discussed earlier, and as military is one way of assisting in regional security, could you discuss the key factors promoting any such review process, and what future regional military posture and capabilities requirements you see as likely to feature in any such document?
Minister Mapp
I am going to answer Mr Hackett’s question very quickly; our White Paper is in the context of our primary area of interest, which is the South Pacific, you have got Timor-Leste, the Solomons, issues around Tonga and stable states: that is our first priority, and as a small country we have to make priorities. Beyond the region is two concentric circles, the first is essentially south east Asia, and then there is beyond that, and New Zealand does have defence forces in Afghanistan. Clearly our ability to reach out is much more limited, and it is done through either bilateral or multilateral organisations, and we make niche contributions.
On the broader issues of getting the leadership to develop the organisations; there was a very good point made, that there should be defence ministers meetings in ARF, that seems imperative. The leadership to develop a secretariat for instance, would have to come from an agreement of both the foreign minsters and the defence minsters of the ARF nations, which is pretty broad. That involves two parts; one, developing the institutional structure itself; and two, then at least in the first instance limiting its scope quite tightly so that it does not cause any difficulties for any particular nation; that is why I listed only five things. Humanitarian issues; counter-terrorism; transnational crime; and environmental issues are things that we could all relatively easily agree on and have an institutional structure that would support action at that level. Going beyond it is obviously a much bigger challenge, and would involve, as Prime Minister Rudd said, a substantial amount of dialogue over quite a number of years.
Minister Sudarsono
The point of international cooperation in the ARF is the foreign ministry, and to that extent we in Indonesia have always assigned senior military officers to the foreign ministry at ARF meetings. If there is a necessity to have the defence ministers attend meetings; that would be fine, the only problem is if we have too many people sitting at the same table talking about the same issues. For logistical reasons, it is just practical to leave the point agency to the foreign ministry.
Minster Lee
[Korean]
Dr John Chipman
Minister Lee; Minister Sudarsono; Minister Mapp; thank you very much indeed for your presentations. From the IISS point of view all I could note from this panel’s conclusions are that the question of an Asia-Pacific community offers rich and fertile ground for academic enquiry, and we shall contribute in the way that we can. from a practical point of view we will also do everything we can to continue to invigorate, at least in the security dimension, the Shangri-La Dialogue as a place where inclusively we can involve all the relevant countries. Inclusiveness, even for the Shangri-La Dialogue is a challenge, I received a proposal this morning that Kazakhstan be represented at the Shangri-La Dialogue; we shall continue to study these proposals. In the meantime, let me thank the three ministers for their important contributions to this vital security debate.
