The ASEAN Regional Forum

6. Does the ARF Need Central Institutions?

112 The ASEAN Regional Forum 6 DOES THE ARF NEED CENTRAL INSTITUTIONS? The ASEAN Regional Forum has been, since 1994, a useful forum for foreign ministers and for senior officials, both from the foreign ministries and the defence and other security agencies, to get together periodically for discussions on regional security in the Asia-Pacific. In these gatherings, national positions on security issues, broad or specific, long-term or shortterm , traditional or non-traditional, are presented and clarified, if not reconciled. There, valuable networks are formed. Knowledge is shared. Common problems are identified. International cooperation on those problems is promoted. Participants and observers express the hope that these processes help build mutual confidence and diminish mutual suspicions and thus reduce the risk of miscalculation and ultimately of conflict. However, some in the academic world and a few in government press the ARF to go beyond its current minimalist role and do something directly to prevent conflict and even resolve disputes between states or between warring factions within countries. Failing in this, the ARF is derided as a “talk shop”, as if an opportunity for rival powers to hold regular discussions and consultations had no value. Some profess to want to see results rather than be content with mere “process”, which is what they consider the ARF to be. For example, Bryan J. Couchman, a Visiting Fellow at Cambridge University, asserted: If China continues to increase the pressure in the South China Sea by, for example, taking control of more territory claimed by one or more of the ASEAN states, the ARF is unlikely to present a coherent stance, let 112 Does the ARF Need Central Institutions? 113 alone negotiate a solution to the problem. Likewise, a sudden deterioration in the situation on the Korean Peninsula could not be managed by the Forum. In either scenario, the ARF would most likely be shown to be a paper tiger and so lose credibility, especially if other smaller bilateral discussions and security alliance structures proved more useful in dealing with these disputes.1 On the other hand, one could argue that participation in the ARF could serve as a deterrent to a unilateral act of aggression. An ARF participant would think twice before upsetting a security environment from which it presumably benefited unless it felt that its core interests were threatened. In any case, it is difficult to see how the ARF can undertake preventive diplomacy, whether with respect to traditional or non-traditional threats, or contribute directly to the resolution of conflicts without effective regional institutions to carry out the task. After the ARF has reached consensus on what needs to be done about this or that security threat — a difficult and rare enough achievement — who is to take action? Ong Keng Yong, former ASEAN Secretary-General, deplores the absence of what he calls “follow through” of ARF decisions.2 His successor, Surin Pitsuwan, former Thai foreign minister, has noted that ARF decisions will have to be “followed through”.3 The Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore has categorically called for the establishment of an ARF secretariat.4 Urging that the ARF Unit in the ASEAN Secretariat be strengthened, Nopadol Gunavibool, then ASEAN Director-General at Thailand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and laterThai ambassador to Singapore, has argued that a regional outlook can come only from regional institutions.5 The report of the first meeting of the ARF Experts and Eminent Persons in June 2006 delicately pointed out: Despite its progress, the ARF lacks some of the institutional structure and cohesion among members to respond effectively to regional security concerns and challenges. Many participants agreed that it is time for the ARF to shift from a forum for discussion to more of an institution of implementation. Participants discussed two categories of changes: institutional and substantive. Institutional issues include enhancing the role of the ARF Chair, reexamining the leadership structure, creating a Secretariat, and strengthening relations with other multilateral and regional organizations, specifically the United Nations.6 It is clear in this account, with its reference to “many participants”, that not all participants agree that the ARF should become “an institution of 114 The ASEAN Regional Forum implementation”. With little by way of common strategic interests to bind the disparate participants together, they have scant incentive to build effective central institutions and mechanisms to achieve common purposes in preventive diplomacy, much less in conflict...