Michael Leifer

The ASEAN peace process: a category mistake.

Abstract In the context of a debate on regional peace‐making, this paper sets out to question the very notion of an ASEAN peace process as a distinctive activity and indeed as one that bears substantively on regional peacemaking per se. It seeks also correspondingly to address and to identify the limitations of the Association in its attempts to exercise a prerogative managerial role in promoting regional order within Southeast Asia. To that extent, caution is urged in drawing on ASEANs institutional experience as a model for other regions, particularly in the light of the degree of diplomatic paralysis displayed by the Association from the middle of 1997 in response to a number of acute regional problems.

The Balance of power in East Asia

Preface M.Leifer - Notes on the Contributors - PART 1 POWERS, PAST AND PRESENT - Britains Route to and from the Far East Lord Beloff - The United States in East China: Chinas Response J.Mirsky - The United States in East Asia: Japans Response I.Nish - The Soviet Union in East Asia G.Segal - PART 2 REGIONAL POWERS AND REGIONAL CONFLICTS - China: An International Power? B.Beedham - Japans Foreign and Security Policies K.Hunt - Australias Outlook on Asia P.Towle - Indochina: An Arena of Conflict Sir John Addis - Koreas Changing Security Environment R.Sim - PART 3 REGIONAL COOPERATION - The Role and Paradox of ASEAN M.Leifer - Trade and Asian Pacific Nations L.Turner - PART 4 REGIONAL PROSPECTS - The Balance of Power and Regional Order M.Leifer - Index

Indochina and ASEAN: Seeking a New Balance

The new relationship in place between Indochina and member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) may be regarded as a solution to yesterdays problems and not todays. This new balance in the relationship cannot in itself provide a sufficient basis for a post-Cold War security order in Southeast Asia. The attendant change in the regional strategic con text means that the question of security has to be addressed within a wider East Asian framework. That need has been recognized in the initiative taken for a wider multilateral security dialogue at the meeting of ASEANs Foreign Ministers in Singapore in July 1993. This promising development extends geographically the ASEAN security model based on conflict management and avoidance. But that model has never been intended to cope with the problem of power in regional relations for which more robust provision is required than an extended structure for con/idence-building.

Singapore In Malaysia: The Politics of Federation

One feature of the Malaysia Agreement of July 1963 was the provisions designed to restrict the political role of Singapore in the new Federation. To this end, in return for a fair measure of local autonomy, Singapore was to accept a reduced representation in the Federal legislature together with a minor disability through a dual Malaysian citizenship. While the government of Malaya, which was to assume the federal powers, was anxious to include Singapore in Malaysia so as to contain a subversive threat, it was concerned also to place limitations on a threat of a different order which seemed to be posed by the governing party in Singapore. The government in Singapore, which represented a predominantly Chinese electorate, was composed of men whose vision of a socialist society was not confined by the territorial bounds of the island-state. Indeed they had been long on record as to their ultimate objective. The government in Malaya — founded on a loose communal coalition which reflected Malay political dominance — was conservative in complexion and made little secret of its protection of traditional interests and of its advocacy of private enterprise. It could not but look with disfavour on the Administration in Singapore, while attitudes towards its Prime Minister, Lee Kuan Yew, verged on the pathological.

The Balance of Power and Regional Order

East Asia has enjoyed a mixed place in the priorities of the major external powers. Yet as a region it is of abiding importance to their global considerations because its resident states, if one takes necessary account of America’s military presence, comprise virtually the hierarchy of the international political system.

The International Representation of Kampuchea

In the wake of the Vietnamese occupation of Kampuchea, a continuing military struggle within that tormented country has been matched by an external diplomatic conflict. As the Vietnamese expeditionary force sdffened by a client militia has contended for territorial control with Khmer Rouge guerrillas, a corresponding contest has ensued over which political group has the right to represent the Khmer State at international con ferences and in particular at the United Nations. This contest, in which victories have not been all on one side, has an ironic aspea. The invasion of Kampuchea and the overthrow of the Democractic Kampuchean Government had the initial consequence of removing from power one of the most bestial regimes of the twentieth century. That bestiality had spilled over the borders of Kampuchea to affect and afflict not only Vietnam but also Thailand. And yet the Government of Thailand, supported by its ASEAN partners and Western associates (as well as by China), has denounced rather than applauded an act of force which the Vietnamese Government has represented as one of international public service. The long-standing debate among international lawyers over the respective merits of the contending declaratory and constitutive schools of international recognition is only partly relevant to the issue under discussion.1 Cambodia now Kampuchea has been an established fact of international political life, at least since 1955 when it was accorded a place at the United Nations. The international personality of Kampuchea as a state has not been subject to challenge. Argument and discord have centred on the respective competing claims to international legitimacy of a government ensconced in Phnom Penh and an ousted rival of no precise fixed political abode which maintains that it was the victim of foreign aggression and that its political usurper was carried into Kampuchea in the saddle bags of the Vietnamese Army.2 The implications of converting such claims into a legal right have practical import. For an incumbent government, it could assist the process of internal consolidation of power and would provide easier access to external sources of material assistance. For an insurgent movement, the denial of formal legitimacy to an embattled government may serve to undermine its authority and so influence the balance of domestic forces. Such arguments, however, should not be pressed too far. International recognition and

Decolonisation and International Status: The Experience of Brunei

T N the final quarter of the twentieth century, the residual practice of decolonisation has been influenced by standards sanctioned by its previous beneficiaries who dominate the General Assembly of the United Nations. Governments which claim legitimacy on the basis of a popular will, expressed-if at all-more often than not in managed elections and referenda, have affirmed conventions about the bases of post-colonial state succession, especially the inalienable right of self-determination. Internal consistency has not always been the strongest quality of such affirmation. For example, constitutional association with a traditional colonial power is likely to be challenged even in the face of the verifiable wishes of the inhabitants of any imperial residuum. Thus, the people of the Falkland Islands and Gibraltar have been encouraged to contemplate life under Argentine and Spanish rule. In these cases, physical distance from the metropolitan power and close contiguity to claimant states have bulked large, whereas the principle of self-determination has been conveniently overlooked. Such inconsistency of standards in the urging of decolonisation does not appear to be the case for the Sultanate of Brunei, a mere vestige of a Malay-Moslem suzerainty which once extended over the entire area of Northem Borneo. Brunei offends against all the canons of new statehood. This is not because of its minuscule size which might seem to validate charges of non-viability. Such charges are hardly permitted in an age which has seen numerous micro-states accepted as legitimate members of the international community. The fact that one of the oil majors exercises an overwhelming role in its economy also does not place Brunei in either a unique or a pariah position. Brunei has been condemned as an objectionable political anachronism because of its exclusive association with the United Kingdom and because as a direct consequence of that association it is governed openly on a monarchical basis without deference to the orthodoxies of popular participation. As a result, i,ts international status is questionable in the opinion of a vast majority of the members of the UN General Assembly. A relevant factor in successive attempts to make the Sultanate conform to the standards espoused by this majority has been

Kampuchea in 1980: The Politics of Attrition

THE NATURE OF THE PROTRACTED conflict within and over Kampuchea has made it most unlikely that any form of political settlement can precede a decisive change in the military fortunes of the belligerent parties. In practical terms, such a change would mean either the elimination of the Khmer Rouge resistance or the inability of the Vietnamese to sustain their expeditionary force in the field, whether as the direct result of a loss of political will or from their Soviet patrons unwillingness to continue in the role of quartermaster. Neither of these two prospects materialized during the course of the year. The Vietnamese expeditionary force has remained entrenched within Kampuchea, sustained and reinforced by Soviet benefaction but without being able to destroy the military arm of the Khmer Rouge. For their part, the Khmer Rouge have demonstrated a resilient capacity for survival as a viable insurgency but have not posed a major immediate threat to the security of the government in Phnom Penh. Nonetheless that capacity for survival has been significant in servicing a process of attrition designed to inflect a breaking strain on Vietnamese society. An anticipated dry season offensive by the Vietnamese did not occur in any conventional sense. Counterinsurgency operations were stepped up from the beginning of 1980 in western Kampuchea with the object of exercising more effective control of the border area with Thailand. Limited sweeps were undertaken but actual engagements were not decisive. For example, in January an attack was launched on a Khmer Rouge position at Phnom Chat north of Poipet which could not be pressed home because the defending force was able to retreat through mined and booby-trapped jungle. Less accessible Khmer Rouge redoubts to the south in the Phnom Malai and the Cardamom Mountains were not the object of direct attack.

The Failure of Political Institutionalization in Cambodia

The political system of Cambodia is often—and not inaccurately—described as one of the most stable in Asia. Such description is apt to be justified by reference to the relative absence of upheaval and disturbance which have been the fate of several new Asian states. Surface indications of stability, however, can give rise to exaggerated assumptions about the institutionalized nature of a political system, in the sense that an induced pattern of political activity has jelled to make the system a going concern. The object of this article is to examine the distinguishing features of the Cambodian political system with a view to establishing whether surface appearance reflects an inner resilience or fundamental structural weakness.

Expanding Horizons in Southeast Asia

Southeast Asian states revised their strategic horizons during 1993 through an ASEAN-inspired initiative arising from the impact of the end of the Cold War. That development occurred, however, without a corresponding revision in eco nomic horizons; nor was there any evident reconsideration of domestic politi cal orders, which were in general strengthened. During the Cold War, Southeast Asia and Indochina in particular had been coupled to international contention, which was inherent in the global balance of power. It was for this reason that Southeast Asia was described at one time as the Balkans of the Orient in an analogy with the condition of southeast Eu rope before the outbreak of World War I. With the end of the Cold War, global rivalry has ceased to exist in the same way as a point of reference for regional relations. This has been demonstrated with the end of the Cambodian conflict as a major international problem. The states of Southeast Asia now inhabit a different strategic environment but not a fundamentally different international society, which is distinguished still by the absence of a common government able to enforce law and order. Furthermore, as a result of the end of the Cold War, Southeast Asia has begun to be called into question as a coherent category through which to address prob lems of regional security. A growing interdependence in security matters be tween Southeast and East Asia in particular has been perceived and registered by regional states. At issue, however, is the significance of a novel development in extended multilateral security dialogue joining Southeast and East Asia, in spired during the year by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Does that development indicate a genuine structural adjustment to a new stra tegic horizon or is it little more than a tinkering with the form of existing re gional security arrangements? Apart from involvement in vestigial security arrangements, which are both a legacy of colonialism and the Cold War, provision for either collective de fence or collective security has not been undertaken on an exclusive basis by regional states. ASEAN, which repudiated military pacts from the outset, has established a limited regional security system based on a formula of conflict