241. SECURITY IN THE ASIAN THEATRE (PANEL II)
241.
Panel Title : SECURITY IN THE ASIAN THEATRE (PANEL II)
Chair :
Participant :
Ekaterina Koldunova
Paper Title : Security Environment of Regional Transformations in East Asia
Abstract :
It is evident that nowadays regional political, economic and security processes (especially in Asia) are gaining momentum. Regional level differs from global and national ones. It has its own logic of evolution and transformation. Due to its specific features regional level nowadays is more actively forming new spaces of world politics. Regions per se are not static and their transformations can significantly influence both national states and the modern system of international relations. This paper is focused on the analysis of the main regional transformations in Greater East Asia and its implications for the future development of Asia and global international relations. The paper presents the main Russian and foreign theories and conceptual approaches to the analysis of regional transformations (to name few: theory of regional security complexes by B. Buzan and O. Weaver, Osamu Ieda's theory of mega and meza areas, concept of Greater East Asia by A.D. Bogaturov and concept of East Asian multifactor equilibrium by A.D. Voskressenski). The paper also analyses security environment of regional transformations. The main aspects of security environment to consider are ‘old' and ‘new' security threats. Nowadays East Asia witnesses a unique security situation: on the one hand, there is a number of ‘old' threats remaining from the ‘cold war' period (Korean problem, Taiwan problem), on the other hand, ‘new', nontraditional security threats (terrorism, transnational crime, economic threats, ecological threats, migrations, maritime terrorism, threats to energy security) are evidently begin to dominate security agendas of many East Asian countries. The main purpose of the paper is to scrutinize the security environment as one of the basic factors of regional transformations in East Asia, to analyze the impact of regional transformational processes on regional and national levels and to make a forecast for future regional development in East Asia.
Muhadi Sugiono
Paper Title : ASEAN Security Community and the Prospect of in Southeast Asia
Abstract :
ASEAN has transformed Southeast Asia from a grim region in terms of security, peace and stability in the 1960s into a relatively more stable one. Although it was not specially designed for that purpose, ASEAN has developed norms and principles for conflict prevention and peace-building mechanism peculiar to the region. Collectively known as 'ASEAN Way,' these norms and principles have significantly contributed to the decrease of intra-regional conflicts and the likelihood of war in Southeast Asia. Changing security environment in the 1990s, however, has forced ASEAN to transform itself. Noting the inadequacy of the traditional conception of security, ASEAN has adopted a new and comprehensive goal of establishing a security community, along with economic and socio-cultural communities. This paper will discuss the conception of ASEAN Security Community and its possible contribution for peace in Southeast Asia. It is the argument of the paper that, while it reflects clearly the awareness of the ASEAN's leaders of the changing security environment, ASEAN Security Community does not go far enough in expanding the notion of security. It does expand the aspects of security, but not its referent objects.
Eric Frecon
Paper Title : The Modern Network of Melayu Piracy
Abstract :
After deep research on the field, the paper would try to extend the work of J.P. Cornets de Groot, who published two hundreds years ago a report on pirates from the ‘Malay world' (Moniteur des Indes, Batavia, 1846-1848). The modest but original aim would consist in drawing the modern network of the Melayu piracy. From the dry paddy fields of Sumatra - where the only one crop per year is insufficient - to the maritime suburbs of the modern Singaporean city-State, piracy is the story of a desperate evasion towards Adidas shoes, Ray-Ban glasses and Rolex watches. Between the start near Palembang and the finish on the outskirts of Singapore, from the poor kampungs on piles to the hi-tech sky-scrappers, the main stages of the pirate course have been identified in East Sumatra and Riau Islands: it concerns the pirate base camps, the meeting points, the lookout posts, the targets and the way these elements are joined together. This new approach, not from the point of view of the victims but from the pirate side, leads, first, to suggest different counter-measures; not only social ones, on the land, for young people living in pirate dens, but also further, at the two opposite poles of this pirate network: - one the one hand, in Indonesian urban ghettos, especially in Palembang, wherepirate vocations are being born on the South shore at the mouth of Sungai Musi; - one the other hand in Singapore, where many illegal importations booties of pirate gangs? - converge and from where shipping intelligence meets at pirate haunts. Secondly, concerning the academic agenda, this not-only-economic approach could be imitated - pirated? - for other pirate areas also based on physical and human geographic criteria, including not only coasts but also hinterlands: near Aceh, in the Sulu area and around Fangcheng in China for example.
