Speech
of
His Excellency Fidel V. Ramos
President of the Philippines
At the Roundtable Conference organized by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation and the Institute for Strategic and Development Studies

Delivered in Manila, December 1, 1996]

Building the structure of
Southeast Asian security

THIS ROUNDTABLE ON ASEAN security convened only a week after the Fourth APEC Summit in Manila—and only two days after this year’s informal meeting among ASEAN’s heads of government in Jakarta—is a timely exercise.

In our world today, economics and security are like two rivers—intersecting and flowing into one another.

At the APEC summit, we dealt with economic challenges and opportunities in the Asia-Pacific. But, as you obviously noted, we stressed in our concluding Declaration the crucial role that “an environment of stability and security” plays in our effort to attain APEC’s goals.

By the same token, recent security forums have acknowledged the role economic growth plays in enhancing regional stability and security. Already development has reduced regional tensions, brought our countries together despite their sometimes conflicting ideologies, and intensified their search for cooperation on security issues.

To say this is not to suggest that the economic growth being experienced by many countries in Southeast Asia has removed security concerns from the regional agenda. It means merely that we are today learning to approach these issues in a different light.

As we in ASEAN have lately been saying, security in our time is achieved “with others—not against others.”

This idea that security is best attained cooperatively enables us to see through the complexities of the issues facing us.

The gravest of these issues are disputes over territories and borders, and the anxieties raised by the recession of the superpowers amid the growing military power of some countries, including their development of nuclear weapons. And then there are “unconventional” security problems arising from illegal migration, smuggling, piracy, terrorism and drug trafficking.

Security with and not against others

In analyzing the security challenges facing regions, experts use the term “architecture” to describe the processes and systems that must be designed and built. A process that would result in greater security for an entire region is not just a set of desired goals. It must be a veritable structure in itself—consisting of many building blocks and elements.

Because regional security involves diverse nations, the effort is never simple. It evolves from the convergence of many efforts—on many fronts and many tracks. Such a security strategy should closely parallel the region’s experience in economic cooperation. In both APEC and ASEAN, the outcomes we see today result from years of patient and painstaking construction.

Building for regional security requires the same patient, sustained and diversified effort. For this roundtable, I would venture as a starting point the course and progress of the ASEAN dialogue on regional security. It was in 1991 that ASEAN began this initiative—by deciding that its Postministerial Conference, until then restricted to economic issues—should be enlarged to cover security questions as well.

That simple step began a discussion of security issues not only among ASEAN member states but also between ASEAN and its dialogue partners—the United States, the European Union, Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and South Korea—and then with Russia, China, Vietnam and North Korea.

After confidence-building meetings in 1992 and 1993 (which took the form of a series of bilateral conversations), all the parties in the Postministerial Conference agreed to create an ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) on security issues, beginning in 1994. The remarkable correspondence between the participants in ARF and the membership of APEC underscores what I have always believed—that APEC and ARF complement each other perfectly.

Peace among ourselves

If APEC is to realize its potentials, our countries must first of all keep the peace among ourselves. Any explosion of violence—in any part of the Asia-Pacific—will burst the bubble of stability that keeps its economic miracle going. Alternatively, even if the military balance holds, it will be easy for unrestrained economic competition to degenerate into “beggar-my-neighbor” policies—for greed and speculation to ruin our interconnected markets.

At the Jakarta Summit, the ASEAN heads of government instructed our ministers to work out the modalities of the ASEAN Foundation and the ASEAN Social Fund to finance the cooperative projects of ASEAN in human and social development. The Philippines has been a leading proponent of both these projects.

We also asked our ministers to speed up their review of the protocol to the Southeast Asia Nuclear Weapons-Free Zone Treaty—which we had signed in Bangkok last December—so as to expedite the accession of the nuclear powers to the protocol.

In Jakarta, I brought up the problem of the rapid increase in the number of nuclear power plants in our part of the world, and the need to deal with the problems of nuclear-plant safety and the safe disposal of nuclear waste—perhaps through an Asian counterpart of the European Atomic Energy Community (EURATOM), which I had proposed in Tokyo last May.

The overriding challenge before us today is to make all our countries both richer and safer. This conference focuses on security and order in ASEAN, but we must also keep in mind the wider sphere of the Asia-Pacific. That regional security is indivisible is in fact suggested by the other half of your topic—which is “The Role of External Powers.”

It is customary to speak of the success of the ASEAN states in their drive for modernization. But not all countries in Southeast Asia have made that transition. Some are still struggling to restore their economies to the path of growth—or even to recover fully from the wounds of conflict. Nor have all our leaders resolved the contradiction between the interdependence needed by the regional economy and the “we-against-the-world” kind of nationalism that some governments see as a necessary binder for their plural societies.

Convergence toward a global economy

But one fact is clear. All our countries are converging toward a single global economy and toward the common dream of economic modernization.

This movement raises the hope that the time will soon come when all Asia-Pacific countries become part of one great zone of peace—when our mutual security will depend no longer on arms and alliances but on peaceful commerce and integration in the Asia-Pacific community. But until that zone is in place, we must brace ourselves for a regional environment that will have its share of tension, difficulties and disputes.

We must pay particular attention to the situation of the developing nations. In a significant way their concept of national security must vary from that of the more mature states. Over much of Southeast Asia—the Philippines included—internal weaknesses in the form of poverty and social inequity still must be overcome.

During the Cold War, these weaknesses—because they breed urban unrest, insurgency and separatism—had been even more dangerous for the Philippines than any outside threat. That is why my Government defines national security in terms of political stability economic development and social cohesion.

The regional environment remains unsettled

And that is why one of the first things my Government did—when it took office in mid-1992—was to offer an honorable peace to our military rebels, communist insurgents and Muslim secessionists. And the settlement we arrived at consists not only of their return to the political mainstream but of specific economic benefits and cultural recognition on the enlarged table of national development.

Only now—with the bipolar superpower balance replaced by an even less-stable configuration of big-power relationships—only now—with our economies growing steadily—only now do we in Southeast Asia have the leisure to think of our security concerns.

The regional environment remains unsettled—because the big powers have yet to make clear their interests and intentions. A balance has yet to be established among the big powers with interests in the Asia-Pacific region.

The lingering enmities in the Korean Peninsula could alter the entire security equation in Northeast Asia. China’s intentions in the South China Sea—how a new Russia will evolve from the ideological ruins of the Soviet Union—and how Japan can turn into a truly self-reliant nation in defense matters—these too remain unclear.

The role of the middle powers

But we in ASEAN are betting that economic interdependence and mutual benefit can preempt the rise of old-fashioned political antagonisms. In the Asia-Europe Meeting—ASEM for short—which first convened in Bangkok last March, we have the beginnings of a mechanism for engaging the European Union in East Asia. Gatherings like this conference on ASEAN security nurture this new framework for Asia-Europe cooperation.

From our vantage point, we see the European Union as still largely turned inward. Its trade with ASEAN and its investments in Southeast Asia still are minuscule—compared with their potentials. That is why we welcomed so warmly Chancellor Helmut Kohl in Southeast Asia, who came last month to the Philippines with a large business delegation.

Not only do our fast-growing economies promise new opportunities for profit and growth for Europe’s corporations. Europe has technologies in a wide variety of fields that it can share with Southeast Asia for our mutual benefit. Beyond these are cultural values that our two regions could better understand and appreciate from each other—for our long-term economic and security interests.

In the search for regional security there is a major role to be played by the “middle powers” in the Asia-Pacific. The ASEAN states—together with Australia and New Zealand—have shown they need not be passive spectators in the interplay among the great powers in the region.

We have shown that we the powers-in-between can be active players—if not in economic and military might, then in the power of ideas and in the area of moral persuasion. We have proved this by our success in resolving some of the toughest questions in Indochina. And in the ASEAN Regional Forum, we have erected an instrument for security consultation and cooperation. By strengthening our own linkages and pooling our own talents, capabilities and resources, we can have a strong voice in crafting the future of the Asia-Pacific. In every regional council, we can speak for moderation, fair play, sharing and mutual respect.

And cohesive action begins with a recognition of the community of our strategic interests. This recognition that the middle powers must band together is what led Vietnam to join ASEAN. We now expect ASEAN to complete uniting the natural cluster of 10 Southeast Asian countries well before the turn of the century.

“ASEAN plus three”

Our impulse to unification—expressed by the terms “ASEAN plus three” or SEA-10—will be particularly salutary to the future of Southeast Asia. None of our 10 countries can stand up separately to the intense competition of the global economy and the power politics that might yet embroil the Asia-Pacific of the future. United, we can face outside pressures and shape our future according to our collective aspirations. United, SEA-10 can play an even bigger role in world affairs than it does now.

We in ASEAN are encouraged that our basic negotiating principles of consultation and consensus can be effective in fostering greater cooperation among states—be it on matters of economics or security. These principles have already become standard operating procedures for both APEC and the ASEAN Regional Forum.

In deciding to build political trust first—rather than coming to grips immediately with specific disputes—in working patiently incrementally and informally—keeping in mind that the process of reaching an agreement is important in itself—both APEC and the ASEAN Regional Forum have gained a unique flexibility and continuity.

This kind of decision-making may be slow, subtle and indirect but it produces agreements that are unforced, nonconfrontational, virtually self-policing and enduring. Thus through APEC and ARF, we nurture a quiet confidence that the entire Asia-Pacific region can grow toward a true community.

People-to-people interaction

To sum up, I believe that building the structure of ASEAN security will benefit from a strategy that closely parallels what we have done on the economic front—both in ASEAN and in APEC. This architecture of regional security we must build step-by-step—through a succession of confidence-building mechanisms, by piling one small achievement upon another.

As we of ASEAN have widened our collaborative institutions to make political, economic, social and cultural cooperation possible, so must we deal with our problems of security in the same way.

As we have focused on building political trust and people-to-people interaction in our economic and social development programs, so in security must we build trust and harmony.

As we have fostered economic interdependence at a pace comfortable for every member, so in security must we build incrementally—keeping in mind that the process of reaching agreement is important in itself.