"Asia-Pacific community" has once again become a heated topic since the Eighth Annual Asian Security Summit was held from May 29 to 31 in Singapore under the auspices of the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies. The Asia-Pacific community is depicted with an air of idealism, and members on the Asia-Pacific rim are alive with a long-term desire to capture large shares on global economy.
Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd first proposed an Asia Pacific community concept in June 2008, when he set forth a grand blueprint to foster a regional cooperation body by 2020 at the Asia society's Sydney-based AustralAsia Center.
According to his blueprint, the trans-Pacific body to be set up by 2020 will include the United States, China, Japan and India. It will take the Asia-Pacific Economic Organization (APEC), or a forum for 21 Pacific Rim countries, the ASEAN Regional Forum, the ASEAN plus Three countries (China, Japan and South Korea), the East Asia Summit and other existing regional frameworks as the basis. And it will expand the capacity to cope with transnational non-traditional security threats, open trade mechanisms and provide long-term fuel energy resources and food security guarantees.
The European Union (EU) is often viewed as the epitome of regional integration in the political, economical, social and other spheres, and it is considered as a model to be followed by other regional groupings, Prime Minister Rudd said. But skeptics were once suspicious of its viability and so "it was necessary to take the first step," he acknowledged.
"Asia-Pacific Community" initiative is based on the definition and recognition of challenges facing the region. Against the backdrop of growing economic globalization, the traditional and non-traditional security issues are very complicated and mutually interwoven. Climate change, fuel energy and food security have been turned into major topics in international relations, and the spread of terrorism, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the rampant piracy also called for multi-faceted coordinated responses.
Nevertheless, the U.S.'initiative has been referred to as the key to the defense of security in the Asia-Pacific region. It is precisely for this reason that Singapore, Thailand and a few other Asian nations were not so enthusiastic with the Asia-Pacific community concept when it was first announced as they all had the fear of marginalization in their future regional framework. Perhaps also against this background, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd tried purposely to dim the hues of big powers during his recent trip to Singapore. In delineating an Asian regional community, Rudd underscored the leading, facilitative role of the ASEAN and other related coordinating mechanisms in the course of the community building.
In view of an in-depth perspective, there is obviously a wide spread of collisions between various concepts in international affairs. As a matter of fact, East Asian nations are interdependent in the fields of economy and trade, and they carry out practical cooperation in non-traditional security spheres. Stern challenges, however, remain in their traditional security realm.
Nevertheless, the Asia-Pacific transformation process is bound to be very complex and difficult. And what crucial at the moment is to seize the opportunity for regional cooperation and integration and jointly eliminate real obstacles on the way ahead.
By People's Daily Online and contributed by Wang Dong, a noted researcher of international relations in elite Beijing University
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