Piecing peace together

Overarching mechanism required to improve security governance in Asia-Pacific

Currently, security risks in the Asia-Pacific region are rising. As part of its intensifying competition with China, the United States has been reinforcing its alliance system in the Asia-Pacific region by creating a number of mini-multilateral institutions — such as the US-Japan-Republic of Korea, US-Japan-India-Australia cooperation mechanisms and US-United Kingdom-Australia (AUKUS) partnership — to intervene in regional hotspot issues. This has resulted in intensified division and confrontation in the Asia-Pacific region and greatly undermined regional security.

There are various security mechanisms in the Asia-Pacific region, which have vastly different security cooperation concepts. To build a more holistic and comprehensive security architecture for the entire region, we should not start all over again, but should create it on the basis of coordinating existing security mechanisms.

Since the US-led security mechanisms are exclusive, they can hardly serve as the foundation for inclusive Asia-Pacific security cooperation. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations acts as a platform for member states to coordinate on security issues. This, to a certain extent, constrains the US' influence on Asia-Pacific security and encourages all major countries to compete and cooperate with each other in a controllable way. This is also helping to elevate ASEAN's status on the global stage.

China meanwhile advocates cooperative security. That is, differences and disputes should be addressed through dialogue and consultation.

China and ASEAN share similar security concepts and these two concepts could be combined to serve as the foundation for a multilayer, multi-domain, holistic and comprehensive security architecture for the Asia-Pacific region.

Meanwhile, the East Asia Summit and the Summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia have the widest participation among Asia-Pacific countries. Although the two currently have limited involvement in security issues, they could serve as the foundation for a coordination mechanism to uphold common, cooperative and coordinated security for Asia-Pacific countries.

A step-by-step approach should be adopted to build an Asia-Pacific security mechanism. Coordinating among major powers in the region is essential, given the complexity of the major-country competition in the Asia-Pacific region. Coordinating requires regional major powers to compete with each other in a peaceful manner and avoid resolving disputes and conflicts by force. Coordinating among major powers is the foundation for maintaining regional stability and an essential means for safeguarding regional peace in the context of the various security mechanisms that exist at present.

On the other side of the equation, mechanism coordination requires relevant parties to regulate their security actions in the Asia-Pacific region and to act in concert to resolve regional security conflicts. This will help balance the stronger and weaker powers in different mechanisms and promote fairness and justice in Asia-Pacific security governance.

To promote the building of an Asia-Pacific security architecture, China needs to follow the concept of "dual coordination" and "dual tracks", that is, to coordinate power and mechanisms and to promote two coordinations simultaneously and let them support each other.

Specifically, it should advance the building of a new security architecture through the following measures.

To start with, major regional powers should form a coordination mechanism and establish an effective communication mechanism, through which they can coordinate with each other on major regional events and crises when necessary.

Second, the existing security cooperation mechanisms should be improved. The three major subregional organizations — ASEAN, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation — should jointly advance the building of an overarching Asia-Pacific security architecture.

Third, the cooperative area for the holistic cooperation mechanism should be expanded. Commencing with relatively easier security topics, more security issues can gradually be introduced into the discussions in an attempt to eventually cover almost all security issues in the region on the basis of effective security governance.

Fourth, the new security architecture in the Asia-Pacific region must be inclusive. It needs to include all countries in the region to demonstrate its inclusiveness, representativeness and strengthen regional consensus and regional coordination.

Major powers in the region should vigorously participate in the mechanism. China, the US, Russia, Japan, India, and ASEAN should be active participants of the mechanism, wherein they can build a broader consensus of "not resorting to violence and preventing armed conflicts" and are willing to carry out cooperation to safeguard Asia-Pacific security.

The author is director of the International Security Research Center at China Foreign Affairs University. The author contributed this article to China Watch, a think tank powered by China Daily. The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.

Contact the editor at editor@chinawatch.cn