Not too long ago the world celebrated the 10th anniversary of the fall of Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War. However, the triumphant euphoria soon abated.
What characterizes the Asia-Pacific region now is not the security which should have been the dividend of the end of East-West confrontation, but the insecurity that increasingly dominates the mind-set of regional leaders. A showdown of opposing forces, which has been brewing for so long, seems to be unavoidable.
At the dawn of the new millennium, the Asia-Pacific region is going through a critical period of transition. Democratization at home and enhanced international interventionism are bringing about the breakdown of political equilibrium in many countries and represent a real threat to authoritarian regimes. The rapid development of high-technology and introduction of the Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) has upset the military balance of power in the region, causing an upward spiral in arms acquisition. Globalization increasingly weakens the control of national governments over economic management and shakes the relatively fragile financial infrastructure in the region.
As far as regional security is concerned, things may get a lot worse before they get better. In the meantime instability may be the price that must be payed for the inevitable change in the status quo.
The Dilemmas of Democratization
In the long run, the trend towards peace will be consolidated by more and more countries embracing democracy. Democratization is picking up momentum in the entire Asia-Pacific region. At the same time, however, the transition toward democracy may generate great instability in domestic politics.
The military and some radical religious groups may take the upper hand to create an illiberal democratic state, such as in Iran, Pakistan and Cambodia. We will wait and see if Indonesia will be added to the list.
A successful democratic transition depends on the organic fusion of a revolution from above and the pressure of the people's power from below. Timing is critical, as the successful transitions in Taiwan and South Korea showed. A proper level of external pressure is also helpful; however too much pressure could be counter-productive, as it undermines the ability of transforming regimes to control the timing of democratization.
A profound dilemma for Asian security is how to strike a balance between maintaining the momentum of evolutionary transition and increasing international pressure to facilitate the regime's change. Unless a good job is done in this respect, Asia's democratic movements may simply result in more nationalist, anti-Western and self-assertive foreign policies
Lack of consensus on intervention
The war in Kosovo may be a watershed event in contemporary world history, as the first instance in which a group of key powers circumvent the normal channels of conflict resolution and intervened in a sovereign country's domestic affairs through military means. It may be the first in a long list of similar cases that may invite such intervention.
In the short term, there is no doubt that international interventionism has greatly accelerated the division of the international community, causing grave instability worldwide, and in the Asia-Pacific region in particular.
The clearest example is China's extraordinary reaction to the Kosovo crisis, which relates to its concerns over its own ethnic tensions. Although some possibility exists that the West might intervene in China's ethnic and regional conflicts, eg, Tibet and Taiwan, such a reality has no direct link with Kosovo. The Chinese media conveyed an exaggerated message to the people that a war against China was imminent if the country did not stand up strongly against NATO's intervention in Kosovo. This has violated two of China's post-Cold War foreign policy principles: do not take a confrontational approach towards the West if its quarrel with the West does not involve a fundamental challenge to China's national sovereignty and territorial integrity; and do not get involved in a conflict that does not have any bearing on China's immediate strategic interests.
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