SOUTHEAST ASIAN AFFAIRS

▪ 1994

      Regional cooperation in the post-Cold War era continued to preoccupy Southeast Asian nations, although trade had drawn equal to or surpassed security as the key debating point in 1993. This was due in part to the new administration of U.S. Pres. Bill Clinton, which demanded market-opening measures and "fair trade" by Asian countries. There were also concerns about the fate of the Uruguay round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). All nations in the region supported a successful conclusion to the GATT talks, but the potential for failure was widely recognized. There was much discussion of future courses of action within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), grouping Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand. Malaysian Prime Minister Datuk Seri Mahathir bin Mohamad continued to press for an East Asian Economic Caucus (EAEC), which would include Asian nations and territories from Japan to Indonesia but would exclude Australia and New Zealand. Australia and the U.S. had since 1989 promoted the forum on Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), which would include the ASEAN nations, Japan, South Korea, China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong plus Australia, New Zealand, and countries on the eastern side of the Pacific, thus far the U.S. and Canada.

      The U.S. assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, Winston Lord, signaled a change of approach in March by voicing support for regional forums for both political and security issues. The administration of former president George Bush had put more emphasis on bilateralism. Lord indicated that the U.S. would take an active role in promoting APEC and joining discussions about regional defense.

      Other U.S. officials expressed support for the new security meetings being conducted under the aegis of the ASEAN postministerial conference after the annual meeting of ASEAN foreign ministers. Clinton later proposed that an APEC ministerial meeting planned for Seattle, Wash., in November be upgraded to an informal summit. An advisory "eminent persons group" suggested that the grouping be renamed the Asia Pacific Economic Community.

      The ASEAN foreign ministers conference, held in Singapore in July, proved decisive on both the political and security fronts. The EAEC issue, pitting Malaysia against Indonesia, which supported APEC, was resolved when ministers agreed that EAEC would become a caucus within APEC. While some believed that EAEC had been effectively buried, others saw the change as a grouping of Asian nations within APEC to form a counterweight to non-Asian nations, particularly the U.S. Malaysia, however, remained cool to APEC, and Mahathir announced that he would not personally attend the Seattle summit. It proved to be the first meeting of all the major nations of the Pacific.

      The ASEAN conference followed a preparatory meeting in Singapore in May. For the first time, senior officials of the six-member grouping held talks on security with key officials from the seven dialogue partners of the postministerial conference. These were the U.S., Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, South Korea, and the European Community. Backing a position originally taken by Japan, the group concluded that there was a need to find "means for consultations on regional political and security issues." The ASEAN foreign ministers then took the watershed decision in July to set up the ASEAN Regional Forum. It was to be composed of their six members and the seven dialogue partners plus Russia, China, Vietnam, Laos, and Papua New Guinea. It would have its first meeting in Bangkok, Thailand, in 1994. In effect, the Southeast Asians had created an Asia-wide venue for discussion. At the postministerial conference, U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher called for stronger efforts to stop the spread of weapons of mass destruction in Asia.

      Southeast Asian nations remained concerned about Chinese territorial claims in the South China Sea, especially to the Spratly Islands. At a high-level informal workshop held in August, Indonesian Foreign Minister Ali Alatas proposed more formal government-to-government talks on the islands. China rejected the idea, but during a visit to Malaysia and Singapore, Chinese Defense Minister Chi Haotian (Ch'ih Hao-t'ien) reiterated Beijing's (Peking's) pledge not to use military force to resolve the issue. Russia, meanwhile, was becoming a source of cheap arms. Malaysia bought 18 MiG-29 fighter aircraft from Moscow in a deal hotly contested by the U.S.; the $600 million compromise included the purchase of eight U.S. F/A-18D aircraft. Russia also raised some regional eyebrows by telling Vietnam it wished to maintain its naval base at Cam Ranh Bay under a Soviet-era agreement expiring in 2000.

      The massive $3 billion UN effort to pacify the warring parties in Cambodia and hold credible elections in May proved to be a remarkable success, despite predictions of a new civil war and despite at least 21 fatalities among the 20,800 UN personnel supplied by 32 countries. Worries about a renewal of hostilities receded after the election when soldiers of the Marxist Khmer Rouge began defecting in increasing numbers. In August copremiers Norodom Ranariddh and Hun Sen visited Vietnam. The two sides largely avoided such divisive issues as border disputes and the return of some 30,000 ethnic Vietnamese who had fled Cambodia early in the year amid Khmer Rouge attacks. The UN Transitional Authority in Cambodia was able to wind down operations on schedule in September when Ranariddh's father, former ruler Prince Norodom Sihanouk, was restored as king under a new constitution. All UN personnel were scheduled to leave by November. Elections in Cambodia were supposed to be a key point in the U.S. "road map" leading to the normalization of relations with Vietnam. The unresolved issue of U.S. prisoner-of-war and missing-in-action cases, however, led Clinton to continue the long-standing trade embargo against Vietnam. Clinton had eased up somewhat in July by allowing the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to grant loans to Hanoi. In February, French Pres. François Mitterrand became the first Western head of state to visit Hanoi since the communist republic was formed.

      Controversies over human rights continued to dog relations between Southeast Asia and the West. In preparation for the World Conference on Human Rights held in Vienna in June, Asian nations met in Thailand in March to produce the Bangkok Declaration. This upheld the principle of noninterference in the internal affairs of other nations and argued that while human rights were universal, "various historical, cultural, and religious backgrounds" could not be disregarded. ASEAN countries, notably Malaysia and Singapore, maintained the pressure in Vienna for a wider definition of human rights, including economic rights. In Southeast Asia the U.S. put considerable pressure on Indonesia by threatening trade action over alleged violations of workers' rights. In August, Washington blocked the sale by Jordan to Indonesia of U.S.-supplied F-5 fighter planes, citing concern over human rights in East Timor. The U.S. also began assessing whether it was taking a sufficiently strong line against the ruling military junta in Myanmar (Burma). In February several Nobel Peace Prize laureates, including the Dalai Lama, South African Bishop Desmond Tutu, and former Costa Rican president Oscar Arias, flew to Bangkok to demand the release of Myanmar opposition leader and fellow laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who had been detained under house arrest since 1989. The group was denied entry to Myanmar.

      Relations between Malaysia and the Philippines warmed in January when Fidel Ramos arrived in Kuala Lumpur. He was the first Philippine head of government to make an official state visit in 25 years. The two sides agreed to set up a joint commission to expand ties and settle outstanding issues, including a Philippine claim to the Malaysian state of Sabah in northern Borneo. The two agreed to establish "extension offices" for their respective embassies, in Sabah for the Philippines and in Mindanao for Malaysia. This seemed to implicitly recognize Sabah as part of Malaysia, but Ramos said that settling the Philippine claim would be "a long, step-by-step process."

      Meeting in Manila in August, the six nations along the Mekong River—China, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam—agreed on a list of projects that, if approved by the Asian Development Bank, would upgrade road and other links. In October stock markets in the region reached seemingly stratospheric levels before declining. Growth levels continued at their characteristically high rates. Southeast Asian Chinese business groups were increasingly attracted by investment opportunities in China. The battle for Asian television screens heated up as global media tycoon Rupert Murdoch bought Hong Kong-based STAR TV, a multichannel satellite service reaching 38 countries.

      (BERTON WOODWARD)

* * *