I - POLITICAL OUTLOOK: Southeast Asia 1993–94

Summary

OVERVIEW

Relatively Benign Environment

The prospects for peace and stability in Southeast Asia appear to be good in the short to medium term, that is, up to about five years. During this period the overall Asia-Pacific security environment is expected to stay relatively benign. A credible U.S. military presence will probably remain; Japan will still be enmeshed in the security alliance with the United States; China will be more preoccupied with domestic problems and still without a significant long distance power projection capability; and Russia will be largely absorbed with keeping its own house in order.

With the signing of the Cambodian peace agreements, political and economic relations between the ASEAN countries and the Indochina states have improved further. Vietnam and Laos have acceded to ASEAN's Treaty of Amity and Co-operation and have been admitted as observers to the annual ASEAN Ministerial Meeting. Similar links between ASEAN and Cambodia can be expected once a new government, elected according to the terms of the peace accords, comes to power in Phnom Penh.

The ASEAN countries are stepping up their efforts at co-operation. The Singapore Summit in January 1992 decided to form an ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA) in fifteen years. It also agreed to strengthen the ASEAN Secretariat, and the powers of the new Secretary-General. There is also a desire for new modes of co-operation and confidence-building in the Asia-Pacific region. This is in response to the new situation which has arisen from the end of Soviet-U.S. confrontation in the region and the U.S. military withdrawal from bases in the Philippines. The ASEAN post-Ministerial Conference has become a forum for discussions on Asian-Pacific security. The Asia-Pacific Economic Conference (APEC), established in 1989, is strengthening its organizational machinery and embarking on new projects. While its immediate rationale is economic co-operation, over the longer-term, there are likely to be political and confidence-building yields as well.