Conflict Management, Security and Intervention in East Asia

Third-party Mediation in Regional Conflict

Jacob Bercovitch, Kwei-Bo Huang, Chung-Chian Teng, Jacob Bercovitch, Kwei-Bo Huang, Chung-Chian Teng

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2008
• ISBN:
  9781134141012
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

This edited volume examines the sources, manifestations and management of conflict in East Asia, which contains many of the worlds conflict flashpoints, such as the Korean Peninsula and the China-Taiwan Strait.In particular, the book will elaborate on the following themes: general and NGO approaches to third-party mediation in conflict situations;r

1 Introduction

Security, conflict management and resolution in East Asia

Chung-Chian Teng

The political economy of East Asian security

The regional political and economic environment could affect the management and resolution of conflicts. On the one hand, the increasing economic convergence and integration in East Asia and China’s role in the economic growth of this region could facilitate nations’ efforts to work out ways to contain, reduce and settle international conflicts. On the other hand, the complex security relations among them, Sino-U.S. relations in particular, could make it harder to find an appropriate resolution.

The rise of East Asia’s economy and its effect on security

East Asian nations have demonstrated their economic clout in terms of their merchandise trade (see Appendix 1.1). During the 2000–04 period, Japan’s export increased from U.S.$479 billion (growth rate 14 percent) to U.S.$566 billion (growth rate 20 percent); its imports increased from U.S.$380 billion (growth rate 22 percent) to U.S.$455 billion (growth rate 19 percent). In a similar vein, six East Asian nations performed strongly and their exports increased from U.S.$649 billion (growth rate 19 percent) to U.S. $860 billion (growth rate 24 percent) and imports from U.S.$615 billion (growth rate 27 percent) to U.S.$785 billion (growth rate 27 percent).

More importantly, we have observed the progress of the economic integration among East Asian nations. Following the world trend toward the conclusion of free trade agreements (FTAs) and/or regional trade agreements (RTAs), East Asian nations have agreed more than twenty-two FTAs and RTAs from 2000 (see Appendix 1.2) and many more are under negotiation and study. Almost all major nations participated in this movement including the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), China, Taiwan, Australia, New Zealand, and South Korea. On top of its pursuing FTAs with East Asian nations, the United States initiated a push for the creation of a Free Trade Area in the Asia-Pacific region through the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Leaders’ summit in 2006 (Chen 2006).

In the early twenty-first century the single most important factor affecting the East Asian regional system has been the rise of China. The Chinese economy has been expanding rapidly in terms of economic growth and foreign trade. Its economy ranked fourth in the world only behind the U.S., Japan, and Germany; its GDP was U.S.$2.23 trillion in 2005 with an annual growth rate of 10.2 percent (World Bank 2007: 194–6) China’s sustained and dynamic growth of exports and imports made it the third largest trading country, following the United States and Germany in 2004 (World Trade Organization 2005: 21).

The most important aspect of China’s new connection with East Asian nations has been the Chinese market and capital (Shambaugh 2005: 36–7). In fact, China plays the locomotive engine, the leading force, in regional economic development. China is the major exporting market of East Asian nations. Almost all major nations enjoyed substantial merchandise trade surplus with China in 2001 and 2006, including Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, South Korea, Thailand, Australia, and New Zealand (see Appendix 1.3). Additionally, the value of China’s trade with most East Asian nations in 2006 was more than double the value in 2001.

China’s foreign direct investment (FDI) poured U.S.$3.1 billion and U.S.$4.6 billion into East Asia in 2004 and 2005 respectively, with 48.4 percent growth rate (National Bureau of Statistics of China 2006). At the end of 2005, China’s accumulated FDI in East Asia reached U.S.$41 billion, which accounts for 72 percent of China’s total FDI in the world (National Bureau of Statistics of China 2006). China’s FDI in East Asia could be much higher as some of its investment in Latin America (e.g. Virgin Islands) might finally transfer to East Asia.

The increasingly integrated economy in East Asia is reflected in the closer economic cooperation among nations and has, in turn, been contributing to the spillover of partnerships to other areas as well as securing peace in the region. One of the most illuminating cases is the trilateral cooperation among China, Vietnam and the Philippines to develop exploration for deep-sea oil in the South China Sea by putting aside their territorial disputes (Buszynski and Sazlan 2007: 164–5). Moreover, China would like to take responsibility for preventing potential regional conflicts such as its successful mediation in the confrontation between Cambodia and Thailand in March 2003 (Kurlantzick 2007: 155–7). Economic factors, so far, have influenced the positive progress in the resolution of the North Korean nuclear crisis. North Korea, as one of the most isolated countries in the world, has been conceiving a similar kind of development to China. More importantly, North Korea learned a precious lesson about the tremendous impact of international financial globalization during the 2005–07 period when it was negotiating the release of its U.S.$25 million assets in Macau’s Banco Delta Asia, frozen by the U.S. Department of the Treasury in September 2005 (Kessler 2007a, 2007b). After having collected the frozen assets, North Korea immediately started the process of implementation of the February 13 agreement reached in Beijing and invited the inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency to discuss the suspension of the operation of nuclear facilities at Yongbyon (Cody 2007). The increasing economic interactions and partnerships have prevented the escalation of potential conflicts in East Asia.

The politico-military security in East Asia

Despite the increasingly integrated economy in East Asia, the prospect of politico-military security has been overshadowed by the implicit competition between China on the one hand and the United States and Japan on the other hand. Parallel to its economic ascendancy, China’s military build-up and presence have been strengthened quite obviously, with the U.S. and its alliance intensely observing the Chinese actions (Armitage and Nye 2007: 4). A U.S. Department of Defense report openly warns that Chinese military build-up at current speed and scope might tilt the regional balance of power (Bush and O’Hanlon 2007: 26–7).

Several scenarios coming across at the beginning of the twenty-first century have reminded the U.S. of the precarious situation in East Asia. To begin with, a Chinese F-8 fighter jet collided with a U.S. Navy EP-3 reconnaissance aircraft over the South China Sea in early April 2001. Moreover, clandestine activities, involving Chinese naval submarines, have been spotted by the U.S. and Japan and aroused deep concerns in 2004 and 2006, respectively. (Curtin 2004; Gertz 2006). The most alarming and significant military event happened in early 2007 with China’s demonstration of its new anti-satellite capability by sending up a ballistic missile to destroy an aging weather satellite, which makes it the third power to shoot down an object in space (Kaufman and Linzer 2007). A more urgent issue has been China’s potential military threat toward Taiwan, especially by targeting about 980 tactical ballistic missiles on the island by the end of 2006, and the number of missiles is rising at the rate of 100 to 120 per year.

The Bush administration focuses on the U.S.–Japan alliance at the core of its East Asian strategy. To strengthen its position, the U.S. has been working to secure a “quadrilateral” alliance with Japan, Australia, and India. With the support and assistance from the U.S., Japan has successfully formed a closer security relationship with Australia (Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs 2007). Furthermore, the India—Japan—US—Australia Quadrilateral Initiative was unofficially formed in May 2007 when U.S., Indian, Australian, and Japanese senior officials quietly held a meeting on the sidelines of the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) gathering in Manila (Varadarajan 2007). This initiative, of course, elicited grave concern from China, which has long been suspicious of the “soft containment” by the U.S.-led alliance.

However, we have also observed the cooperation among major powers in East Asia to maintain peace and prosperity there. With the support of East Asian nations—including ASEAN nations, the U.S., China, Japan, Australia and others—the 13-year internal war in Cambodia was finally ended by the signing of the Paris Peace Treaty in 1991 and the peace was kept by the United Nations’ (UN) mission in Cambodia from 1992 to 1994. In a similar vein, the UN Security Council in 1999 authorized an Australian-led International Force in East Timor to restore peace and security there while a UN Mission of Support provided humanitarian assistance from 2002 to 2005 (Gill 2007: 119).

It is expected that China and the United States must be responsible stakeholders and assertively involved in the resolution of conflicts in East Asia. While facing the possible escalation of low-intensity conflicts into all-out war in this area, they must put more effort into, and elicit more reconciliation from, opposing parties to defuse the danger points. Richard Holbrooke, a veteran diplomat and former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, indicated that without China, it would be very hard for the U.S. to make a breakthrough in negotiations with North Korea and to have a dialogue with Burmese officials to discuss the status of Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel Peace Prize winner and opposition leader (Holbrooke 2007). It is the shift of U.S. policy toward North Korea, by holding a U.S. and North Korea one-on-one meeting in Berlin in January 2007, that facilitated the smooth progress of the six-party talks and paved the way to the final conclusion of the February 13 agreement.

Owing to their heavy weight in world affairs and numerous overlapping interests, China and the U.S. must have closer cooperation. In fact, they started their first strategic dialogue in August 2005. While China expected that strategic dialogue would enhance mutual trust, expand consensus, and promote bilateral constructive relations, the U.S. saw the object of dialogue to “better understand the sense of direction, the planning,” and to set up a platform for further discussions (Jiang 2005). To prevent the escalation of any conflict into war, this kind of dialogue should be very constructive and conducive to the final settlement.

Conflict management and Resolution in East Asia

In the post-cold war era, we have observed various kinds of national, regional, and international conflicts in East Asia. Among others, there are the East Timor issue, Aceh issue, Moro National Islamic Front issue, Korean Peninsula nuclear issue and Taiwan Strait issue. In this multireligious and multiracial region, there is no formal regional security organization (such as the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe) or related mechanisms to build peace and/or prevent the escalation of low-intensity conflict into a major one. Under these circumstances how could East Asian countries contain, reduce, and settle these conflicts? Who will play the leading role as the third party in the process of conflict management? Who are the candidates of the third party? An international organization, or a nation-state, or a non-state actor? How do those third parties get involved in the process of negotiation and bargaining? What are the results or current situation of conflict management?

In this book, all essays focus on the preceding questions by examining the major conflicts in the Korean Peninsula, the Taiwan Strait, and Southeast Asia, and scrutinizing the role of contending parties and that of major mediators or the third parties under the above-mentioned security environment. More importantly, we would like to illustrate the behavior of two major powerhouses, i.e. the U.S. and China, as they deal with conflict management and resolution in East Asia. Both the U.S. and China play the contending party and the third party in different conflicts.

In the first section, Chung-Chian Teng, Jacob Bercovitch, and Mikael Weissmann discuss different models of conflict management and third party mediation. In Teng’s essay, the traditional model used by Bercovitch is identified as the “Outsider-Neutral Model,” whose basic arguments are as follows: (1) the core of this model is the existence of a neutral mediator or third party; (2) the third party or mediator maintains distance from, and is not connected to, either of the parties in the dispute; (3) the third party does not have a vested interest in any outcome except settlement, and does not expect any special reward from either side; and (4) the neutrality of the mediator primarily lies in their professional role, position, and function. This model has been widely used in Western society, such as the Northern Ireland negotiations led by former U.S. senator George Mitchell and others, which led to the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.

However, Teng held that the “Insider-Partial Model” should be a suitable alternative, while discussing conflict management between non-Western countries. In this model, the internality and partiality of the mediator become the key concepts rather than externality and neutrality. The basic elements of the model include: (1) that the third party or mediator is “from within the conflict;” (2) the acceptability of the mediator depends on its connectedness and trusted relationship with the conflicting parties; (3) the mediator must live with the consequences of their bargaining in the post-negotiation period; and (4) the mediator should rely on interpersonal communication as a way to reach consensus in a traditional cultural setting. It is no less important that the impartial, neutral mediators usually participate in the process of conflict resolution. In other words, the conflict management would include insider-partial mediators (such as the presidents of the Central American nations, President Arias of Costa Rica in particular), outside, neutral interveners (such as former U.S. president Jimmy Carter), and other external third parties, including prominent political elites, international organizations, and other international interveners.

Having examined the negotiation process of these two flash points (i.e. the Taiwan Strait and the Korean Peninsula), Teng points out that the third party is indispensable. More importantly, the third parties are kind of insider-partial. In both cases, the third parties are “from within the conflict” and have some connection and trusted relationship with the conflicting parties. In the case of the Taiwan Strait issue, the role of the third party is played by the United States as well as those individuals and functional associations that have vested interests in the settlement of those disputes. In the six-party talks, China, Russia, and Japan, the third parties, all have a stake.

Additionally, the “major powers” – the U.S. and China—also play the role of the third party in the resolution of a dispute. Owing to its vital interest, the U.S., which has maintained a de facto alliance with Taiwan since the eruption of the Korean War, must assume the burden of maintaining the status quo in the Taiwan Strait. For China, which suffered severe casualties to defend North Korea in the Korean War, it must prevent North Korea from collapsing, although the nature of its alliance relationship has changed during the 1990s. Therefore, both the U.S. and China have been actively involved in the negotiation process and are keeping it alive.

What and who are the third parties? Bercovitch follows the traditional Western definition and argues that a third party is someone who is external to a particular conflict and who interposes between the disputants in order to help them with their conflict management efforts. Possible third parties can be placed into four categories: (1) individuals, (2) states, (3) regional organizations, and (4) global collective organizations or the United Nations. Furthermore, four strategies or roles of the third parties are identified

1. Information functions: the most basic function of many third parties is simply to convey information to the disputing parties.
2. Tactical functions: third parties attempt to reduce the impact of tactical rigidities by the disputing parties, to initiate proposals for the compromise settlement, and to help one or more disputing parties making concessions.
3. Supervisory functions: there may be a wide range of potential supervisory functions for the third parties who can either bolster the confidence of the disputing parties in each other’s willingness to carry out the terms of an agreement or offer their services as impartial monitors of the continuing execution of an agreement over time.
4. Reconceptualization functions: a third party may take a number of actions involving persuasion or coercion to induce the disputing parties to reconceptualize one or more of the major characteristics of their relationship in the interests of facilitating the achievement of a “desirable” outcome.

There are four major reasons for the intervention of a third party. First, a third party may be invited by one or more of the disputing parties, or may be asked to intervene by other interested parties (e.g. the United Nations or regional organizations). Second, a third party may intervene on its own accord when it perceives that some of its national interests may be affected (e.g. Australia’s intervention in the East Timor crisis). Third, a third party may also intervene in order to preserve a system of integration (e.g. ASEAN intervening in a conflict between members). Fourth, a third party may intervene in conflict situations because thei...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• List of appendices and tables
• About the contributors
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction: security, conflict management an resolution in East Asia
• SECTION I General approaches to conflict management an third-party mediation in East Asia
• SECTION II Approaches to conflict management in East Asia: third parties and other parties
• SECTION III Third parties in the context of Taipei–Beijing
• SECTION IV Conclusion