Non-traditional Security Cooperation And The Creation Of ASEAN Security Community

In the September of2003, the leaders summit came from the nine members ofASEAN adopted a resolution, and decide that they would have the ASEANCommunity been built in2020. The realization of the security community is theultimate goal. In the traditional security areas,, ASEAN countries can’t eliminatethe security dilemma because of the historical and the practical factors. Therefore,there are many difficulties for ASEAN countries to prompt the security communitythrough the traditional security cooperation. As the development of globalization,non-traditional security threats have been more and more serious. The non-traditionalsecurity problems such as terrorism, financial crisis, pirate attack, public health event,the deterioration of the environment have become the common threats to the ASEANcountries. All of this threats are transnational and diffused. Faced with these threats,each single country can’t overcome them successfully. So, the ASEAN countries havebeen developed close cooperation in the field of non-traditional security in order toprotect their national interests and the interests of the region. In the process ofnon-traditional security cooperation, the ASEAN countries have promoted manycooperative institutions through a series of meetings, declarations and documents. Atthe same time, this close cooperation process will increase the common interests of allcountries and deepen their mutual independence, and it will also increase the ASEANcountries’ identity as a member of ASEAN. These factors are good for integrating thereletionship of ASEAN countries, so as to promote the construction of ASEANSecurity Community. The key factors of ASEAN Security Community such asnational interests, cooperative mechanism and collective identity are reflected in thethree mainstream theories of international relations as realism, liberalism andconstructivism. So, this article base on the mainstream theories of internationalrelations to analysis the generating process of all the above factors and to analysistheir effect to the ASEAN Security Community. Absolutely, the construction of thesecurity community is not so smooth. The construction of ASEAN securitycommunity in the context of non-traditional security cooperation still faces manychallenges such as the disadvantageous factors of ASEAN itself and the interferencecomes from extraterritorial powers. So, ASEAN countries must strengthen theircooperation and take corresponding measures to promote the construction of the security community. The construction of Security Community is the target, andnon-traditional security cooperation is the way. These two factors can promote eachother. Jointly, they will safeguard the peace and stability of ASEAN region.