The Development Of Asean’s Preventive Diplomacy And Its Impact On Laos

The concept of Preventive Diplomacy was first proposed by the second UNSecretary-General Dag Hammarskjold in1960. However, the subject did not getinternational attention because of the setup of the world at that time. With the end ofthe Cold War, regional conflicts continued to increase instead of otherwise; traditionalmethods were unable to cope with these challenges, so preventive diplomacy has re-entered people’s vision to become a new international subject which attracts muchattention. What’s more, it has now become an important diplomatic way to maintainregional security and stability.However, due to the ambiguity and multiplicity of preventive diplomacy,various countries and districts have their own system of innovation and developmentcharacteristics on the theory and practice of preventive diplomacy. UN preventivediplomacy is known as a comprehensive preventive diplomacy, while the UnitedStates believes that only the really big countries can engage in preventive diplomacy,this in turn indirectly exposed U.S. hegemony in this subject interest.In ASEAN, preventive diplomacy is in the development stage. As the onlyregional security cooperation mechanisms in Southeast Asian, ASEAN RegionalForum is in the transition phase from confidence-building measures to preventivediplomacy. Therefore, it is crucial to properly grasp the future development directionof preventive diplomacy. But ASEAN is made up of a number of member states;therefore the development of preventive diplomacy also needs to consider therelationship among the member states, the problems faced and feasibility ofpreventive diplomacy.In the Cambodian-Thai conflicts and South China Sea issue, the effect ofpreventive diplomacy is not that obvious. But we can tell from these two issues,preventive diplomacy is gradually affecting diplomatic relations among the countries.All the countries hope to have peaceful means to minimize conflicts before theconflicts become more serious. Therefore, preventive diplomacy will play a crucialrole in conflict mediation between the countries or regions in the future.Laos is a member of the ASEAN Regional Forum and there was some impactof preventive diplomacy in Laos. However, due to the development of Laos and otherreasons, Laos has relatively later exposure to ASEAN preventive diplomacy than itsother ASEAN counterparts; in addition it is also worth exploring whether to carry outpreventive diplomacy and practical aspects. There are some problems in theimplementation of preventive diplomacy. Laos is now at an important period of economic development and still in the exploratory stage to conduct preventivediplomacy, but Laos has a clear direction of the development of preventive diplomacy,which will achieve good results.The main purpose of preventive diplomacy study is to clarify the standpointand role of preventive diplomacy and other related issues, and how these issues areresolved and put into practice; we hope that preventive diplomacy could achievebetter results in safeguarding world peace and in the settlement of conflicts to makethe peaceful world.