ASEAN Regional Forum Under East Asian Security System:Role,Dilemma And Development Trend

After the cold war,the world security landscape has undergone major changes,and the security environment and order in East Asia have also been seriously affected.The regional influence of China,Japan and other major powers rise rapidly,and the original territorial waters disputes also began to re-surfaced.In this context,in order to effectively safeguard ASEAN's own security and interests,to achieve regional peace and stability,ASEAN began to pursue an independent security strategy,and actively promote the creation of a new regional security mechanism.ASEAN Regional Forum was born in 1994,So far is still the region's most important official security cooperation mechanism.The 1995 ASEAN Regional Forum Concept Paper clarified the objectives of the Forum in three phases:the first is to promote the establishment of confidence measures,which is the basis for the activities of the Forum;the second is to carry out preventive diplomacy,which is the key to the development of the "action-oriented" forum;the third is to explore approaches to resolve the conflict,which is the ultimate goal of the Forum.After 20 years of development,the Forum has achieved great success in the first phase and has entered the primary stage of preventive diplomacy.At present,the research results of the Forum are divided into general research,development process research and country policy research,etc.These studies as a whole show a decentralized characteristics and lack of systematic research on the forum.Therefore,I will focus on the ASEAN regional forum to conduct a systematic study in the context of the East Asian security system.The current East Asian security system presents a complex type of characteristics,is still in constant evolution:three kinds of security cooperation mode coexist;security relations of major powers play a leading role;multilateral security cooperation mechanism has emerged and presented the "repetitious" situation.In this security system,the forum has mainly played the following three aspects:First,the institutional compatibility of the forum enhances the attractiveness of the parties to security cooperation;Second,with the system of "balance" and "leverage",the forum implements the balance of power strategy and coordinates relations between major powers;Third,promoting the socialization of power by the socialization of norms,so as to create a common regional rules and norms and cultivate the habit of cooperation between countries.However,it is also faced with many difficulties in the process of development:First,ASEAN's leadership dilemma,including ASEAN internal differences,territorial disputes between member states and ASEAN's own reform issues;Second,it is difficult to restrain the major powers,mainly in the limited participation of the United States,Japan's negative participation and China's cautious participation;Third,the institutional plight of the forum itself,including the confrontation of different security concepts,the "ASEAN way" dispute and the"preventive diplomacy" dispute.These dilemmas are deeply rooted in the soil of East Asian security reality,and also can not get rid of the conditions of East Asian security system.As a result,the reform of the ASEAN Regional Forum has become even more difficult,and can only be done in the low-sensitive areas in a prudent and slow way.In the context of the current East Asian security system,ASEAN will continue to dominate the development process of the Forum.The Forum could not be transformed into a binding,more effective multilateral security cooperation mechanism in the short term.But in the long run,its position and influence in the process of regional security cooperation is still irreplaceable.It is foreseeable that the ASEAN Regional Forum will become the central pillar of the evolving regional security system by sharing and shaping common rules and norms.