The Security Dilemmas of Southeast Asia Also by Alan Collins THE SECURITY DILEMMA AND THE END OF THE COLD WAR The Security Dilemmas of Southeast Asia Alan Collins Lecturer in Politics University of Wales Swansea in association with PALGRAVE MACMILLAN First published in Great Britain 2000 by MACMILLAN PRESS LTD Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and London Companies and representatives throughout the world A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN 978-1-349-42386-6 ISBN 978-0-333-98563-2 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/9780333985632 First published in the United States of America 2000 by ST. MARTIN’S PRESS, LLC, Scholarly and Reference Division, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 ISBN 978-0-312-23525-3 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Collins, Alan. The security dilemmas of Southeast Asia / Alan Collins. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-312-23525-3 1. Asia, Southeastern—Foreign relations. 2. Asia, Southeastern—Military policy. 3. Asia, Southeastern—Ethnic relations. 4. Security, International. I. Title. JZ1720 .C65 2000 327.1'6'0959—dc21 00–031120 First published in Singapore by the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 30 Heng Mui Keng Terrace, Singapore 119614 for distribution in the ASEAN countries, China, Hong Kong, Korea and Taiwan. (ISBN 978-981-230-108-6) © Alan Collins 2000 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2000 978-0-333-91890-6 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1P 0LP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. 10987654321 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 00 Contents List of Tables vi List of Abbreviations vii Preface ix 1 Introduction: Evolution of the Security Dilemma 1 Part I Intra-state Security Dilemma 2 Third World Security: Security and Insecurity Dilemma 29 3 Ethnic Tensions and the Security Dilemma in Southeast Asia 52 Part II Inter-state Security Dilemma 4 ASEAN’s Security Dilemma 89 Part III State-induced Security Dilemma 5 ASEAN, the China Threat and the South China Sea Dispute 133 6 Conclusion: Application and Mitigation 173 Notes 190 Index 230 v List of Tables 4.1 Territorial claims among ASEAN members 102 4.2 Planned ASEAN weapon acquisition 107 vi List of Abbreviations AFP Armed Forces of the Philippines AFPFL Anti-Fascist People’s Freedom League AFTA ASEAN Free Trade Area APEC Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation ARF ASEAN Regional Forum ASA Association of South-East Asia ASEAN Association of South-East Asian Nations ASEM Asia-Europe Meeting BCP Burma Communist Party BN Barisan Nasional CBMs Confidence Building Measures CCP Chinese Communist Party CMC Central Military Commission CPM Communist Party of Malaya CPT Communist Party of Thailand DAP Democratic Action Party EEZ Exclusive Economic Zone FALSG Foreign Affairs Leading Small Group FDI Foreign Direct Investment FPDA Five Power Defence Arrangements GATT General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade GRIT Graduated Reciprocation in Tension-Reduction ISG Inter-Sessional Support Group ISM Inter-Sessional Meetings MCA Malaysian Chinese Association MIC Malaysian Indian Congress MILF Moro Islamic Liberation Front MNLF Moro National Liberation Front NEP New Economic Policy NLD National League for Democracy NOD Non-Offensive Defence PAP People’s Action Party PAS Parti Islam Se-Malaysia PKI Indonesian Communist Party PLA People’s Liberation Army PLAAF People’s Liberation Army Air Force vii viii List of Abbreviations PLAN People’s Liberation Army Navy PLANAF People’s Liberation Army Navy Air Force PMC Post-Ministerial Conference SAF Singapore Armed Forces SEANWFZ Southeast Asian Nuclear Weapons Free Zone SEATO South-East Asian Treaty Organisation SLORC State Law and Order Restoration Council SPDC State Peace and Development Council TAC Treaty of Amity and Cooperation UMNO United Malays National Organisation UNCLOS United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea UNRCA United Nations Register of Conventional Arms VFA Visiting Forces Agreement WTO World Trade Organisation ZOPFAN Zone of Peace, Freedom and Neutrality Preface In the early months of 1995 as I was putting the finishing touches to my PhD I submitted an application to the British Academy to study the applicability of the security dilemma to Southeast Asia. In the after- math of the Cold War the region was one of the few in which the acquisition of military weapons was on the rise and concerns were being raised that an arms race was underway. With the procurement of power projection weapons and the existence of an institution – the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) – the region seemed ideal to study the relevance of the security dilemma and the mitigation effects, if any, of the regional security regime. The first meeting the year before of the ASEAN Regional Forum also raised the question of whether the norms of behaviour that operated within the ASEAN secu- rity regime could be transferred to the wider Asia-Pacific region, and in particular constrain the activities of China. In the summer I was awarded a three-year British Academy Post- doctoral Fellowship, little was I to know what dramatic changes would occur in the region during these three years. In the late months of 1998 as I began to revise some overly optimistic conclusions about ASEAN’s mitigating effects, and time-bounding other findings, I began to appreciate what it must have felt like to be writing on NATO strategy in the late 1980s. The chill winds of an economic crisis has brought about events that could not have been foreseen in 1995, the most tan- gible being the fall of the Suharto regime in Indonesia and the prospect of independence for East Timor. While the events of the latter 1990s have been a cause of frustration as yet another development forces a rewrite, I remain immensely thankful that I chose Southeast Asia. Not only because it has given me an opportunity to write in interest- ing times, but it has been tremendously rewarding coming to terms with the mix of cooperation and conflict that exists among the ASEAN membership. It is not only Southeast Asia that has changed since 1995, but the security dilemma itself has been revisited and applied to new referent objects of security. The 1990s has witnessed the security dilemma, hitherto the preserve of the international system, applied to ethnic tensions in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Thus, in addi- tion to determining the dilemma’s applicability to the international ix x Preface security issues in the region I have also examined its usefulness in understanding the ethnic tensions that exist within the region. The book therefore uses the security dilemma, where it is applicable, to reveal the security dynamics at work in the region’s ethnic tensions, intra-ASEAN rivalries and finally the evolving relationship between the ASEAN members and China. As with other writings this book could not have been completed without the assistance of various institutions and individuals who have provided both financial, intellectual and emotional support along the way. I am particularly grateful to the British Academy for the award of the Post-doctoral Fellowship without which this project would not have been embarked upon, and in particular, to Ken Emond for his assistance and general encouragement. My thanks for the support, both intellectual and financial, from the Department of International Politics at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, where I held the Fellowship; particular thanks goes to Nicholas Wheeler for his com- ments on earlier drafts of Chapter 1. Thanks also to Paul Roe for our conversations in which we were able to clarify each other’s thoughts on the security dilemma, especially over malign/benign intent and real/illusory incompatibilities. The British Academy also provided the bulk of the finances needed to support the fieldwork I conducted in 1998, and my thanks to the Department of International Relations in the School of Pacific and Asian Studies at the Australian National University and the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore for providing a stimulating environment within which to conduct my research. The assistance provided during this trip by Stuart Harris, and in particular Greg Austin, was immense and Chapter 5 on China and ASEAN is much the richer for our discussions. I am also grateful to John Funston for his comments on ethnic tensions in Malaysia and Chapter 3 benefited greatly from his thoughts. Discussions with Derek da Cunha, Hari Singh and Narayanan Ganesan helped to clarify my thinking more than they probably realised, and I am immensely grate- ful to Professor Zakaria Ahmad for his invitation to attend the Security and Interdependence in Pacific Asia conference held in Kuala Lumpur in April 1998, and also to Rajayah for shuttling me between conference centre, hotel and railway station. It was so very much appreciated. Special thanks must go to Tim Huxley and Gerald Segal for their views on the implications for the region of the economic crisis and enlarge- ment of ASEAN. It is in this regard that I am particular grateful to Allen Whiting for reading over draft chapters and being especially supportive during the last couple of months, when I began to fear that the Preface xi changes were undermining the analysis.