Building Peace and Security in East Asia (original) (raw)
Two dominant views exist with regards to the nature of peace and security in East Asia. One dominant view, departing from the power politics paradigm, believes that peace and security in East Asia emerge out of the balance of power in the region. Other dominant view, departing from more liberal paradigm, sees increased interaction, interdependence as well as more liberal policies both in politics and economics have contributed significantly to peace and security that region is enjoying. While offering distinctive views of the nature of peace and security in the region, however, the two views depart from the same basic understanding of peace and security. They both view peace and security as dependent variables and secondary to the need of the national security requirement. This paper challenges the two dominant views by arguing that the two dominant views tend [1] to conceive peace and security simply in negative terms, i.e. the absence of armed conflict or war, [2] to overlook the initiatives and capacity agency of the East Asian countries to build peace and security beyond their negative terms and, finally, [3] to overlook the impact of regional peace and security to the national security of the individual countries. It will show that recent developments taking place in the region clearly tell us that relative absence of open conflict does not necessarily imply peace and security or even stability in the region. As such, this paper argues, the East Asian countries need to address and deal with challenges to peace and security more seriously and more directly. It is within this context that this paper will also explore the role and the contribution of ASEAN and Korea in bringing peace and security in the region.
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