PSPD in English Peace/Disarmament 2010-11-23   1917

International Workshop for Peace and Disarmament in the Asia-Pacific Region(11/17) – Comments11(By Basanta Adhikari)

The jointly program organized by People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy, and The Center for Peace and law of the Institute of Legal Studies of Inha University, on the issue of “International Workshop for Peace and Disarmament in the Asia-Pacific Region for Civilian Control of the Security Sector” was relevant on the current scenario of North East Asia, where still the cold war exists even after the down fall of communist Russia. It was a good opportunity for me to understand about the power relation and economic interest between North East Asian countries and United States. I would like to choose first session on the issue of Security Policies and Civil Priorities in the Asia-Pacific Region to put my inputs. I divide my paper into two parts, in the first part I wish to write key ideas presented by four guest speakers, and in the second part I want to add my comments.

Speaker’s Argument

First speaker John Feffer, Co-director of Foreign Policy in focus at the Institute for Policy Studies, says that the US Military expenses huge amount of 700 billion dollars. According to him, good news for today’s world is that recently the US government is ready to cut down its 100 billion dollar military budget.  The draft proposal proposed to the government also recommends cutting down one third of US overseas military bases. As a bad news he mentioned, if US reduce the military budget than allies countries of US, such as South Korea have to pay more for the arms, because US has a contract with defense contractor,  if they get less money from US then they will sell the arms to the allies country and recover their loss.

Second speaker Akira Kawasaki, focus his view on the topic of Can Japan Overcome Cold-War Thinking? He mentioned that the structure of Japanese government peace and security has not changed even after cold war because still they try to keep cold war types of military equipment, military and nuclear base are the symbol of existing cold war. He further mentions that shift of power is threat to Japan; because China, India, Russia and North Korea are emerging as nuclear powerful states, and Japan have to be prepared for its defense in coming future.

The third speaker Taeho Lee, Co-Deputy Secretary General of PSPD express his view that South Korea military strategy is taking offensive form as it was defensive before. The reason for aggressive military strategies is because of exaggeration of North Korea’s threat. He believes that South Korea should downsize its military expenses and power because there is no point to win North Korea. He further says, in the age of globalization many South Korean people is now somehow connected with China, Japan, North Korea and US, so it is useless to fight with each other.

Last speaker, Han Hua, Associate Professor and Director of the Center for Arms Control and Disarmament at the school of international Studies (SIS), Peking University, China, argues that China from the last decade is taking the defensive security approach, increase of nuclear neighbor such as India, Pakistan and North Korea have forced China to do so. Navy build up by China means not for being aggressive but for its business and economy purposes.  She further says, China has a lot of internal disputes to solve, such as Tibet, Taiwan(Province of China) and Sinjeon, it also faces problems such as drug trafficking, terrorism and others, so China cannot focus much on outside world. She also mentions that active role of US in Asia makes China to think and it is hard for China to be hegemonic power until US is there. 

My Comments

It was a good opportunity to hear different views from different speakers during the discussion on the issue of Asia Pacific and Peace and Disarmament. First I would like to comment on the idea of Han Hua, from China, as she mentioned that china is taking the defensive military strategy, it is because of neighboring nuclear powerful countries and for business and economy purposes. I cannot agree on her view, there may be partial truth on her argument but as we all know the fact all about China. It represents as an oppressive government to its people and being hindrance to practice democracy in some other countries such as Burma and North Korea, it is playing aggressive role in the issue of Tibet and Taiwan(Province of China) too. Now it is growing as a huge economic and military power in the world. It is believed that it has amassed a huge number of nuclear power which is threat to the world. I view China Military strategy is not only for defensive purpose because it has already played active role to disturb world peace, and its involvement in Korean War and Vietnam War proves it.

Commenting on John Feffer view, it is good to hear that recently US has approved to cut down its military expenses, but does it mean that now the world is on peace and nuclear power perish. No, I believe it is US who has been dominating the world through its hegemonic power and interfering in the internal affairs of sovereign state. Wherever the conflict exists today, either it is in Middle East, or between India-Pakistan, North Korea-South Korea or in North America; it is US who has played a role to escalate the problem for its own interest. Even US reduce its military expenses; it will find any way to create demand for the weapons in the outer world by creating new inter-state conflict, because some Americans too believes that nuclear weapon is the friend of US. It is US, who spend nearly half of the military expenses of the world and have settled its 200,000 Military force in overseas to keep control over the world, and large number of military is based in North East Asia. North East Asia is an economic interest zone and also emerging threat to US, so it wants to hold its grip anyhow. I believe the problem of North East Asia is never going to be settled, and the dream of disarmament will remain uncertain until there is the vested interest of US.

Commenting on second speaker Akira Kawasaki, on his topic can Japan overcome cold war thinking? I would like to say that before Second World War, Japan has dominated nearly all over Asia, and was one of the biggest empires on Asian region. It loses its colonies after the war and focus on economical development, today Japan is one of the most economic developed nations. New shift of economic and nuclear power states has emerged in Asia such as North Korea, South Korea, China and India, which Japan sees as a great threat to itself. It also has territory disputes for resources with China, which makes another possible danger of war in future. To compete with those countries, Japan sees the way to make itself with the strong military defense. Japan once again wants see itself as powerful as before, not only economically but also in defense, if it happens, than there is a big military and nuclear competition between North East Asian states. This may raise tension in North East Asia in broader prospects, in this case, the problem of North East Asia cannot be solved easily and Japan cannot come out from its past.

I agree with the Taeho Lee, speaker from South Korea, as he mentioned that threat of North Korea to South Korea is just an exaggerate because South Korea now have more strong military defense than North Korea. According to him South Korea defense is appearing more aggressive than defensive. He also argues that South Korea have to downsize its military strength. Yes, there must be someone, who has to be the example to dissolve the conflict through disarmament  but the question is do really South Korea apply the strategy of military downsize? If South Korea downsizes its military power will the problems of Asia Pacific resolves? Do other North East Asian nations do the same as South Korea applies?  It is good if South Korea and all North East Asian nations apply the same strategy as MR. Lee says, but for me it is merely a dream in the present situation, because every states is in a kind of fear in their inter power relation. 

Besides this, North East Asia is emerging power in the world; whole world is keeping concern on its affairs and every country has its own interest to fulfill. I believe, in the name of self defense, every North East Asian country is being threat to each other, there seems no any possibility of disarmament at least in this present time. There are problems such as territorial disputes, Ideological differences, economy interest and many others too. I mean not to say that peace cannot be achieved, it can be achieved. Peace can be achieved through broader understanding, as others speakers and participants also mentioned in the session. Pointing the finger and blaming each other is not going to solve the problem, but making a peaceful dialogue and understanding between nations can be only the way to solve the problem of Asia Pacific Region. High level of cooperation and alliance is necessary between Asian nations to deal the problems. Also civil societies through transnational actors have a great role to make people aware about the issues and deal with it. I want to end my comments through the sayings from Yeo-ok Yang, presenter from PSPD, “now we need creative idea to built children library than to build the tanks”.

 

 

 

By Basanta Adhikari, SungKongHoe University

 

 

 

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