The ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) is a multilateral dialogue designed to enable consultation & cooperation on political and security matters in the Asia-Pacific, featuring as the premier security dialogue in the region.
It is integral to ASEAN’s broader objectives of encouraging economic growth, social progress and cultural development, as well as promoting regional peace and stability, and collaboration in areas of common interests amongst states within the Asia-Pacific.
These objectives are reflected in the ARF’s more specific objectives, as outlined in the First ARF Chairman’s Statement (1994):

1. to foster constructive dialogue and consultation on political and security issues of common interest and concern; and
2. to make significant contributions to efforts towards confidence-building and preventive diplomacy in the Asia-Pacific region

To pursue these objectives, the ARF actively attempts to promote preventative diplomacy and confidence building measures (CBMs) through multilateral dialogue amongst its 27 member-states.
More recently, the ARF has considered ‘harder’ preventative diplomacy, mindful of the concerns expressed upon its inception, namely that with rapid economic growth comes shifts in power relations.

The Asia-Pacific region is coming to epitomise this very observation. The region features economic powers such as the People’s Republic of China, India, Japan, Indonesia & South Korea, many of which are continuing to sustain their rapid economic growth despite the onset of the Global Financial Crisis of 2008, and the on-going European sovereign debt crisis. These largely export-driven economies will likely continue their economic growth into 2012, with both India and China forecasting economic growth at 7.5%.
With such remarkable economic growth have come significant shifts in power relations amongst states in the Asia-Pacific.
In the East, a rising China is steadily growing into what many economists and foreign policy analysts predict will be a ‘second superpower’ in the 21st century. However the geopolitical reality is extremely complex. Along the some 4,000 kilometre border between China & India are areas of territorial dispute, and while Sino-Indian relations may be relatively stable in the immediate, tensions could readily arise bordering the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR), with the Tibetan government-in-exile hosted in the neighbouring Himachal Pradesh region.
Further, China continues to assert itself regionally in areas such as the South China Sea, tenuously claiming a significant portion. The nearby Strait of Malacca is the second most used sea-lane in the world, states such as Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia are apprehensive of China’s intentions.

Further strains exist amongst these states, with the Thai-Cambodia border dispute arising over the ownership of the Wat Phnom temple, proving to be an on-going regional flashpoint. While the recent election of Thai PM Yingluck Shinawatra proves positive in the ARF’s attempt to maintain regional security and prevent conflict, relations remain strained.
The reality of a bipolar (or multipolar) shift is already proving consequential to the ARF’s ability to promote peace and security in the Asia Pacific. The United States has signalled its intention to maintain a presence in the region. While the US has recently markedly shifted in its military policy of being able to fight two wars at any one time, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has maintained that US is ‘here to stay’. In the Oceania Asia’s middle power, Australia, confronts the reality of its primary trading partner not coinciding with its military ally for the first time. With the recent US-Australian agreement to host 2,500 US troops by 2016, Australia faces the task of carefully navigating itself through a rapidly changing political environment.

These potential and actual power tensions serve to subtract from the prospect of greater economic integration, part of ASEAN’s broader objective. Notions of an East Asian Economic Community (EAEC) or an Asia-Pacific Economic Community, featuring a unified economic zone, have existed for some time. The ability of ASEAN to achieve such a community is reliant upon a political environment which accommodates such a move. With such considerations as the widespread existence of Preferential Trade Agreements (PTA’s) in the region, the US-push for a Pacific trade zone which excludes China rather than the aforementioned, and with some ASEAN member-states especially vulnerable in certain industries such as Japan in its agricultural sector, barriers seem near-insurmountable.
To achieve its expressed goal of regional security, the ARF must above all be mindful of the precarious political reality of the Asia-Pacific, how it is evolving, and how it can change without a large opportunity for pre-emption.
There has traditionally existed pessimism regarding whether it is up to the task, with some viewing it as essentially toothless due to the non-binding nature of its agreements, while others point to the ever-potential room for disagreement amongst its member-states.
However, the ARF’s 27 member-states are mindful of the growing push for an expanded ARF mandate in areas of preventive diplomacy. The 4th ARF Peacekeeping Experts Meeting attended by most its member states, highlights the need (and desire amongst some), for a peacekeeping mandate.

The evolution and development of the ARF’s preventative capacity, and its ability to accommodate ASEAN’s wider goals of economic integration, will surely prove significant to the future peace, security and development of the Asia-Pacific region.

Topics:
The question of a framework for a unified economic zone
ASEAN, since its creation, has deepened the co-operation of the South East Asian Community and its surrounding nations. As it continues to integrate, the question of economic unification is one that is of vital importance. Delegates now have the opportunity to discuss this question and possibly pre-empt the real future of the Asia Pacific region.

Consideration of the Thai/Cambodia conflict
For centuries, controversy has surrounded the ownership of the Wat Phnom temple on the Thai-Cambodian border, resulting in conflict as recently as 2011. Delegates have the opportunity to address this dispute and develop a regional framework that may lead to a resolution of this conflict so that it may satisfy all parties.

Further reading:

R Severino, The ASEAN Regional Forum, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore, 2009, pp. 32 – 71

L Jones, ASEAN, Sovereignty and Intervention in Southeast Asia, Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2011.

C Roberts, ASEAN Regionalism: Cooperation, Values and Institutionalism, Routledge Publishers, London, 2011, pp. 1 – 45.

External links:

Official ASEAN website.