5. North-East Asia and multilateral security institutions

Summary

While much of the current optimism regarding the future of multilateral security institutions focuses on the Asia-Pacific region, participation in such institutions by countries in the subregion of North-East Asia remains highly problematic. Relations among North-East Asian governments appear to lack certain critical prerequisites for the establishment of such institutions: a modicum of trust and mutual confidence and consensus on what the means of co-operation should be. Moreover, the absence of such institutions is rooted in complex factors of culture, history and geography, upon which must be overlaid the complexities of post-World War II animosities, territorial disputes, cold war legacies, domestic political transitions and uncertainties in the strategic climate.

In the face of the challenges presented by the cultural, historical and contemporary political realities attending this subregion's complex domestic and international relationships, the aims of past efforts to create an effective and functioning regional security institution for North-East Asia remain unrealized. The development of effective regional or subregional multilateral security institutions in Asia-Pacific will be a long and drawn-out process even under the best of conditions.

The successes of the APEC Seattle summit meeting and the establishment of the ASEAN Regional Forum were encouraging developments, but they should not bring false hope to the tasks of multilateralism in Asia-Pacific as a whole and in North-East Asia in particular. Rational multilateral security initiatives will surely bear fruit over the long term in developing a more secure environment for North-East Asia and should be welcomed and supported. However, such efforts must bear in mind and maintain due respect for the challenging task they seek to address.