The Security Problems in Asia: The Role of CICA
Muratbek Imanaliev, President of the Institute for Public Policy
The results of the Second World War created some serious and deep "fractures" on the political map of the world that were accompanied with the unlimited armament drive, military conflicts and political rivalry in all global and regional forums, including the United Nations. At the same time, in Europe, which was the source of two world wars with the main marking line, there were serious discussions on the possible formation of the collective security system on the basis of the Yalta-Potsdam agreements, which defined the inviolability of borders between European states in the post-war period. The Conference on security and cooperation in Europe conducted in 1975 in the capital of Finland was the remarkable achievement of the political leadership of the European continent. Later, as we know, the Conference was reorganized into the Organization, which despite certain problems that appeared recently still quite effectively functions until now.
The most important encouraging factor of the Helsinki Act, in my view, was that the governments of most of European states must accept the principles and agreements, envisioned in the Charter. As it is known, the Charter became the source of several principles of the international law as well.
A very different situation was present in the Asian continent during the post-war period, where besides the "fractures" left by the world war, there emerged some new problems brought about by the ramifications of the world colonial system.
Unlike the Europe, where the bridge along the ideological gap had been establishing with great difficulties, the inter-religious and even inter-civilizational confrontations had become apparent in Asia.
The large military conflicts in the second half of the XX century took place in Asia - Korean, Vietnam, a number of Middle Eastern, Indo-Pakistan wars, and a very difficult Afghan conflict, etc. Even nowadays, many regions of Asia remain dangerous and the potential of conflict is quite high. It should be noted that today in Asia such a serious problem like the military nuclear programs have become actual. India and Pakistan have become and officially recognized by the international community as nuclear powers while a number of Asian states are referred to so-called "threshold countries." At the same time, the human community even though recognized the nuclear disarmament as its priority in the second half of the XX century, in practice, missed the accumulation of the conventional weapons, the quality and number of which is improved and increasing annually, the illegal trade is going up. At that it should be emphasized that there is no institution and mechanism for restraining the armament drive and providing for the balance of weapons sufficiency in Asia.
One cannot argue that the problems of peace and cooperation in Asia did not concern the country leaders of the continent. The Asian traditional philosophical vision on the world order as conflict-free human space remained and still is actually functional until today. I think it was a reason to organize the Bandung conference in 1955 where the leaders of Asian states tried to discuss security and development issues by relying on the possible solidarity of the nations of so-called "the third world." However, the issue of creating certain institutes, mechanisms and constructive projects for further advancement of this idea was left out of the conference agenda. The great ideas of Bandung could not stand the problems of the ideological confrontations, political preferences and other "heavy" pressures of the last century bipolar world.
Here I do not intend to reduce the importance and role of the Bandung conference: it is given, and the names of great Asian leaders such as Jawaharlal Neru, Chou En-Lai are written with golden letters into the history of the peace and cooperation enhancement in Asia.
On October 5th, 1992 on the 47th session of the UN General Assembly, the Kazakh president, Nazarbaev proposed an initiative to convene the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building in Asia (CICA), the core idea was to create the unified Asian structure, which could unite all states of the Asian continent to provide for the stability and security in the largest and the most culturally diverse regions of the world. It was necessary to have a provisionary vision and political courage under the conditions of chaos and unpredictability and in the dawn of the CIS countries' independence to express from the global forum tribune his own understanding and position about the future order in Asia. Indeed, many world leaders, famous politicians, powerful diplomats and experts perceived this initiative of the Kazakh president with skepticism, looking at this initiative as an attempt of a new state to attract attention. However, the competence of Nazarbaev was in his understanding the actuality of this theme for Asia, which would be understood and supported by Asian leaders since some time passed. Taking into account a number of complicated problems in Asia when no one dared to discuss even "in the lobbies" the question of constructing the unified Asian dialogue on strengthening stability and security, and to advance such a proposal and engage into realization, it is indeed to be a courageous politician.
Why the formation of the CICA was actual and timely? First of all, it was necessary to elaborate some preventive measures on strengthening mutual understanding taking into consideration the historical experience of Europe with the subsequent creation of a well-constructed security system in the Asian continent. It is obvious that dynamic development of Asian economies apparently marked the appearance of the problem- increase in the military budgets, often not justified and non-reasonable in the context of the escalating international terrorism and extremism. The increase of expenses for the military creates the armament drive which ultimately effects the international situation in Asia and could possibly result in the military conflicts as well as impact the socio-economic pattern of the region's population, which in its turn may provoke some internal problems. The question whether the political thought and development of political elite is catching up to control the increasing flow of the "military money" is quite controversial question.
In this context, the CICA gives an opportunity for Asians to know each other better, interact on the issues of monitoring and control upon the conflict situations, but also in certain cases to contribute into the settlement of conflicts and other problems by creating a number of institutes and mechanisms of conflict prevention and by forming the space for extensive economic and cultural exchange, a space for realization the philosophy of peace.
The Declaration of principles, which regulate the relations between the member-states of the CICA (1999) and the Almaty Act (2002) formed the primary approaches to the fundamental problems of our actuality - to regulate regional conflicts, to confront new challenges and threats - terrorism, religious and ethnic extremism, drugs-business, transnational criminal activities, illegal weapons' trade, etc. I would like to put a special emphasis on the importance of the CICA Catalogue of Confidence-Building Measures, which was adopted at the second meeting of the Heads of Foreign Offices of member-states. This is the first international document in the Asian continent, which provides for the multilateral cooperation of regional states on the extensive number of problems, related to strengthening security and stability. The cooperative approach to realize the confidence-building measures of the CICA, adopted in March 2007 and directed at the realization of the Catalogue, - it is a serious instrument of the Conference that could promote the subsequent and dynamic elaboration of the CICA ideas.
While constructing the powerful international structure, the leaders of the CICA must not forget that the CICA is also a large-scale all-Asian process in its core projects including different aspects of human activity. In this view, it is difficult to overestimate the importance of the CICA. Obviously, the various regional international institutions, including the ASEAN, SAARC, SCO and others aim at developing cooperation and strengthening security. However, their active inclusion into the CICA process gives them a good opportunity to "verify hours" and to develop, in a certain meaning, to unify, even in the terminological meaning, approaches to the continental projects.
I am confident that the CICA has a wide and sustainable future. This is because such concepts like peace, stability, security and development are the hopes and interests of all world nations, including Asia. 15 years is the beginning of the process, but what is more important is that it is being supported not only by Asians but also by representatives of other continents.
Professor Muratbek Imanaliev, President of the Institute for Public Policy, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Kyrgyz Republic
