Ba, Alice. "Asia’s regional security institutions". In Oxford Handbook of the International Relations of Asia, edited by Saadia Pekkanen, John Ravenhill, and Rosemary Foot, 667-689. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.

Ba, Alice. "Asia’s regional security institutions". In Oxford Handbook of the International Relations of Asia, edited by Saadia Pekkanen, John Ravenhill, and Rosemary Foot, 667-689. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.

• Other Southeast Asia has any history of security cooperation prior to the 1990s, having established ASEAN in 1967. Tensions during the Cold War and over unresolved legacies of WWII prevented meaningful cooperation in Northeast Asia, Central Asia was firmly within the Warsaw Pact, and South Asia's only cooperation was the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation [SAARC], which struggled from its foundation in 1985 (667).
• Since the 1990s, Asian security mechanisms now included a rejuvenated SAARC, the ASEAN Regional Forum, the East Asian Summit, the SCO, and the Defense Ministers Meetings of ASEAN-plus (667).
• This expansion of organizations, widening of organizational membership, and change in regional dynamics all comes due to the rise of China. Even in East Asia, China was excluded from the US-dominated regional organizations until the 1990s. Its new participation in changing things up (679).
• The restructuring of Asian security cooperation reflects both the rise of Chinese participation in regional organizations and the reaction of previously dominant states to this rise. The US in the Asia Pacific, Russia in Central Asia, and India in South Asia all view Chinese influence as a threat to their regional interests (679-680).
• The end of the Cold War has introduced new elements of instability into the security arrangements in Central Asia and East Asia, which had been previously been entirely structured around the Soviet Union and the United States, respectively. The rise of China has been important in both regions (668-669).
• The ASEAN Regional Forum was the first official body to bring together the Asian Pacific states outside of Southeast Asia, involving the ASEAN nations, China, the USA, Japan, Russia, and India (669).
• The body has not been empowered to any degree, as both the US and China fear that it could be used to limit their actions and give an upper hand to the other power. It has served as a tool for smaller Asian Pacific states to engage with China and America as a collective (669-670).
• This body has been portrayed as a way to involve the US in Asian Pacific security after the Cold War, preventing either China or Japan from dominating the regional body (673).
• ASEAN+3, the other three being China, Japan, and South Korea, was created to deal with the aftermath of the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, but has since expanded into a more robust body dealing with security and political issues among its members. The group was particularly popular among China, who encouraged its development as a regional forum without the USA (670).
• In 2005, the ASEAN+3 process established the East Asian Summit to cooperate on economic issues. This was primarily a Chinese initiative and other states have felt wary of China's influence on the organization. It has -- after adding Indian, Australian, New Zealander, American, and Russian membership in 2010 -- lost its initial economic character and become a more traditional political and security organization (670).
• This body also spawned a formal meeting of South Korea, Japan, and China in the Northeast Asian Trilateral Forum in 2008. Originally a part of ASEAN+3 meetings, these countries now have their own separate meetings and cooperation (670).
• The Central Asian states have sought to stabilize their new foreign relations through regional associations, such as the Central Asian Union, established in 1994, which then became the Central Asian Economic Union in 1998 and the Central Asian Cooperation Organization in 2001. These bodies also aim to avoid domination by Russia through its organizations, like the CSTO (671).
• China established, in 1996, a meeting among Russia and some of the Central Asian republics, which then became the SCO in 2001. Its values mimic that of ASEAN and China seems to be using the organization in a similar way (671).
• South Asian security cooperation, and regional cooperation in general, remains the least developed of any Asian region because, even after the 1990s, because its security issues depended less on Cold War tensions than on other regional security issues between India and Pakistan (671).
• This regional cooperation has been stalled because India would be too completely dominant in any regional body, as itis much larger and in a better geographic position than its regional neighbors. India has been unwilling to make concessions that would allay other nations' fear of Indian dominance (671-672).
• The author suggests that ASEAN could be a good model for SAARC to follow and recommends that South Asian nations make an effort to participate in other Asian Pacific international organizations to understand how they succeed and apply those lessons to SAARC (672).
• Rising Chinese power will likely spark more cooperation between South Asian nations, as it both presents opportunities to benefit from China's rise and a way to check Indian power in any organization (672).
• Most Asian security organizations have broad membership and goals, are decentralized and lack authoritative power, and are driven by consensus among their membership (672). The most centralized and powerful organizations, like ASEAN and SCO, have non-interference as a core principle (673).
• Consensus is such a common institutional trait because it both assuages the fears of small countries that they might be dominated, and the fears of big countries like China and India that these organizations might be used by small states to constrain them. ASEAN has played a large role in spreading this norm (676). The only state to resist these consensus-based systems is the USA, which views them as obstructing its own security preferences (677).
• The dominance of consensus as a norm among Asian security institutions has created issues of how to keep these institutions relevant to the USA, which views consensus decisions as favoring China. This is difficult for middle powers, who seek to keep both the US and China involved (680-681).
• Although the SCO is often viewed as an anti-NATO or anti-American organization because of its support for a multipolar world order and opposition to the US war in Afghanistan, this perspective ignores that many member states wish to have friendly relations with the US. The SCO, instead, is mainly focused on securing political stability in China and the Central Asian republics (673-674).
• The prospect of the SCO morphing into an anti-NATO alliance would be particularly distressing to the Central Asian republics, who look to the US as an important player in balancing out against Russia, and sometimes Uzbekistan (674). Any anti-American sentiment only comes from a belief that the US wishes to overthrow their governments, reflecting domestic rather than international insecurities (675).
• The view of Asian Pacific security organizations as being an attempt by the US to continue dominating Pacific politics and security does not give enough weight to the perspective of small states, who often desire US involvement in the Asia Pacific. These organizations are also ways for small states to reduce their dependence on the US, and their vulnerability to its influence (675).
• These security organizations are also not intended to ostracize or contain China, which most Asian countries consider a bad idea. The US may wish to contain China, but Asian states seek to involve China in regional organizations while checking its power as a way of normalizing relations and socializing China into the current regional security environment (675-676).
• Most Asian security organizations have economic or development components, and have transformed from pure security organizations to more multifaceted international organizations (677).
• In both East Asia and Southeast Asia, economic interdependence and cooperation are seen as gateways to greater regional security and cooperation. Economic development is also seen as addressing many security concerns (677).
• Chinese participation in many major security organizations, such as the SCO and ASEAN+3, is seen as driving a larger economic focus in these organizations. Both because China is interested in economic cooperation and because other nations in those organizations want to take advantage of Chinese economic growth (678).
• Most of the subregional security organizations in Asia -- ASEAN+3, East Asian Summit, SAARC, SCO, ASEAN -- have expanded their membership to include countries from outside those regions as either members or observers. These organizations now often have overlapping membership and responsibilities (678-679).
• Some organizations, like the SCO, have adopted a model of distinguishing between large associated and observer countries and much smaller memberships. This is similar to the system adopted by ASEAN, whereby a core membership still associated with the larger world through an organization in controls (679).
• Despite the weakness of many Asian security institutions, they still provide ways to communicate during periods of tensions and thus serve a valuable purpose in defusing tensions and encouraging cooperation on mutual security issues (682).
• Smaller regional powers, such as ASEAN, play an important role in setting the norms of legitimate foreign policy in Asia. The norms established by ASEAN force much larger powers, like the US, China, or India, to adopt these practices in order to continue to have their power in the region be recognized as legitimate (682).
• American resistance to ASEAN-inspired norms in the East Asia Summit just serves to demonstrate the power wielded by these norms as the US submitted to these styles of cooperation despite its objections (682-683).
• These smaller states have also taken the lead in security cooperation in South Asia and Central Asia, where the norms of behavior are set as much by China, Russia, or India, as by Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Maldives (683).