Reinventing East Asia: Multilateral Cooperation and Regional Order‪.‬

THE CHANCES OF DIRECT MILITARY CONFLICT between the major powers in East Asia are lower now than at any time this century, largely because economic forces have created positive incentives for cooperative international behavior. China in particular has substantially improved its bilateral relations with almost every country in East and Southeast Asia. Moreover, Chinese ties with Russia have improved dramatically over the past two years, culminating in a series of recent agreements on border disputes and confidence building measures. Yet East Asia remains a dangerous place. China has territorial disputes with virtually all of its neighbors, and tensions across the Taiwan Strait are higher now than at any point since the late 1950s. The conflict on the Korean peninsula is far from resolved and shows signs of becoming more unstable in a period of leadership transition in North Korea and in China. Furthermore, defense modernization is proceeding apace in virtually all of the countries in the region, and the lethality of armaments is increasing substantially. Beyond these immediate problems lies deeper uncertainty about the structure of security relations in a post-Cold War environment. Governments and security experts are less convinced than the business community that deepening economic interdependence will ensure peace. Concerns include the consequences of the rise of China, the possibility that Japan will expand its force projection capacities, and the uncertain future of the US military presence in Asia. The future security order is difficult to project, and, while new mechanisms and processes are needed, they have not yet emerged.