Table Of ContentThe Security Dilemmas of Southeast Asia
Also by Alan Collins
THE SECURITY DILEMMA AND THE END OF THE COLD WAR
The Security Dilemmas of
Southeast Asia
Alan Collins
Lecturer in Politics
University of Wales
Swansea
in association with
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN
First published in Great Britain 2000 by
MACMILLAN PRESS LTD
Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and London
Companies and representatives throughout the world
Acatalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978-1-349-42386-6 ISBN 978-0-333-98563-2 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9780333985632
First published in the United States of America 2000 by
ST. MARTIN’S PRESS, LLC,
Scholarly and Reference Division,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010
ISBN 978-0-312-23525-3
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Collins, Alan.
The security dilemmas of Southeast Asia / Alan Collins.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-312-23525-3
1. Asia, Southeastern—Foreign relations. 2. Asia, Southeastern—Military
policy. 3. Asia, Southeastern—Ethnic relations. 4. Security, International.
I. Title.
JZ1720 .C65 2000
327.1'6'0959—dc21
00–031120
First published in Singapore by the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 30 Heng Mui Keng
Terrace, Singapore 119614 for distribution in the ASEAN countries, China, Hong Kong,
Korea and Taiwan. (ISBN 978-981-230-108-6)
©Alan Collins 2000
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2000 978-0-333-91890-6
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made
without written permission.
No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written
permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act
1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright
Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1P0LP.
Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to
criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with
the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained
forest sources.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 00
Contents
List of Tables vi
List of Abbreviations vii
Preface ix
1 Introduction: Evolution of the Security Dilemma 1
Part I Intra-state Security Dilemma
2 Third World Security: Security and
Insecurity Dilemma 29
3 Ethnic Tensions and the Security
Dilemma in Southeast Asia 52
Part II Inter-state Security Dilemma
4 ASEAN’s Security Dilemma 89
Part III State-induced Security Dilemma
5 ASEAN, the China Threat and the
South China Sea Dispute 133
6 Conclusion: Application and Mitigation 173
Notes 190
Index 230
v
List of Tables
4.1 Territorial claims among ASEAN members 102
4.2 Planned ASEAN weapon acquisition 107
vi
List of Abbreviations
AFP Armed Forces of the Philippines
AFPFL Anti-Fascist People’s Freedom League
AFTA ASEAN Free Trade Area
APEC Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation
ARF ASEAN Regional Forum
ASA Association of South-East Asia
ASEAN Association of South-East Asian Nations
ASEM Asia-Europe Meeting
BCP Burma Communist Party
BN Barisan Nasional
CBMs Confidence Building Measures
CCP Chinese Communist Party
CMC Central Military Commission
CPM Communist Party of Malaya
CPT Communist Party of Thailand
DAP Democratic Action Party
EEZ Exclusive Economic Zone
FALSG Foreign Affairs Leading Small Group
FDI Foreign Direct Investment
FPDA Five Power Defence Arrangements
GATT General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade
GRIT Graduated Reciprocation in Tension-Reduction
ISG Inter-Sessional Support Group
ISM Inter-Sessional Meetings
MCA Malaysian Chinese Association
MIC Malaysian Indian Congress
MILF Moro Islamic Liberation Front
MNLF Moro National Liberation Front
NEP New Economic Policy
NLD National League for Democracy
NOD Non-Offensive Defence
PAP People’s Action Party
PAS Parti Islam Se-Malaysia
PKI Indonesian Communist Party
PLA People’s Liberation Army
PLAAF People’s Liberation Army Air Force
vii
viii List of Abbreviations
PLAN People’s Liberation Army Navy
PLANAF People’s Liberation Army Navy Air Force
PMC Post-Ministerial Conference
SAF Singapore Armed Forces
SEANWFZ Southeast Asian Nuclear Weapons Free Zone
SEATO South-East Asian Treaty Organisation
SLORC State Law and Order Restoration Council
SPDC State Peace and Development Council
TAC Treaty of Amity and Cooperation
UMNO United Malays National Organisation
UNCLOS United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea
UNRCA United Nations Register of Conventional Arms
VFA Visiting Forces Agreement
WTO World Trade Organisation
ZOPFAN Zone of Peace, Freedom and Neutrality
Preface
In the early months of 1995 as I was putting the finishing touches to
my PhD I submitted an application to the British Academy to study
the applicability of the security dilemma to Southeast Asia. In the after-
math of the Cold War the region was one of the few in which the
acquisition of military weapons was on the rise and concerns were
being raised that an arms race was underway. With the procurement
of power projection weapons and the existence of an institution – the
Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) – the region seemed
ideal to study the relevance of the security dilemma and the mitigation
effects, if any, of the regional security regime. The first meeting the
year before of the ASEAN Regional Forum also raised the question of
whether the norms of behaviour that operated within the ASEAN secu-
rity regime could be transferred to the wider Asia-Pacific region, and in
particular constrain the activities of China.
In the summer I was awarded a three-year British Academy Post-
doctoral Fellowship, little was I to know what dramatic changes would
occur in the region during these three years. In the late months of
1998 as I began to revise some overly optimistic conclusions about
ASEAN’s mitigating effects, and time-bounding other findings, I began
to appreciate what it must have felt like to be writing on NATO strategy
in the late 1980s. The chill winds of an economic crisis has brought
about events that could not have been foreseen in 1995, the most tan-
gible being the fall of the Suharto regime in Indonesia and the prospect
of independence for East Timor. While the events of the latter 1990s
have been a cause of frustration as yet another development forces a
rewrite, I remain immensely thankful that I chose Southeast Asia.
Not only because it has given me an opportunity to write in interest-
ing times, but it has been tremendously rewarding coming to terms
with the mix of cooperation and conflict that exists among the ASEAN
membership.
It is not only Southeast Asia that has changed since 1995, but the
security dilemma itself has been revisited and applied to new referent
objects of security. The 1990s has witnessed the security dilemma,
hitherto the preserve of the international system, applied to ethnic
tensions in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Thus, in addi-
tion to determining the dilemma’s applicability to the international
ix
