Multidimensional architecture for polycentric Asia-Pacific

Address by Russian Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Alexey N. Borodavkin at the Conference ‘The Asia-Pacific Region: a community for the 21st Century’, Sydney on December 4 and 5, 2009

Russia attaches the most serious importance to security and cooperation in Asia Pacific Region (APR) since my country is consistently carrying out the policy aimed at integration into the Asia-Pacific economy and constructive participation in the regional affairs.

We are pleased that our efforts are duly appreciated by our partners in the region who regard Russia as the factor of stability and sustainable development. This is reassured by the course of economic modernization and innovation-based development pursued by the Russian Government, by the emphasis on broadening economic cooperation with neighbours in the region as well as by the responsible foreign policy which is predictable and pragmatic.

The discussion on the optimal architecture of security and cooperation in the Asia-Pacific is indispensable in present international conditions and today’s statement by Prime Minister K.Rudd again convincingly proved it.

Life itself has shown that challenges of the modern world can only be addressed together. And we have gathered here in Sydney because today hopefully everybody understands and recognizes the need for all states in the region to join their efforts in order to create a new, more reliable and sophisticated regional architecture. The question is how to fulfill this task.

Attempts to replace the post-cold-war model of international relations with the project of a unipolar domination have failed with the resulting dangerous imbalance of the entire global governance mechanism. Regionalization of the world politics and economy came as a response. It is exactly that process facilitating the restoration of the governability of the world development through regional institutions that we observe today everywhere, including in the Asia-Pacific region.

At the same time, the above trend in our region is quite specific. On the one hand, we see here the formation of a polycentric international system, as well as consolidation of new centres of economic growth and political influence. Even the global financial and economic crisis failed to stop the fast economic growth of our region. On the contrary, the crisis gave a powerful impetus to joint regional measures aimed at overcoming its consequences and provided effective incentives for a closer coordination of national macroeconomic policies.

Integration processes in the region, which are unprecedented in terms of their scale, are accompanied by the shaping and strengthening of multilateral political and economic organizations and fora. I will not go through the list, these entities are well-known.

On the other hand, the problems of globalization are especially manifested in the Asia-Pacific region. They include the whole range of ‘non-conventional’ challenges and threats closely intertwined with long-lasting but still potentially explosive regional conflicts and territorial disputes. Aggravating the situation is the fact that the region still lacks a well-structured system of institutions which would ensure peace and stability in its entire space. Bilateral military alliances pretending to ensure security in the regional context cannot provide an alternative to a fully-fledged architecture of security and cooperation.

Studying the issue of associations of states in the modern world, experts note that their formation is dependent on a number of prerequisites. The latter include shared political objectives, compatible economic systems, well advanced integration processes, uniform customs regimes and converging internal legislations. The humanitarian component is also important: experience shows that regional integration is more likely to succeed when the parties involved share common values. In that context, it is self-evident that building a community in a diverse region, such as the Asia-Pacific, will involve overcoming a great deal of difficulties.

In order to address this task properly, it is first of all necessary to decide what principles should be taken as a basis for the future regional community. In our view, the architecture in the region should be based on the principles of collectivity, equality, transparency, on the generally accepted principles of international law. We are convinced that the future architecture will only be effective when there are no separation lines in the region, and the legitimate security and development interests of all the states are well taken into account.

New regional architecture will not appear overnight. And thus it is not necessary to destroy something that already exists and functions properly in order to create this kind of architecture.

It should be supported by present non-bloc multilateral organizations and fora whose goals are, by the way, similar in many ways. We should move towards its creation through the development of partners’ networks of international structures in the region. From our point of view, the ‘network diplomacy’ fits best the spirit of our time.

It is ‘rooted in life’ and already forces its own way.

There are well-known examples of network diplomacy among regional organizations in APR. This tendency should be supported and further developed. Few words about economic cooperation. During the recent years, the conclusion of bilateral and multilateral preferential trade agreements by the countries in the region has become a prominent tendency.

The global crisis added new dynamics to the formation of new financial architecture in the Asia-Pacific region. The Chiang Mai Initiative launched within the ‘ASEAN plus Three’ laid a foundation for it.

These unification tendencies prove that the development of economic integration ‘clusters’ is under way in the Asia-Pacific region. As we believe, eventually these ‘clusters’ should merge and form a united Asia-Pacific Free Trade Zone.

Military and political ‘basket’ should form an important part of the future architecture of the region in order to exclude any possibility of military conflicts.

Our region needs a broad dialogue and practical security measures. These should include a confirmation of the fundamental principle of indivisibility of security, renunciation of attempts to strengthen own security at the expense of neighbours, building confidence in the military sphere, bilateral and multilateral military cooperation, which is not directed against third countries, etc. Definitely, it does not downgrade other aspects of security - from countering terrorism and drug trafficking to energy and food security.

We should tackle down to strengthening the legal framework of security and cooperation, primarily at the regional and sub-regional levels. In this respect, the situation is the worst in North-East Asia where we witness a dangerous security shortcomings. Therefore, we deem it necessary to make further efforts in order to establish a peace and security mechanism in North-East Asia in the framework of the Six-party talks on the nuclear issue of the Korean Peninsula, which we hope will be resumed soon.

If we elaborate common ‘game rules’ and efficient interaction modalities at sub-regional level, we may then steadily converge them into a single regional security and cooperation system. It is not an easy task to establish an Asia-Pacific community. However, we should not be afraid of the work.

A Chinese proverb says that “a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step”. There is a need for consistent, joint efforts that would bring us closer to our objective. Russia belongs to the Asia-Pacific region, and it is prepared to make its constructive and intensive contribution to this work in close collaboration with Australia and other countries of the region.