THE amicable outcome between United States President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un at their summit in Singapore on June 12 impressed the public.
This was a remarkable development, given the arms escalation that peaked around the same time last year, with war threats exchanged between the two leaders.
North Korea is part of Asean’s problem, through the smuggling and trafficking of goods (drugs, counterfeit products and small arms), the illegal financial network built over decades that has enabled the regime to bypass sanctions, and cyber security threats that harmed member states’ interest and reputation, such as the case of a bank heist in the Philippines and the launching of large-scale Distributed Denial of Service on Sony Pictures through Malaysian and Vietnamese IP address networks.
Peace in the Korean peninsula will allow Southeast Asian countries to enjoy peace dividends, while war will affect not only economic but also the geopolitical stability in Southeast Asia.
The spillover effects of either peace or war in the peninsula will be of great consequences to Southeast Asia.
Nevertheless, the security problems associated with North Korea have not been dealt with by Asean, except through the Asean Regional Forum (ARF).
ARF is the only organisation aside from the United Nations to have North Korea representatives sit with the US, South Korea, Japan and other stakeholders.
ARF, however, has been criticised as an ineffective mechanism to deal with the complexity of denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula.
Outside of ARF, Asean’s engagement of North Korea in an official capacity is scarce.
Even the Kim Jong-nam assassination in February last year in Malaysia did not incite responses from Asean member states at its summits or ARF meetings.
The attitude towards North Korea has been one of “none of our business” and “it is a Korean problem, not a Southeast Asian problem”.
Other than ARF, the main regional security architecture anchored around Asean is the Asean Defence Ministers Meeting (ADMM) and Asean Defence Ministers Meeting Plus
(ADMM-Plus), which include the participation of defence ministers of Asean’s dialogue partners.
The security problems related to North Korea can be rightly seen as part of the key areas of practical cooperation worked on by ADMM and ADMM-Plus.
As part of the evolving Asean security architecture, ADMM-Plus aspires to translate “talks” into “walks”, addressing one of the key criticisms of ARF.
ADMM-Plus has not moved beyond talks in facing the North Korea issue.
Its chairman’s statements over the years demonstrate that North Korea has always been an agenda of the meetings.
So, how can ADMM-Plus deal with the North Korea challenge? ADMM-Plus could strengthen cyber security cooperation.
Here the support of South Korea in expert working groups is crucial, due to the familiarity of Korean source codes used in North Korean cyber-hacking operations.
ADMM-Plus could play a role in reducing tensions as well, for example by inviting, on an ad hoc basis, North Korea’s participation in its meetings, in conjunction with the commitment of North Korea to fulfil its promises to the international community.
Finally, a more far-fetched, but not unrealistic idea, is to use possible membership in ADMM-Plus, thus making North Korea a dialogue partner of Asean, to entice the nation to moderate its behaviour.
DR HOO CHIEW-PING
Senior lecturer in strategic studies and international relations, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
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