All of a sudden East Timor has snatched the headlines from Kosovo. The United Nations seems to have been emboldened by the success of the NATO operation in Kosovo, and has authorised the use of force by its somewhat undersized intervention force. East Timor is a good example for the international community to move forward its humanitarian intervention agenda. There is little scope for spill over into wider problems, and the people of the region have just been given the opportunity to show in a referendum what they think of their Indonesian oppressors. The UN has not done well in the past over the East Timor problem, but appears to be prepared to show a little more backbone this time.
There are are however other more globally serious potential problems in Asia. The three regular Asian security issues, which bubble up from time to time, seem set to reach the boil together. Taiwan, North Korea and Kashmir are all in the news with sporadic, but perhaps increasing, confrontation between their main players. Each of the potential conflicts has a nuclear dimension which makes for added concern.
Taiwan seems to have suddenly fallen out of favour with the Gods. The ongoing dispute on the meaning of "one country, two systems" has flared up again this summer. China has reacted badly to the moves that Taiwan has made towards more declaratory separateness. There have been calls by the mainland military to settle the Taiwan problem once and for all. The United States has been moving backwards in its statements of support for Taiwan, which has given new strength to the Chinese. There are still some factors which are to Taiwan's benefit. An invasion across the straits would be very difficult, and an air campaign by missiles and aircraft would polarise the international community in a way which could be very unhelpful to China. Economically, China is even more dependent on investment from Taiwan after the Asian markets crisis. Nevertheless, the indications are that the tension is higher across the Taiwan straits than it has been for a long time. To add to its troubles, Taiwan has suffered the worst earthquake this century. It may be that Taiwan will need to direct its efforts to rebuilding the devastated territory, and that China will feel less need to put down its rebellious island. On the other hand, the military might see this as a particularly good time to strike, when Taiwan is much weakened.
North Korea has played a relatively clever game in extracting assistance from the rest of the world against its threat to go nuclear. It is not clear that the co-operative approaches have done much to slow up its programme of development of weapons of mass destruction. The test firing of a missile, literally over the heads of the Japanese last year, indicated that North Korea is ready to frighten its neighbours, despite the dismal state of its economy. That this year's new test has been postponed is unlikely to be a change of long term strategy. The border between the two Koreas remains as dangerous a nuclear hair trigger as the Inner German Border was during the Cold War. With the United States commitment to South Korea, and China's interest in the region, there is also a further nuclear dimension.
The third of the Asian hot frontiers is between India and Pakistan. The two states have been nuclear weapon states for many years. India tested a "peaceful nuclear explosion" 25 years ago. However, the overt nuclear weapon tests of last year by both States indicated that they wished to wave their nuclear status at each other, and, in India's case, at the international community. There could be no logic to a nuclear war between the two countries. Pakistan is an irritation to India, but cannot be a serious enough competitor for India to risk the nuclear devastation of its major population and industrial centres. Pakistan has no hope of beating India, and would suffer a crippling blow in any full scale conflict with India. In many ways the nuclear capability has the effect of deterring either party from raising the stakes too high. Classic deterrence theory should operate and prevent a conflict from escalating. The one problem is the lack of safety mechanisms to ensure political control of the nuclear weapons, when conflict over Kashmir flares up.The international community needs to assist in providing the necessary technologies to make the command and control of both nuclear forces more reliable.
If we add the difficulties in Indonesia, which extend beyond the current East Timor problem, Asia is an area which needs the attention of the international community. China remains a key factor, and it is by no means clear that the West has a coherent policy approach in its dealing with China. The Asian markets crisis was a financial earthquake which still has security aftershocks reverberating. The recent rise in the markets has slowed down the reform measures in many places, including Japan. If the world markets were to suffer a large correction, Asia might tumble further and faster. We could see instability in many parts of Asia as a result.
The UK government has not distinguished itself in making its approach to the region clear. The arms to Indonesia chaos has made the ethical dimension to foreign policy seem very threadbare. Anti-democratic activities in Malaysia, imprisonment of British citizens in Burma and human rights abuses in China might be expected to feature higher in an ethical agenda. Where would we stand on an attack on Taiwan? It is a democracy which invests heavily in the UK. Why is it unthinkable to sell fighters to Taiwan for defence, when we can sell them to Indonesia? As always the answer, as it was for Hong Kong, is China.