Oil on troubled waters: Indonesian sponsorship of the South China sea workshops

Abstract

The Indonesian Workshops on Managing Potential Conflicts in the South China Sea represent one of Jakarta's most important unilateral security initiatives. While the workshops are among the smallest of the nongovernmental or second track meetings and deal with a very narrow set of security problems, there is evidence to suggest that they are playing a significant role in the development of wider confidence and security‐building measures in Southeast Asia. They have successfully enabled traditional enemies to sit at the same table and establish a level of dialogue that did not exist hitherto. Many subsequent regional security conferences have also been able to take their pattern from Jakarta's initiative and draw upon the findings of the meetings.