The role of Asia–Pacific organizations in maintaining regional security

Abstract

Abstract There are two regular regional security organizations in Asia—the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF)—through which regional states are involved in managing security pertaining to Eurasia and the Asia–Pacific, respectively. Since 2001, Asia–Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leaders’ meetings have addressed aspects of economic security. Whereas the SCO seems well institutionalized and purposeful, the ARF appears weakly structured and ineffective. This is because, while member states of the SCO are generally trustful of one another and hold in common most security objectives, concerns, and norms in the organization, many member states of the ARF have uneasy relations among themselves and share few security objectives, concerns, and norms in the forum. Moreover, while the SCO represents priority multilateral foreign and security policy interests for the People's Republic of China (PRC) and Russia, its two most important constituents, the ARF represents a secondary or fall-back position for the bilateral-first foreign and security policy relations of its major players like Japan, United States, and the PRC.