著者

添谷 芳秀

出版者

JAPAN ASSOCIATION OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

雑誌

国際政治 (ISSN:04542215)

巻号頁・発行日

no.116, pp.114-129,L12, 1997

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This article examines the role of ASEAN in the new order building process in the Asia-Pacific region within the context of U. S. overall policy toward the region after the end of the Cold War.<br>Today's Asia-Pacific region is in the middle of a protracted transitional period from the end of the Cold War to a new order which will eventually replace the Cold War order but has yet to take shape. The process is characterized by a dual structure of flux: a shifting balance of power among major powers, and the increasing capacity of ASEAN countries to influence the order building process at the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF). Seen this way, ARF embodies a restructuring of relations between external powers and smaller ASEAN countries.<br>In this context, U. S. Asia-Pacific policy under the Clinton administration was presented as a comprehensive one, emphasizing bilateral alliances and U. S. forward deployed forces, on the one hand, and multilateral security cooperation at ARF, on the other. A catalyst of this comprehensive approach was a long-term concern about an emerging China, in which the importance of ASEAN has steadily grown.<br>ASEAN countries clearly recognize that they cannot affect the final result of the balance of power game among big powers. Nonetheless, as long as today's transitional process continues, ASEAN can play a role in engaging external powers in their initiatives at ARF. For ASEAN to succeed in this, some extent of institutionalization of the ARF process is inevitable. With ARF covering the entire Asia-Pacific region, the "ASEAN-way" of building a Southeast Asian community by informal gradualism now faces an important turning point.