A Study on the Development of Counter- Terrorism Issue under the APEC
Author: Johnny Chi-chen Chiang
Abstract / Chinese PDF Download
After the occurrence of the 9/11 incident, which also broke APEC’s limitationon addressing security issues officially, the issue of countering terrorism hasevolved from a single statement to a full-fledged issue area with relevant actionplans, specific taskforce, and meetings. By examining associated variables bothwithin and without APEC, this paper discovers that the threat of new terrorism, theproceeding of American counter-terrorism diplomacy, the transformation ofinternational security environment and security conceptualization, the considerationof individual economy’s interests, the economic impact of terrorism, and the uniqueinstitution of APEC are indeed key factors underpinning the rapid development ofcounter-terrorism issue in APEC. At the same time, the emergence of counter-terrorism issue has been building APEC as a main platform for regional counter-terrorism cooperation in the Asia Pacific, forcing APEC to care about cooperationfor regional economic security, expanding the influence of APEC Leaders’ Meeting,and stimulating APEC to review and reform its process and organization. As a result,discussing or addressing political and security issues seems no longer a taboo forAPEC; instead, whether there is sufficient support from internal and external factors,pressures, and consensus might be more critical.