The ASEAN Regional Forum: Multilateral Security Dialogue in Asia-Pacific Region
Author: Philip Yung-Ming Yang
Abstract / Chinese PDF Download
The ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) is the first attempt of multilateral security dialogue by Asia-Pacific countries. Founded in 1994, the purpose of the ARF is to promote regional peace and stability through its first and second tracks security dialogue and meetings. This article will review the structure and process of the ARF conferences and discussions, multilateral security mechanism in Asia-Pacific region, and major participants’ attitude and policy toward the ARF. Due to the complexity of security environments in the region, the differences between major states on their policies toward multilateral security organization in solving regional security issues, and the consensual approach of the ARF in its decision-making process, the ARF, so far, can do little to help security in the wider Asia-Pacific region. However, the ARF has been successfully in promoting the sense of region and some regional security concepts, such as confidence-building measures (CBMs) and preventive diplomacy, to be the basis of future security cooperation in the region.