Security matters: Shen Dingli of China’s Fudan University addresses a conference on security cooperation in the Asia-Pacific region at the Grand Hyatt, Jakarta, on Tuesday. The conference focused on new challenges to Asia-Pacific security. JP/Nurhayati
Amid the standoff between Iran and Western countries over its alleged nuclear ambition and conflicts in some parts of the world, an independent anti-nuclear agency is confident of its efforts to abolish nuclear weapons.
“The Obama administration is very committed to making progress, which is very different from the situation we saw with the previous US administration,” Gareth Evans, who co-chaired the 2008 International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament (ICNND), said Tuesday at a conference on regional security.
“There is a change becoming evident in the way that people are thinking of nuclear weapons... [that they] don’t guarantee security. They just create additional risks.”
The three-day talks that end today are being held by the Jakarta-based Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific (CSCAP).
Evans, a former Australian foreign minister, said the political change in the US and the growing awareness of the destructiveness of nuclear weapons should be taken as grounds for optimism, despite the fact that the “three big elephants” — Israel, Pakistan and India — consistently refuse to be party to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
“We have... to find ways to engage them to get serious disarmament commitments and non-proliferation commitments through negotiating separate agreements and arrangements,” said Evans, who is also the former head of the renowned research center, the International Crisis Group.
Skeptics have reiterated that as long as one country has nuclear weapons, other countries will want to have them too. The US, the only country to have ever used nuclear weapons, is considered crucial in the efforts to create a nuclear weapon-free world.
“You can’t go on living in this universe of double standards. Some people have them, others don’t. It’s not sustainable,” Evans said.
Fellow ICNND member Wiryono Sastrohandoyo said that as the US and Russia were slated to replace their nuclear pact before 2010, and given the NPT review conference in May 2010, it was now the right moment to push for a new commitment on the issue of nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament.
The commission was established in 2008 on the initiative of Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and his Japanese counterpart, Yasuo Fukuda. Evans co-chaired the commission with Yoriko Kawaguchi, who is also a former foreign minister.
Besides nuclear activities, a growing military budget in Asia-Pacific nations, led by China with a 14.9 percent increase in its 2009 defense budget, has also triggered fears of an arms race in the region that has seen skirmishes between naval forces of disputing countries.
Jia Qingguo, associate dean at Peking University’s School of International Studies, said China’s military spending had risen in line with its fast economic growth.
China’s military budget is the second largest after the US, standing at US$70 billion in 2009.
Jia said China required a large military budget because it depended on itself for defense, while regional rivals Japan and South Korea could count on military alliances with the US for their territorial security.
While China is still mired in a number of territorial disputes, its ability to solve disputes with Vietnam, Russia and Kazakhstan amicably and without aggression, showed that the size of China’s military was not a cause for concern, Jia said.
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