But opportunism abounds, critics say : Asian states embrace U.S. war on terror 
International Herald Tribune
September 7, 2002
Thomas Crampton

One year since the United States began its war on terror, governments across Asia have embraced closer military cooperation with Washington while significantly stepping up campaigns against existing anti-government groups.

These efforts have led to some successes both against the anti-government groups — U.S. troops helped hammer Abu Sayyaf guerrillas in the southern Philippines — and in exposing alleged plots against U.S.-related targets in Singapore and Manila.

Analysts say that now, however, Asian governments have started taking an increasingly opportunistic approach to the war on terror, using the broadly defined Washington-backed campaign to advance long-standing domestic agendas, including fights against groups without any clear link to Al Qaeda.

"Ironically, this international war on terror has served to highlight many formerly obscure homegrown domestic issues," said Chandra Muzzaraf, a prominent political scientist and former professor based in Kuala Lumpur. "We keep learning names of these obscure terrorist groups that are homegrown and often have little or no actual link to Al Qaeda."

The U.S. campaign has also aggravated some regional tensions. The dialogue between the Koreas, for example, was set back by the inclusion of North Korea in President George W. Bush's "axis of evil," and China's became edgy over the U.S. military presence along its Central Asian borders.

Within the last year, Malaysia, Indonesia, China and the Philippines have all redoubled efforts to combat anti-government groups, with varying levels of moral and military support from the United States. This cooperation has led to a warming of bilateral relations with the United States.

In the case of the Philippines, U.S. training and satellite reconnaissance in the fight against southern Muslim rebels has accelerated reconciliation between Manila and Washington. With all U.S. military personnel kicked out a decade ago, Washington has been working to strengthen military ties with Manila ever since bilateral military cooperation began in 1999. There remains, however, limited tolerance for U.S. involvement in internal Philippine affairs.

"The United States helped weed out some of our biggest problems, but they now seem too keen on broadening the definition of terrorism," said Roberto Ocampo, a former Philippine finance secretary and dean of the Asian Institute of Management. "They now label many groups as terrorists, which can hurt us when we want to negotiate rather than fight."

While domestic interests and the war on terror buttress one another in the Philippines and other Asian countries, Ocampo warned that the United States would find scant support for military action in Iraq.

"Washington will find Asian countries more eager to address the root causes of terrorism — poverty and economic imbalance — than to participate in saber rattling or even fighting against Iraq," Ocampo said.

For Indonesia, cooperation in the war on terror has brought an accelerated pace of cooperation with a military that was, until recently, deemed a pariah. Human rights have long clouded relations between Washington and Jakarta.

In the context of the war on terror, however, Washington has worked to improve military relations with the world's most populous Muslim nation.

"You can see the changed role for Indonesia through the increased amount of U.S. military contact and support," said Robert Karniol, Asia editor of Jane's Defense Weekly.

China has been notably restrained about the major military operations along its borders in Afghanistan and central Asia. Analysts attribute this restraint largely to China's coincident interest in suppressing ethnic nationalists and extremist religious movements in Xinjiang Province.

"The presence of U.S. troops in Central Asia plays to China's long-standing fear of strategic encirclement," said Andrew Yang, the secretary-general of the Taiwan-based Chinese Council of Advanced Policy Studies. "Their interests may currently be aligned, but you can be certain that Beijing is studying Washington's every move in Central Asia."

China's key initiative to combat U.S. containment — the Shanghai Cooperation Organization — has been severely weakened in the last year, in part because of the war on terror. Founded in 1996, the grouping intended to unite China, where it is based, with Russia and five Central Asian republics against U.S. influence. In the last year, however, Washington invited Moscow to participate in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization while the Central Asian republics of Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan significantly upgraded military cooperation with the United States.

One of the Asia's greatest political beneficiaries of the war on terror has been the Malaysian prime minister, Mahathir bin Mohamad. The ouster and imprisonment of Mahathir's deputy, Anwar Ibrahim, soured relations with Washington, which were further hurt by Mahathir's rejection of International Monetary Fund economic policies. Mahathir also felt mounting political pressures at home until the war on terror switched his fortunes.

The domestic impact of the war on terror in Japan manifested itself as an opportunity to expand the regional role of the country's Self-Defense Forces, something Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has long pressed for.

The first year of the war on terror has also put in place agreements that may yet play themselves out in unexpected ways. Vietnam, Burma and Laos all signed international agreements on combating international terrorism that could potentially be used against U.S.-based supporters of anti-government groups.

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