Boutros Boutros-Ghali, the former Secretary-General of the United Nations, announced his Agenda for Peace in the early 1990s. This Agenda for Peace includes four elements: preventive diplomacy, peace-making, peacekeeping and peacebuilding. This agenda indicates that not only military actions but also non-military actions are important to build and maintain peace.
Northeast Asia is a region with such a high risk for conflict that preventive diplomacy should be actively promoted. The question is: just what measures should Northeast Asia take to facilitate preventive diplomacy, construct a system of cooperative security and promote regional stability?
Here we propose the idea that cooperative security builds upon the creation of symbiotic community. A symbiotic community in turn would be secured by human security, food security and energy security. It would also be linked with creating an economic bloc and an environmental symbiotic community in Northeast Asia.
So what are the ways to create a symbiotic and interdependent community? The United States and Japan are the two largest contributors of ODA. Japan should now review its international contributions and promote economic cooperation (ODA) in view of the fact that Northeast China, North Korea, Mongolia and Far East Russia do not have sufficient infrastructure to form a basic foundation for economic and social development. Economic cooperation is essential for developing the infrastructure of these regions. In particular, developing multilateral infrastructure across borders would create international public assets and would play a critical role in regional development.
The cooperation of NGOs and citizens would be important as well. Exchange within the region driven by citizens could lead to the creation of a symbiotic community in which confidence building and individuals’ concern for well-being beyond national boundaries would generate a synergistic effect to expand the circle of exchange.
The creation of an economic bloc also requires the promotion of trade and investment and the development of industrial networks. Trade and investment can be better promoted on a foundation of stability, but investment under interim stability has the effect of sustaining stability itself.
Thus, promoting economic cooperation, industrial networks and cooperation of citizens in Northeast Asia has the potential to help build trust among countries and among people and to create a symbiotic community. Creation of a symbiotic community would then set up a framework for cooperative security and therefore bring about permanent stability to Northeast Asia.
The next most advanced stage of security framework is a cooperative security framework on the basis of economic cooperation. If this region changes from a black hole to last frontier, it is possible to create a physical integration, economic cooperation and economic sphere. This cooperative security framework will be the ideal security mechanism in Northeast Asia.