It also faces the problem of urban rural drive, exacerbated by issues like Tibet, Xinjiang and the hinterland away from China’s eastern seaboard. In short, domestic performance counts. It will take another generation before China becomes a truly comprehensive power. Until then, it very much remains a regional power.

Books about contemporary China can be divided into two schools. By far, the most numerous belong to the first, which largely praises China’s rapid and impressive macroeconomic growth since the early 1990s. These groups of academics, businessmen and journalists believe that China’s rise as an economic power will surpass the United States, making them “the world’s largest economy” by 2030. They project that China will not only become the premier economic power, but also become the preeminent military and political power that overwhelmingly determines the terms and conditions of the new world system, replacing the United States in the military, financial and monetary power index to the point of dominating the commanding heights of world influence.

Political and economic analysts vie with fund managers, public relations specialists, economic and business forums , futurists and psychics, along with outright hucksters seeking to land a fat contract with a Chinese investment company or government office keen at expounding notions such as “when China rules the world”, “the post- American world” or “the hemispheric shift to the Asia and the Pacific”, with all the consequences of how that trajectory of Chinese power will impact the rest of the world.

Markets, finance, oil and mineral deposits in Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Latin Americas all are inextricably linked to the need to sustain China’s inevitable leap to the top of the table of power relationships.

The second school of thought draws an entirely different projection and conclusion. Members of the more “sober” view are less numerous and rarely capture headlines in the media and specialty trade magazines. Susan Shirk, a former American diplomat now teaching at a university in the United States, drew a more restrained picture in her 2005 book The Fragile Superpower, in which she sought to assess China’s weak institutional support in the internal structure and reach of China’s elements of governmental power. Others in this group focus on China’s opaque banking system run by the state-backed system with little capacity to develop a robust “red capitalist” financial system to underwrite the burgeoning economy away from the blistering growth in the Eastern coastal area of China, to China’s vast hinterlands in the north and west.

Gerard Lemos, a former British Council official who spent more than four years teaching at the Chongqing University of Technology and Business, has written The End of the Chinese Dream, based on his field experience gauging “the real world” of China’s rise from the ground level, in and around China’s third-largest city and its environments.

Eschewing the broad macroeconomic projections favored by marketing firms, Lemos embarked on examining the dynamics of China’s forgotten poor. Central to his message of getting to the real fate and feelings of the marginalized poor is his use of employing “The Wish Tree” method of assessing opinion among the underclass.

Behind the blinding figures of an eight percent GDP growth rate, the skyscrapers of Shanghai, Guangzhou, Beijing and “the unattractive urban sprawl of Chongqing” highlighting the promise for the emerging 300 million middle class, lies the grim reality of fear, uncertainty and continued abject deprivation of millions of Chinese workers who fear for their health, family well-being and financial support as a result of the Chinese government’s decision in the early 1990s to embark on political and economic reform, and entry to the wrenching and ruthless market-based global economy.

In the 10 years between 1992 and 2002, the government laid off 50 million workers from state enterprises, and another 18 million that lacked the benefits provided by their old jobs. During the same period, there were 400,000 registered cases a year of mass social protests across the country, in some cases involving murder, clashes between urban workers and migrants competing for a living wage. Inequities and injustices among the urban-rural divide also grew sharply, taxing the competence and resources of the People’s Security services and, in some instances, requiring the deployment of the People’ s Liberation Army to contain and suppress violent action by the poor.

Lemos lists a number of issues that arise from collecting data and feelings of those who registered their fears and worries through the “Wish Tree” they signed into. Fear about their future: unhappy families, educational pressures, failing health, prolonged financial insecurity and the dangers of polluting industries.

During the rule Mao Zedong in the 1950s and early 1960s, the Chinese dream consisted of owning a bicycle, a radio, a watch and a sewing machine. Under Deng Xiaoping in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the list consisted of “the eight bigs”: color television, refrigerator, stereo, camera, motorcycle, furniture, washing machine and electric fan. The 2010 China Human Development Report listed “the three bigs”: an education, a house and a car, but noted that finding jobs, access to medical service and attending school also became big concerns.

China’s current problems, albeit on a lesser scale, are a warning to other emerging markets, including: Russia, Brazil, Mexico, Nigeria, India, Pakistan, South Africa, Indonesia, Vietnam and Bangladesh. Growth may be fine for the middle class, but not for the forgotten lower class. As in China, the most challenging political economic issue is the widening Gini coefficient index, which has risen from 0.32 to 0.45 in income inequality, equal to contemporary United States, the most unequal society in the “developed world”. In differing trajectories, China and the US must each address this severe disparity in the monetized banking and financial worlds. Their success or failure in facing this reality, will decide which country remains “top dog” in 2030.

Overshadowed by the US-China rivalry over Asia-Pacific security primacy, Japan over the past few years has begun to quietly but firmly assert its security role in East Asia and the Pacific.

Its long-standing alliance with the United States and linkages to the US-Korea and the US-Taiwan security treaties network has given rise to its renewed security presence in East Asia, particularly given the uncertainty over reports regarding possible implications of the ongoing Chinese civilian and military elite relations over the role of the military in relation to politics and party leadership.

Japan’s recently published annual Defense White Paper cites “the worrying influence of the Chinese military in foreign policy issues over the disputed islands in the East China Sea” and “the need to reaffirm the presence of US forces stationed in Japan” against “regional contingencies” and “to bring a sense of security” to countries in the region.

The publication of the paper has received strong criticism from neighbors China and South Korea. While China has attacked the white paper for its gross “distortions”, jeopardizing Tokyo-Beijing relations and heightened tensions in the region, South Korea has issued an official reprimand, particularly regarding Japan’s reiterated claim to the Takeshima Islands, which are also claimed by Seoul under the name Dokdo.

The Japan-China dispute over the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands has given rise to a perceptible nationalist surge in Japan, even as the Chinese military attempt to project its influence within the Chinese Party hierarchy, months before the expected leadership change within the Chinese Communist Party. Tensions are reported to be running high ahead of the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, with the Chinese military’s desire to control the state’s military policy before the October 2012 congress — a forum held once in a decade to decide on party leadership change
at the top.

Meanwhile, Chinese defense ministry officials have tried to assure its domestic and foreign policy constituents that “protecting national sovereignty and maritime rights and interests will be closely coordinated with other departments in conscientiously discharging our responsibilities”.

In recognition that the civilian–military tussle has led to confusion among civilian and military leaders in Beijing, among command-level operational units in the PLA Navy and associated fisheries, as well as para-military forces in East China and South China Seas, the Japanese defense forces have been placed on high, though subdued alert.

Uncertainties regarding East Asia multilateral security policies is compounded by criticism in the United States that the “Asia pivot”, announced by the Obama administration in November 2011, has not resulted in a tangible manifestation that “60 percent of American forces will be deployed to the Asia-Pacific region”.

Several US congressmen and US think-thank analysts have pointed to the continued American deployment to Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran. All this is in conjunction with uncertainty as to how the retrenchment of the US$450 billion US defense budget over the next 10 years will affect the “rebalancing” of US forces to the Asia-Pacific region, including the US-Japan alliance
system.

Preparing for these uncertainties has added urgency for the Japanese defense forces to quietly but firmly raise its profile in its relations with both US and Chinese forces, which have for so long overshadowed Japan’s security profile in East Asia.

With 5 percent of the world’s population and still producing 25 percent of the world’s GDP, the US continues to dominate international standards in politics, diplomacy, economics, trade, finance and communications.

Even with the current burden of its deficits from the 2007-2008 financial crises, the US’ defense budget of US$650 billion remains greater than the combined defense budgets of Russia, China, India, Japan, Britain, France and seven advanced countries in Europe. Control of the global commons remains in the US’ strong hands.

Defense of the global commons has two dimensions: a strategic-military dimension; including cyberspace, nuclear, sea and air conventional forces and undersea capabilities, and the natural-environmental dimension; including water, natural resources, Arctic regions and climate change.

Like other dominant powers throughout history, the US has sought to prevail over management of the global commons within the context of its national interest, hence the scope and size of the US defense budget.

In 1992, Washington spent more than $450 billion on 700 American bases in North America, Europe, Asia and the Pacific, the Middle East, surpassing the defense expenditures of the next 12 major powers combined. From the Arctic to Northern Europe to the tropical waters of Oceania, the sun never set on the backs of American GIs.

Twenty years later, the United States is spending $650 billion to sustain America’s global leadership over the next decade, even as it phases out $450 billion in spending over the next 10 years.

Part of the reduction is related to addressing US deficits after more than 15 years benefitting from loans extended by Europe, China, Japan and South Korea. All of these countries enjoy the privileges of America’s security assurances. China implicitly acknowledges the need for the US’s “stabilizing presence” – despite its occasional defiant rhetoric and statements of its national interest in the Taiwan Strait, the Korean peninsula, the South China Sea and the Malacca Strait.

The rise of East Asian economies has led Washington into tricky negotiations and to forge new implicit understandings about the cost structure of safeguarding the regional commons regarding international trade, investments flows and political pre-eminence in East and Southeast Asia.

Both regions are subject to the area of responsibility of the US Pacific Command, whose essential role in cyberspace and nuclear and undersea capability remains both intact and unchallenged. The phased reduction of US defense expenditures may reduce America’s near hegemony, but credible alternatives to Russian, Chinese or Indian “spheres of influence” have yet to materialize.

While China enjoys a comprehesive strategic relationship with the US, China is well aware that its investments across the world are secured by US military forces. While US soldiers and marines secure Iraq and Afghanistan, Chinese oil and mineral companies have gained rights in Iraq’s northern region and to mine copper in Afghanistan. China’s access to Brazil’s “Chinamax” superport has guaranteed an adequate supply of iron ore for China’s burgeoning steel industry — yet it is the US Navy’s omnipresent 11 carrier strike groups worldwide that ensure China’s access to oil and strategic materials from Africa and that its worldwide exports to emerging economies are delivered on time.

While it takes two to three weeks for Chinese oil tankers to reach their ports from the Persian Gulf, it is US naval strike groups in the Indian and Pacific Ocean that secure strategic military commons. China may be keen to present the renminbi as alternative currency to the US dollar and the euro, but the risk of imported inflation by loosening its peg to the dollar will force China to consider the security costs of abruptly challenging America’s military primacy. In addition, America’s dominance in cyberspace security over international finance and banking transactions across Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tokyo, Seoul and Southeast Asian countries faces no serious challenge.

In the long run, US management of the strategic-military and the environmental commons will have to be rebalanced with the assistance of China, Russia, India, Japan and other growing economies and markets in East and Southeast Asia. For the moment, however, the terms for a more distributive control of the global commons will have to be patiently negotiated not only by the defense, finance, trade and environmental ministries but also by the chambers of commerces across the world.

The year-end trans-regional meetings of the G-20 in Nice, the APEC in Honolulu and the East Asian Summit in Bali serve to underscore the implications of the “stall speed” economies in North America and Europe to all other economies, businesses and governments throughout Asia, Latin America and Africa.

In the globally interconnected financial system, there are now more sober assessments about the economic trajectories of China, India, South Korea, Brazil, South Africa and other emerging markets. Political crises in the Middle East and civic unrest in Russia have grave implications over the viability of the euro and energy supplies from Europe to Central Asia.

The key question is: How will the global security environment impact the future of market access and economic stability within Europe, the Middle East, Central Asia, China, Japan, South Korea and other economies in Latin America and Africa?

How will debates on retrenching the US defense budget over the next 10 years affect strategic assurances to the economies in mature as well as in emerging markets? Which power or combination of military powers can provide the all important security assurances that are vital to underpin economic recovery, deliver political stability and provide security assurances that markets anywhere ultimately rely on?

How will the global security environment evolve and how will regional security arrangements assure domestic market stability and predictability? The stability of debt restructuring in Europe depends on the security balance reached between the United States, NATO and Russia.

In East Asia, the terms and conditions of regional security depend on America’s commitment to the global commons and on China’s tacit acceptance of the preponderance of the US Navy for at least another 10 years. In Latin America and Africa, the American military presence helps assure regional economic and trade groupings, which offer timely financing to ensure sustainability in the war against drug and criminal gangs threatening nations’ social and cultural fabric.

The fulcrum of political-military “balance of power” and the evolving “power of balance” incorporating economic, financial, trade, investment and energy interaction traversing Europe, Central and the Middle East, Asia and Latin America will have to be factored in the overall rebalancing process.

As Russia, China and India develop greater military capabilities, can their desire to be preeminent in their respective “core areas of national interest” (Russia in Eastern Europe, China and India in Asia) be accommodated by American strategists increasingly aware of the need to share some degree of “strategic space” with Russia, China and India?

When the United States launched the 2008 Comprehensive Cyber Defense Capability, the stated goal was to ensure that US cyber security integrated federal, state government and private sector capabilities at all levels. It implied that US cyber defense covers military, business and finance sectors that serve to advance and protect the national security interest of the United States.

The lessons learned from cases of Russian and Chinese hacking into American systems in business and economic competitiveness have not been lost by influential business and political leaders.

More than ever, strategic linear planning must increasingly mesh with coordinated cyber capabilities. The subtle combination of “soft”, “smart” and “hard” powers has captured the imagination of leadership groups in government, in private business and in the military. Through this combination the US government and businesses can best connect, cooperate as well as compete across the world.

Increasingly, there is an urgent need to prepare more skilled and better-educated military officers able to interface not only with the planning of “military battles” over physical space, but also in areas of the “non-military battles” of ideas, of knowledge and of scientific skills, which are increasingly prominent in determining a nation’s ability to thrive in a “24/7” globalized world. Research in science and technology must continuously be prioritized to maintain America’s competitiveness against emerging market ascendancy.

In the US, Russia, China, France and the United Kingdom, the curricula of “network centric warfare” emphasizes the need to interact and interface continuously to a broad community of military units, business schools and academia. That is the essence of “total defense” in applying information technology and the power of the Internet.

At the recent Bali meeting of higher military educational institutions from ASEAN and neighboring nations, there was common understanding that ASEAN countries should adopt a comprehensive vision integrating the global, the regional, the national, the provincial and the local so that “access to” and “claims over” strategic resources in their respective countries and in internationally disputed areas can be resolved through mediation and peaceful negotiation. “Sovereign space” between and among the 10 ASEAN countries must be respected among all defense officials.

ASEAN leaders in government, business and the defense-security services have vital roles in preparing the next generation of leadership to be able identify future areas of long-term collaboration in government, businesses and defense throughout East Asia. Likewise, foreign, home, trade and finance ministries will have to hone their knowledge and personal instincts to enhance leadership skills combining political, economic and military “situational awareness” with greater degrees of “technical competence”.

The combined but subtle applications of soft, smart and hard powers must become the overall learning processes in all ASEAN countries: Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, the Philippines and Brunei Darussalam. This pool of human resources in the application of brain-warfare is ASEAN’s commitment to be counted in the East Asia rebalancing process.

Current and future generations of civilian, business and military officials in ASEAN, both at the national and local levels, must assume shared responsibility to secure the ASEAN Economic Community. Support from capable civilian, business and military leaders is crucial to the transformation of ASEAN into a credible entity within Southeast Asia and the Asia-Pacific region as well as within the over-all global rebalancing act in the years to come.

Talks of growing strategic rivalry between the US and China have gained steam among columnists, book writers, think tanks and strategic analysts. Themes of American imminent decline (“Post American World”, “Asia’s New Globalism”) are juxtaposed with the growing rise of China’s economic and military profile.

Concern over current plans to cut America’s military spending (US$345 billion over the next 10 years) coincide with reports on China’s soaring defense budget ($120 billion a year and rising). Worry over a “dangerous confrontation” between the US and China is compounded over concerns that China may replace the US as the region’s “essential security guarantor”.

For the moment, the reality is less worrying. First, current American economic travails must be viewed in the context of the long-standing fusion of the economies of the US, Japan, Korea and China as inseparable trade, investment and financial trans-regional entities. The $14.5 trillion US economy is directly linked to South Korea (GDP $1.8 trillion), Japan GDP ($5 trillion) and China (GDP $5.2 trillion).

Notwithstanding the persistent trade and fiscal surpluses with the US for almost 20 decades, all three East Asia economies remain strongly welded to the American trade and financial markets. The US dollar remains the only currency with the backing of a credible and flexible market. The presence of well over $10 trillion in treasuries and foreign exchange reserves held by Korea, Japan and China are clear indications of the staying power of US stock, whatever the fluctuations of the bond and money markets. Chinese bankers agree there is no viable alternative to US treasury bonds.

Second, global markets do not and cannot operate in a security vacuum. Therein lies the importance of understanding the economic and security interface among the US, Korea, Japan and China. The fiscal and monetary positions of each of the East Asian economies are inextricably linked to the prevailing security assurance of US military preponderance, especially of its naval forces. Three generations of Korean and Japanese and two generations of Chinese economic officials implicitly understand the imperative of American naval, air and land forces providing strategic assurance throughout Northeast Asia.

While China’s leaders implicitly acknowledge the imperative of American dominance, its more pragmatic leaders must periodically defer to their hard-line factional rivals and register open defiance over America’s role in Taiwan, the Korean Peninsula and in the South China Sea. From Deng Xiao ping to Hu Jintao, China’s more pragmatic leaders in the end prevailed in accepting American dominance, albeit as a “transient necessity”.

Like their Korean, Japanese counterparts, Chinese economic and business leaders understand that access to iron ore, oil, gas and other strategic minerals from points in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia rely on the secure sea lanes provided by America’s unmatched US Navy carrier strike groups in the Western Pacific, the Indian Ocean and in the Gulf region. In short, China’s future economic sustenance depends on continued American strategic preponderance.

US military power ensures that the stock, bond and financial markets in Seoul, Tokyo, Shanghai and Hong Kong are inextricably linked to the New York Stock Exchange and to Chicago Mercantile. Hong Kong and Shanghai’s global financial links to New York, London and Frankfurt are based on the premise that Chinese access to world markets rest a stable American military assurance. Japanese, Korean and Chinese holdings build manufacturing bases in the US because their parent companies were secured by American strategic assurance in Northeast Asia.

The habitual concern over China’s increased military assertiveness is a reflection of the enduring factionalism between hardline nationalists and pragmatic internationalists within the Chinese Communist Party leadership. It is also a constant feature of policy differences between China’s hard-line defense ministry nationalists and pragmatist internationalists in the foreign policy and economic bureaucracies. Issues over Taiwan, the Korean Peninsula and the South China Sea are part of the perennial contest for key policy decisions. These gyrations are reflected in the US between hardliners, who want to “punish” or “roll back” China, and those who understand that China’s assertiveness carry more rhetorical style than hard policy substance and that American prevalence, if not dominance, will continue for another generation.

China’s anti-satellite capability, its recent launch of its first aircraft carrier and stealth fighter capability, and other features of China’s military modernization, have important symbolic value to satisfy Chinese pride but they do not adversely reduce American strategic presence in East Asia. On this score, cool-headed defense and military leaders in the US and China share a much more in tacit understanding than appears in reported public debate.

There is finally the all-important but less publicly discussed issue of China’s severe internal economic and social problems, with their attendant dangers of political, economic and cultural unrest. It is in the interest of the US and of China’s neighbors in Northeast and Southeast Asia that China’s current internal political, economic and social unrest do not fuel passion within the country’s masses and its elites, giving fuel to channel aggressive nationalism abroad.

The “Fifth Generation” of China’s leaders who will gain top leadership positions in 2012 are expected to continue to focus on both surmounting the dangers of internal unrest and maintaining the path of peaceful accommodation between America and China. All nations and economies of Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia and indeed the rest of the world, watch with keen anticipation that China’s peaceful development complements its continued peaceful accommodation with America.

The upcoming ASEAN Summit from May 7 to 9, 2011, provides an opportunity for its 10 member states to review the defense and security context of the continuing thrust as a pivotal regional grouping engaged in aligning major power interests in Southeast Asia. In strategic terms, there are five dimensions of military security that together define the political, economic and socio-cultural success of the ASEAN Security Community.

First, Satelllite-based cyber defense: the use of satellite communications technology to transmit, encrypt, capture and control the transmission and content of military communications in space, including tracking and intercepting systems utilized and deployed by the military.

The United States, Russia, Japan and China dominate space-based defense technology. European countries, Australia, South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore provide first and second-tier advanced communications technology systems deployed by land, sea and air forces.

Second, Strategic Nuclear: nuclear weapons with high-grade explosive capability with launch-capabilities of over 6,500 kilometers from land, sea and air. The United States and Russia lead the field with over 8,000-12,000 strategic nuclear warheads with command and control capabilities. China and India have fewer warheads, shorter launches as well as lesser command and control capability.

Third, Ballistic Nuclear: nuclear weapons with launch capability at ranges of 1,500-2,000 kilometers.The United States, Russia, China, India, France, the United Kingdom and North Korea are states that possess warheads and delivery systems linked to tactical nuclear weapons, deployed in tandem with conventional forces.

Fourth, Tri-Service Conventional Defense: “The military balance” usually associated with distribution and the quality of conventional army, navy and air forces’ ability to defend territorial integrity and maintain “deterrence” in conventional terms. The US is the only power with Carrier Strike Group (CSG) capability in the region as well as worldwide.

Fifth, Undersea Capability: deployment of undersea nuclear powered/nuclear-weapon submarine deployment, armed with strategic missile strike capabilities. Only the United States has the range capability in terms of numbers and accuracy, with Russia, China and India actively developing anti-ship missile capability, designed at enhancing their respective “strategic space” and “far sea” presence.

The above macro-security dimensions underwrite both the intra-regional and trans-regional economic relations. Japan, South Korea and later China benefited from American “security assurance” that provided economic, trade and invesment commitments in the Pacific. ASEAN today has become a community of 10 nations with a combined GDP of US$1.4 trillion.

The security, trade and investment complementarities linking Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean are covered by America’s critical role as the “security assurance” underpinning trans-regional stability. It survived upheavals in Southeast Asia, periodic crises over the Taiwan Straits and occasional tensions in the Korean peninsula.

The rise of China and India as regional and global economic powers has given rise to a desire by both nations to enhance “strategic space” in their respective “core areas of national interest”, in Northeast Asia and the Indian Ocean respectively. China and India’s core area of security presence will be taken into greater account as each nation increases its conventional power capability and affects ASEAN’s stance on regional security.

The ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF)/ASEAN Security Community (ASC) aims to foster intra-regional links leading to market-driven economic prosperity. ASEAN+3 (Japan, South Korea, China), ASEAN+6 (Japan, South Korea, China, Australia, New Zealand, India) followed by ASEAN+8 with the entry of the United States and Russia in 2010, are enhancing the concept of regional security in an interconnected world.

The ASEAN Defense Ministers Meeting, since May 2006, has provided a vehicle for ASEAN to provide “strategic space” among resident powers as well as calibrate “technological parity” with extra-regional military powers in order that regional security and economic progress become mutually reinforcing.

All of these collaborative clusters need to be carefully harmonized with the right pitch of military presence. The fulcrum of strategic “balance of power” and the evolving “power of balance”, incorporating economic, financial (AMRO, the ASEAN Macro Economics Research Office), trade (ACFTA, ASEAN-China Free Trade Area), investment and energy interactions need to be carefully calibrated by all nations in the region. The entire Trans Pacific Partnership community constitutes 78 percent of world GDP.

The key issues for ASEAN and for Indonesia in particular for the next 10-15 years: How coordinated and synchronized will ASEAN’s public and private leaders be to harness a concerted vision about its geo-political location relative to its geo-economic competitive strength? Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore exemplify the imperative to utilize “brain power” in order “to live off” the rest of the world precisely because they do not possess natural resources.

What combination of “hard”, “soft” and “smart” powers must ASEAN’s leadership groups in the government, in the military and in private business command in order to be able to connect and cooperate with the US, Japan, China, Russia and India? Can the national security state cope with technological, economic and financial globalization? Can territorial defenses adapt to the functional aspects of global economic and financial competitiveness arising from the pervasive uses of technological innovation?

With a population of almost 500 million, ASEAN must adopt comprehensive policy visions simultaneously linking the global, the regional, the national, the provincial and the local levels. There is a need for more skilled and educationally trained civilian, business and military leaders who are skilled at interfacing the planning of “military battles” over physical space with areas where “non-military battles” of ideas, innovation, knowledge and financial and management skills become increasingly prominent in determining a nation’s ability to survive in a “24/7” competitive world.

Within the fused economies of Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia, South Pacific and the Indian Ocean, ASEAN’s notion of total defense and security must merge territorial defense with functional defense. The real test for each ASEAN country is to provide broad-based social and economic justice at home. Indonesia must ensure sustainable human security, from Aceh to Papua, from North Sulawesi to East Nusa Tenggara. In the final analysis, social and economic justice is Indonesia’s best defense. A strong and stable Indonesia is in the interest of all ASEAN and for security cooperation with all major extra-regional powers.

*) The article was an excerpt from the opening remarks at the 4th NADI (Network of ASEAN Defense Institutes) Workshop in Jakarta on April 19, 2011.

Setiap akhir tahun berbagai kalangan di dunia menerbitkan survei kemajuan demokrasi di beberapa negara maju maupun negara berkembang.

Masing-masing survei membuat kajian berdasarkan selera ukuran dan indikator masing-masing.Ada yang mengedepankan “keterbukaan politik” seperti kemerdekaan pers, kebebasan berserikat, penghormatan pada golongan minoritas (suku, agama, dan ras). Ada juga yang mendasarkan pada besaran “golongan menengah” masingmasing negara. Survei bisnis dan ekonomi umumnya mengacu pada kemampuan pengelolaan utang publik maupun utang swasta serta kemampuan pengendalian fiskal negara.

Indonesia telah lama disebut sebagai “negara demokrasi terbesar ketiga”, setelah India dan Amerika Serikat, sedikitnya menurut hasil Bali Democracy Forum yang diselenggarakan 9-10 Desember 2010.Namun,beberapa kalangan mempertanyakan tolok ukur yang dipakai untuk pemeringkatan seperti itu.

Terutama kalangan aktivis yang menekankan pentingnya demokrasi ekonomi,sosial,dan budaya sebagai sandaran matra demokrasi dalam arti luas. Karena tolok ukur yang berbeda, muncul berbagai interpretasi tentang makna keberhasilan demokrasi di negara-negara seperti India, China,Brasil,dan Indonesia.

Kalau ditinjau dari tolok ukur hak asasi manusia (HAM) dalam lima matra yang utuh (kebebasan sipil, politik, ekonomi, sosial, dan budaya), tidak ada negara maju maupun berkembang yang sempurna menjalankan demokrasi. Di India dan China, misalnya, yang masing-masing berpenduduk 1,1 dan 1,3 miliar manusia,hanya 300-350 juta orang yang memenuhi tolok ukur HAM secara utuh.

Jumlah orang India yang mampu secara ekonomi dan sosial menikmati “demokrasi ” hanyalah 300 juta yang menduduki “kelas menengah” India dengan pendapatan per kapita antara USD3.000-6.000 per tahun. Selebihnya, sekitar 700 juta manusia, belum terjangkau hak ekonomi, sosial, dan budaya.

India pemeringkat pertama demokrasi dunia kalau diukur hanya dari 2 matra HAM,yaitu kebebasan sipil dan kebebasan politik.Dari segi hak ekonomi, sosial, dan budaya, lebih dari 700 orang India terjerat dalam kenistaan yang menyedihkan.Demokrasi “gaya Westminster” tidak bersendikan keadilan dan kewajaran sosial, ekonomi, dan budaya.

“Kelas menengah” di China juga hanya berkisar 300- 350 juta orang yang sudah menikmati “kenaikan kelas” ekonomi selama 30 tahun kemajuan pesat China sejak 1979. Tetapi, rakyat China yang di pedalaman dan hidup jauh dari pusat-pusat ekonomi China di sepanjang kota-kota pantai selatan masih bergelut dengan perusakan lingkungan, penurunan kesehatan,dan kemiskinan yang amat mencengkam. Mukjizat“Konsensus Beijing” tidak bersendikan lima matra HAM yang utuh.

Mukjizat Brasil yang kerap dipuja- puja kalangan media negara maju juga tidak kalah memprihatinkan. Ketimpangan ekonomi antara kaya dan miskin,antara kota industri dan hutan di pedalaman, pembunuhan terhadap kaum miskin kota.

Di sejumlah negara Eropa Barat sekarang sedang dikaji sampai di mana demokrasi Inggris, Prancis, Jerman, dan Italia bisa luput dari menjeratnya utang negara yang dialami Yunani, Spanyol, dan Irlandia.Pengelolaan uang negara jadi ukuran penting demokrasi yang sejati karena jaminan sosial ekonomi dari negara terancam beban pengetatan fiskal.

Di Amerika Serikat (AS), jawara demokrasi negara paling kaya di dunia,utang negaranya bahkan sudah mencapai 66% dari pendapat domestik bruto. Dana talangan pemerintah sebesar USD850 miliar lebih dipakai dan dinikmati oleh 13 bank swasta terbesar yang asetnya mencapai USD10,5 triliun.

AS mungkin demokrasi politik kedua terbesar di dunia; tetapi AS adalah suatu oligarki perbankan/keuangan di Wall Street, yang juga menguasai komisi-komisi ekonomi dan keuangan di DPR dan Senat AS. Reformasi layanan kesehatan untuk 30 juta orang AS tersendat oleh DPR dan Senat Amerika yang dikuasai lobi-lobi industri obat dan kesehatan yang amat kuat.

Terlepas dari debat demokrasi politik dan demokrasi ekonomi mancanegara, bagaimana demokrasi Indonesia? Jika ditinjau dari segi lima matra HAM secara utuh (sipil, politik, ekonomi, sosial, budaya), potret demokrasi Indonesia tidak terlalu jelek, tetapi juga belum terlalu bagus. Dari 237 juta orang Indonesia, hanya sekitar 45- 50 juta “kelas menengah Indonesia” yang hidup layak dalam arti memiliki hunian layak untuk manusia, akses pada layanan publik yang memadai, cukup sandang pangan, serta terjangkau listrik dan air minum.Kelas
menengah Indonesia ini pendapatannya sekitar USD3.000- 7.500 setahun. Umumnya orang profesional atau semiprofesional di kota-kota besar (Jakarta, Surabaya,Medan,Makassar, Semarang,Palembang, dan sebagian kota madya yang memiliki infrastruktur yang memadai).

Dalam pertemuan Kabinet Indonesia Bersatu II dan para gubernur se-Indonesia pada April 2010, Presiden SBY menekankan pentingnya kebangkitan kelas menengah Indonesia untuk ”memajukan kualitas demokrasi Indonesia.” Kelas menengah Indonesia ini adalah andalan memajukan hak sipil, politik, ekonomi, sosial, dan budaya secara utuh dan tak terpisahkan. Mereka kini diandalkan sebagai motor penggerak Indonesia yang lebih adil dan sejahtera dari Sabang sampai Merauke.

Kelas menengah yang 45-50 juta inilah yang menjadi sasaran bidik industri media massa hiburan, televisi,dan aneka ragam “talkshow”. Mereka orang-orang mapan yang naik ke dunia gemerlap “di atas garis kenikmatan”.

Mereka harus diingatkan untuk memperkuat konsolidasi demokrasi Indonesia ke bawah dengan mengurangi ketimpangan ekonomi,menutup celah sosial dan budaya yang masih mencengkam lebih dari separuh penduduk Indonesia, termasuk 57 juta kelompok usia 15-35 tahun yang rentan kerawanan sosial politik. Kelas menengah Indonesia ini harus menghindar diri dari “perangkap negara menengah” di mana anggota masyarakat yang telah naik ke kelas menengah menjadi puas diri dan tidak peduli pada mereka yang masih tertinggal.

Dan kelas menengah Indonesia harus berlomba untuk lebih baik daripada kelas menengah India,China,Brasil,bahkan kelas menengah AS sekalipun. Jika berhasil, barulah kita pantas menyatakan diri sebagai negara demokrasi yang berkualitas.

First it was GWOT (Global War On Terror). Then for a time it became SAVE (Strategy Against Violent Extremism). Later on, it became CONTEST (Counter Terrorism Strategy) with the 4 P’s of “Prevent, Pursue, Protect and Prepare.”

Now, albeit unofficially, it’s OCO (Overseas Contingency Operations). When it comes to counter-terrorism, there has been no shortage of acronyms popping up in the bureaucracies of the security and intelligence communities in the United States and the United Kingdom.

GWOT first sprang up immediately after September 11, 2001, when President George W. Bush pronounced his famous “you’re either with us or with the terrorists” rallying call, understandable under the circumstances following the devastating attacks in New York and Washington at the time. To the credit of Jacques Chirac, who was the first foreign head of government to visit President Bush less than two weeks after 9/11, the French president expressed reservation over the choice of the word “war”.

Chirac understood the dangers of using the expression “war on terror”, and that it would elicit the notion of the war of the Christian “crusaders” against Islamic “jihadists” among France’s Muslim community, the largest in Western Europe. It would play into Al Qaida’s strategy of provoking tension between the “Christian West” and the “Muslim East”.

But GWOT became a popular rallying cry among right-wing and hard-line “security first” politicians in North America and Western Europe. It captured the imagination of bureaucrats who pushed for tighter domestic security policies against “potential” Muslim “sleepers” or “Trojan horse” subversives.

SAVE came into fashion around 2005-2006, when the “global war” pursued in Iraq, Afghanistan and parts of Pakistan persuaded politicians in the US and UK that a successful long-term strategy against Muslim terrorism had to go right to “cultural roots of the problem” in a particular country in the Middle East or South Asia. Kinetic-based counter-terrorist actions, including the use of special forces and UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) operated from Nevada often inadvertently targeted innocent civilians suspected of being involved in terrorist acts in the Middle East and Afghanistan.

Over the past decade, intelligence chiefs throughout South East Asia have exchanged notes in facing radical groups who often manipulated Islamic notions of “jihad” by home grown, region-based as well as international-linked terrorist groups. Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia undertook “re-integration programs” in which suspected terrorists or those convicted of violent acts are provided with “remedial programs” incorporating welfare related schemes as well as provide rehabilitation sessions guiding them to the true path of Muslim toleration.

The Indonesian Defense Force, particularly the Army, has discretely but effectively recalibrated its role to launch effective Territorial Capacity Buiding (TCB) programs. Its twin track schemes provide governance capacity building for village, local and township management as well as supporting economic development delivery systems. Reinforcing governance capacity and providing economic support (repair of irrigation canals, bridges, rehabilitating houses of worship in previously sectarian-strife areas, teaching arithmetic and Bahasa Indonesia in isolated areas) create a positive environment of “nation-building” and “nation replenishing” at the grass roots level.

This is the other side of GWOT, SAVE and OCO. The real issue is that of matching satellite-based and air launched technology of war should be calibrated with the ground-level anthropology challenge of graduated winning hearts and minds. GWOT, SAVE and OCO can only succeed if these ground level social, economic and cultural issues are resolved at the scope and speed willingly undertaken by local leaders.

My Keynote Remarks at the Joint Symposium on ASEAN Peacebuilding organized by Paramadina University and Harvard University at Paramadina University, Jakarta.

I congratulate Paramadina University and Harvard University for jointly organizing this timely symposium. It is fitting that we gather in this symposium on peace-building December 10 on the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. For when we talk about post-conflict resolution and peace-building we must ultimately talk about human rights in all of its five dimensions: civil, political, economic, social and cultural. As the United Nations Human Rights Summit in Vienna in June 1993 aptly stipulates, those five dimensions must be integrated, inseparable and proportional in their implementation in all countries, regions and continents throughout the world. While acknowledging the universality of the Declaration, the Vienna Summit also recognized the imperative to take into consideration the “ region specific” as well as the “historical and cultural context” of human rights in each country. After all, the true meaning of human rights__and indeed of peace and justice__can only have relevance within a particular ground level national and cultural context.

Well before Indonesia proclaimed independence in August 1945, our founding fathers had for months debated the basis of state identity of the projected Indonesia nation. Although the Indonesian nation then, as now, had the largest number of Muslims in any single country, our founding fathers affirmed in Pancasila as our state identity, incorporating a sublime blend of all the major religions, beliefs and secular norms prevalent in our diverse cultures. This agreement on fundamentals was pioneered and had been fought for politically, diplomatically as well as militarily by Indonesians of all creeds, races, ethnic group and provincial origin. Our founding fathers decided that the unitary state of Indonesia should uphold and respect the rich diversity and mutual tolerance of all of the nation’s living religious, cultural, ethnic as well as racial heritages. A healthy sense of modern nationalism triumphed over narrow primordial loyalties.

Pancasila___Believe in God, Humanitarianism, Nationalism, Democracy through Deliberation and Social Justice__became our agreed basis of what constitutes Indonesian-ness. Pancasila defined the platform of our “peace charter” binding Achenese in the west and Papuans in the east, committing North Sulawesi citizens with the peoples in the island of Rote. We remain today the world’s largest Muslim majority country, but by deliberate consensual choice not an Islamic state. In the course of our post-independence period, this belief in the mystical and mythical quality of Indonesian unity and cohesion based on our interpretation of “unity in diversity” was adhered to by the vast majority of our social and political leaders, Muslim as well as non-Muslim. But like all charters, pledges and political symbolism, Pancasila as a nation-wide commitment can only endure if its underpinnings is supported by a robust and balanced fulfillment of all five dimensions of human rights__ civil liberties, political freedom , economic sustenance , social cohesion and cultural resilience . This is the only way we can replenished a greater sense of Indonesian-ness from generation to generation.

Most people advocating tolerance and diversity do so because by they enjoy civil and political liberties precisely and because their economic, social and cultural needs have been adequately met. It is a truism to say that “Where you stand depends on where you sit; where you sit depends on what you eat; what you eat depends on where you where born.” One defends the rule of law because one’s particular station in life has made it convenient and expedient to be “part of the system” and one’s economic, social and cultural foundations are already sound and secure.

Over the past 10 years, various Indonesian administrations have sought to strengthen our sense of political, economic and cultural cohesion stronger and more resilient by addressing several priority issues.

President S.B. Yudhoyono identified good governance as one of the key priorities in peace-building at all levels: national, provincial, local. Over the past 5 years, in regions afflicted by political, communal, sectarian and ethnic violence__Aceh, Central Sulawesi, Ambon and Papua___the Ministry of Defense (Dephan) and the Indonesian Defense Force (TNI) are fully committed to support graduated political democratization towards greater competence and capacity building in civilian government, including ground-level post-conflict resolution and peace-building.

The TNI’s role has shifted from leading and dominating to measured presence in support of building the five pillars of democratic governance: civil society, political parties, the police, the prosecutors office and the courts system. Community policing is supported by the TNI’s measured Territorial Capacity Building. Every governor, district and sub-district officer in all of our 33 provinces and 493 second-tier governmental bureaucracy recognize the need to emulate the code of the military profession. Provincial, district and sub-district bureaucracies are expected to adopt similar rotational schemes which are all-important for fostering national administrative capacity-building, as well as for effective managerial capacity down to the village level. Additionally, the TNI is tacitly assigned to help accelerate sustainable economic growth. Not merely growth with equity, but more critically growth through equity. Measured military presence at each level of economic growth help define the rate of governmental capacity building at all level: national, provincial and local.

Every generation of Indonesia’s soldiers and officers is involved in a constant process of day-to-day “nation-building” and “nation-replenishing.” From Aceh to Papua, Army soldiers teach grade school arithmetic, help build bridges, rehabilitate villages and irrigation canals, provide rudimentary health care. Navy sailors and marines provide crucial logistical support to remote or isolated islands. Air Force personnel fly and distribute emergency relief to post-conflict areas and to victims of natural disasters. Each deed reinforces the locals’ sense of being cared for and participating in a more vibrant nation-wide common endeavor. Where thresholds of tolerance regarding what constitutes equity and fairness can be tenuous and fickle, more often than not it is the local soldier who acts as the credible “cultural broker.” This is the enduring task of being a people’s defense force. We firmly believe that in the final analysis,. social justice is a nation’s best defense.

Muslims in Indonesia co-exists and are enriched by day-to-day interaction with the practices, rituals and symbols of fellow citizens other faiths and beliefs: Catholicism, Protestantism, Hinduism, Buddhism and Confucianism. “Indonesian-ness” is not based on a single majority ethnic group such as the Javanese. Nor is it based on a dominant “cultural heritage” like Malay identity, though some parts of western Indonesia find affinity with Malay culture. And in the eastern half of our country there are more Melanesians than in all of Melanesia proper.

Military presence and democratic governance are directly linked to narrowing the vertical “rich-poor gap”, as well as the western-eastern horizontal disparities in our archipelago. Differentiated rates of access to new knowledge and skills may endanger our nation’s sense unity and cohesion. Measured political development and successful political democratization cannot be sustainable without broad-based economic democratization. Both political and economic democratization cannot succeed without constant cultural replenishing of being Indonesian at ground-level. In addressing domestic and international terrorism, interdicting financial networks and disrupting their organizational capacity, the arrest and prosecution of suspected perpetrators must be conducted on the terms of Indonesian authorities and under the provisions of our legal system. Discreet and timely foreign security assistance rendered “on tap” are much more legitimate and effective than aid provided through virulent “on top” pressure from abroad.

Ultimately, violent extremism can only be overcome by concerted efforts to reduce inequities in development, reduce corruption and accelerate programs in poverty reduction. The police, the prosecutors office and the courts system can only do so much in addressing issues related to our young citizens who out of desperation and destitute find salvation in misguided religious martyrdom through violent behavior. Local religious, social and youth leaders can and must do their part. We are working hard to reduce these grievances so that the poor will not have to take their own lives because they have nothing to lose. We have to persuade them that a far greater mission in life is not to dare to die, but to have the audacity to live and work hard towards a better future.