Understanding Regional Security

Tugce ERUYDAS

2011.04.02.018

Understanding “Regional Security” : East Asia & South East Asia Since its official establishment as a discipline in 1648, the major issue in International Relations is security and how states can secure themselves against other states in their enduring pursuit of power.So, it is the heart of IR, and without understanding the significance of security, we can not construct consistent argument. Although security as a concept might seem same from the exterior surface, it actually alters in accordance with actors and regions that it’s exercised.And because Europe has always been dominant in the world politics, it has an upper-hand in IR that all the security and power issues had been discussed by putting

Furthermore, it tipped the balance when the communists, Mao government, took control and established PRC in 1949.This event not only represented a transition of a state, but also it was historic moment that would change the destiny of the region.China’s irrepressible rise to the world stage from regional power to global power, changed the strategic patterns of the region.As China was perceived revolutionary state means that it was challenging the existing order both regionally and globally, and seeking its national interest aggressively by taking strength from it economic power.To counter its assertive and aggressive moves, U.S. with the help of regional powers make an effort to contain China.However, since it is obvious that it can’t rise peacefully, what U.S. and its alliances in the region aim with specific agreements and meetings with China is using diplomacy rather than war that would not only destroy region but also world system due to the fact that China is the biggest market today.Any threat to economic order (that is already not stabile due to several successive crisis) would result in collapse of system as it happened in WWII.Therefore, economic interests prevails over security concerns that compels countries to work collaboratively through agreements.How regional

and Europeans were able to find regional alliances to encounter any threat in the region against global world order.Moreover, China’s steps towards being a global world power also drastically changed the balance of power.Its rise was not only threat to a region but to whole world.Therefore, the enduring issue today is whether or not U.S. and West can find a way to accommodate China to the existing system still hotly debated.Although realpolitik suggests us to not to surprise any aggression or threat coming from rising power, since its primary goal is to secure itself, due to global interdependence that’s the product of liberal world order, China’s threat to both region and world can be contain.To put it simply, as world becomes one complex region that all the actors must endure each other in order to survive.Instead of posing a threat to each others, to prosper themselves both economically and politically, the best thing they can do is acting together; therefore, elimination