Two aspects of US President George W. Bush’s Southeast Asian sojourn during the APEC summit in Bangkok were prominent. One was to put terrorism in APEC’s agenda along with economics and trade. This was to get the Asia-Pacific leaders renew their  focus on the importance of fighting terrorism which was going off-track due to differences over US policy on Iraq. The other was to give a boost to the US image in the region which has been on a downslide, especially as in many parts of the region; the hate-US campaign continues to provide the motivational fuel to many terrorist groups and its members.

 The terrorists were quick to grasp the significance of, and capitalize on, the economic costs of asymmetric warfare. This was what Osama bin Laden himself  emphasized in his interview to al-Jazeera correspondent, Tayseer Allouni on 21 October 2001 where he detailed the financial losses of 9/11 attacks for the United States. In the APEC summit at Bangkok, many leaders such as Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad of Malaysia and other officials from Indonesia, Vietnam and China were not comfortable with the idea that security – terrorism - issues be discussed in a forum which was conceived as an exclusive economic club.  But the main argument here is whether the issues of trade and economics can really be divorced from security matters?

In Southeast Asia, the fall-out of Bali bombings in economic terms has been rather severe. The worst affected has been the tourism industry which sustains most of the regions’ economies and has been a major employment provider. Even a mere adverse travel advisory was seen to be causing significant economic disruptions. In Indonesia for instance, where tourism is the biggest hard-income earner sustaining about 8 million people, the earnings fell by 20% from the previous year as a result of the Bali carnage and tourist arrivals fell by 23% in the 1st half of 2003.

The as yet poorly addressed but very important aspects of the war against terror have been inter- governmental and inter-agency coordination, information sharing and control mechanisms to stop the flow of funds and weapons to the terrorists. Raising the issue of counter-terrorism to the summit level in the APEC forum at par with economic matters, the US expected to give it a multi-lateral force and in the process obtain from the Asia-Pacific leaders more commitment in its global anti-terrorism drive. The attempt here was not to replace economics with terrorism in APEC’s agenda, but to ensure that stopping terrorism go hand in hand with ‘APEC’s goal of promoting economic prosperity.’

It is also not the first time that APEC discussed security issues. Anti-terrorism measures have been discussed since the 2001 APEC summit in Shanghai where the leaders were deeply concerned by the impact of terrorism on the world economy. At Bangkok, the idea was to get APEC go about security cooperation at least for the purpose of economic cooperation. 

Thus, the ‘Bangkok Declaration,’ recommended a set of policies to attack terrorism, signaling the ‘evolution of APEC into a security as well as an economic grouping.’ There was also an endorsement that both the ‘symptoms and the root causes of terrorism’ need to be addressed.  The leaders pledged to dismantle ‘without delay’ transnational terrorist groups that threaten the APEC economies. To help boost global security, the summit pledged to put in place controls on trade in shoulder-fired missiles, closer cooperation in monitoring cross border movements and enhancing port security, to choke terrorist finance and a coordinated approach to the threat of bio-terrorism. There was also a commitment for counter terrorism coordination by improving cooperation and technical assistance between APEC’s Counter Terrorism Task Force and its counterparts in the United Nations and the G-8 group. APEC leaders also agreed to the US proposal for setting up a new Asian Development Bank terrorism fund to help developing economies strengthen port security and combat money laundering.

Terrorism remains high in the list of concerns for regional governments, as most find themselves threatened by religious extremism. But the response has not been uniform, often lacking in coordination and cooperation reflecting the differences in agenda and political inhibitions of respective governments. While the Philippines and Singapore have been the stoutest partners in the anti-terror campaign, Indonesia was a ‘reluctant convert’ given the need to maintain a delicate balance in a fragmented but democratizing polity. Both Indonesia and Thailand began to cooperate only after attacks (in Bali) and arrests revealed the severity of the threat to their citizens.

There has been a great deal of ambivalence about the US involvement in the region’s anti-terrorist operations because of the political sensitivity of the issue with both ‘mainstream Islamic and secular nationalist groups.’ But the need for a coordinated international response has not been lost to the leaders. President Bush’s visit was therefore meant to strengthen and boost the existing cooperative arrangement such as commitment of troops and equipment to the Philippines, and counter terror cooperation including intelligence sharing, joint investigations, and training in border and immigration controls with Indonesia.