Roles of Australia and Japan
Australia and Japan should be assigned as regional promoters of maritime cooperation bearing extra roles suited to their capabilities and locations. Both countries should conduct shipping protection including surveillance and SAR beyond their Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs). The rationale for these responsibilities can be listed as the following:
1. high proficiency level as blue water navies;
2. long experience of close cooperation with the US Navy;
3. high level of inter-operabilities with the US Navy in equipment, communications, and procedures;
4. high degree of dependence on SLOC safety and freedom of navigation; and
5. sufficient capabilities in long-range surveillance and shipping protection beyond their EEZs.
In Japan, the Asia-Pacific Naval College Seminar, which is aimed to build confidence among the participating members from the region through dialogue, is becoming a regular event. In Australia, the RAN has established the Maritime Studies Program which has the objective of building a better dialogue with regional navies on maritime strategic issues.
Also the Australian Defence Cooperation Program (DCP) could be used to provide graduate education and training in strategic studies and defence planning for young officers from the region.9 Today, in East Asia, trilateral maritime cooperation among the US, Japan, and Korea is being explored; and the prospects are bright. In the Southern hemisphere, Australia's greater commitment to help shape the wider regional security environment will also encourage Japan to play an enhanced political role in Southeast Asia, as foreshadowed by Prime Minister Hashimoto's visit to the region early in 1997.
The existence of Australia and Japan in their respective hemispheres has significant implications to support Us presence in the Asia-Pacific region, and underscores increasing importance of closer cooperation between the two countries for pursuing peace and stability in the region. Australia and Japan have been contributing indirectly to each other's security for more than 40 years, through their separate alliances with the United States. Australia, for example, appreciates Japan's role in boosting US forces which play a wider role than just providing for the defence of Japan because Japan-based US forces deploy throughout to the Western Pacific and the Indian Ocean.
At the same time, Japan will welcome Australian efforts to develop cooperative relationships with her neighbouring countries and working closely with her counterparts in the opposite hemisphere in order to promote security cooperation throughout the Asia-Pacific region. Australia and Japan also contribute to stability in waters around Southeast Asia, astride the vital straits that connect the Indian and Pacific Oceans
With the end of the Cold War, US alliances in the Asia-Pacific region, as well as in Europe, are likely to become more collegial. So the individual nations in these alliances will need to cooperate more effectively, as the United States looks to its allies to share more of the security burden. 10
Conclusion
It should be remembered that free trade is supported by stable sea-lanes, and that free trade is one of the vital elements supporting democracy. The regional states have several important tasks to undertake. Among all aspects of regional cooperation, it is maritime security that we must strive for together, first and foremost, in the Asia-Pacific region.
In response to the regional states' greater willingness to promote peace and stability in the region, this paper has offered for consideration a concept of shaping a new maritime security cooperation scheme in the Asia- Pacific region, in particular recognition that the following destabilising factors of: unilateral declarations restricting specific waters, disruption due to regional conflict, and international obstruction to deny use of sea lanes, are impossible to resolve without the employment of a military response.
