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Kosovo's Implications for East Asia and Japan's Contribution in the International Arena
by Ralph A. Cossa
The war in Kosovo, while limited in scope, duration, and location, has nonetheless had a great impact on global security interests and concerns. It also has potentially significant implications for East Asia, as regional institutions try to come to grips with the sometimes contradictory principles of protection of basic human rights versus non-interferencein another state's internal affairs. While global and regional US security strategy has remained generally constant and is likely to remain so, Kosovo has caused others to see America's long-standing commitment to the promotion of democracy and human rights in a more interventionist light. Meanwhile, the humanitarian intervention debate provides an opportunity for an expanded Japanese contribution in the regional and international arena.
Background
The NATO military campaign against Yugoslavia prompted by Belgrade's "crimes against humanity" in Kosovo has placed human rights concerns and the related issue of humanitarian intervention in the spotlight. This military action has raised an issue that has yet to be clearly or fully debated, much less resolved; namely, how to balance concerns about sovereignty and non-interference in a nation's internal affairs on the one hand with concerns over basic human rights and humanitarian issues that transcend boundaries and which all nations have a moral obligation to honor; an obligation further spelled out and agreed to in the UN Declaration on Human Rights.
The Kosovo conflict has raised the issue of humanitarian intervention to new levels, especially since NATO's response took place outside the framework of the United Nations, due to the (no doubt correct) belief that UN Security Council vetoes would have prevented a UN-led or UN-sanctioned intervention, given Russia's close ties with the Belgradegovernment and China's stubborn defense, virtually at all cost and with no exceptions, of the principle of non-interference. While the US and Russia finally reached some common ground in Kosovo, China's concerns were not only not addressed, but were seriously exacerbated by the accidental US bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade during the war.
While I am personally convinced that the bombing was indeed accidental,1 most Chinese I have discussed the incident with continue to suspect that it was a deliberate act. The majority seem more willing to believe that it was the work of unidentified rogue CIA or military elements than a preplanned action by the Clinton administration but, nonetheless, the incident and its aftermath―which included the stoning of the US Embassy in Beijing and the burning to the ground of a US consulate building elsewhere in China―has left a bitter aftertaste for both sides. While Washington and Beijing have finally agreed to put the incident behind them and reparations have been duly paid, a great deal of distrust lingers in China―and especially among hard-line elements within the Chinese military (Peoples Liberation Army or PLA)―which will further complicate US-China relations and most likely result in even greater Chinese inflexibility when the topic of humanitarian intervention is raised. The deterioration in Sino-US relations was the most immediate impact of Kosovo on East Asia.
The Kosovo intervention and subsequent accidental Embassy bombing provided new fuel to the ongoing impassioned campaign by Beijing, frequently with Russian assistance, to warn against the dangers of a unipolar world, amid accusations of US unilateralism or the unbridled imposition of American will or ideals on the rest of the world. The fact that the Kosovo action was a NATO campaign backed by 19 countries (admittedly with varying degrees of enthusiasm) is seemingly irrelevant to Beijing, which almost exclusively referred to the "US-led NATO" throughout and after what Beijing repeatedly referred as a "barbaric US action."
The implications and lessons learned from this humanitarian intervention are still being debated, especially as regards what Kosovo portends for future US international behavior. Personally, I would take exception with the "conventional wisdom" expressed by many American critics that this signals a new era of American interventionism.
