On the basis of the Concept Paper produced by ASEAN, the second ministerial meeting of the ASEAN Regional Forum, in August 1995, prescribed “three broad stages” for the evolution of the forum: “the promotion of confidencebuilding, development of preventive diplomacy and elaboration of approaches to conflicts”. The Concept Paper had defined the third stage as “Development of Conflict-Resolution Mechanisms”, but China and similarly cautious participants insisted that the formulation be watered down to the meaningless terminology eventually adopted.

The second ARF ministerial meeting also adopted the Concept Paper's proposal that the “ARF process shall move at a pace comfortable to all participants”. Because some participants have not felt “comfortable” with moving to the second stage — indeed, the participants have not reached a common understanding of “preventive diplomacy” — the ARF has essentially remained in the first stage, that of confidence-building. The eighth ministerial meeting, in 2001, according to its chairman's statement, “emphasized that confidence-building is of essential importance to and remains the foundation and main thrust of the whole ARF process”. The 2003 chairman's statement referred to “Continuing work on confidence-building measures as the foundation of the ARF process”.

The questions to ask, of course, are: Why seek to build mutual confidence in the Asia-Pacific? How does the ARF help and what more can the ARF do?

The Concept Paper answers the first question in necessarily broad and sweeping terms, in terms of what it calls “the key challenges facing the region” — the “significant shifts in power relations” that result from rapid economic growth and can lead to conflict; the region's “remarkable” diversity; and its “residue of unresolved territorial and other differences”. The assumption underlying this proposition is that building mutual confidence — or promoting mutual reassurance6 — diminishes suspicions and uncertainties and thus would help mitigate the potential for conflict.

More specifically, mutual suspicions and uncertainties arise from perceptions of actual or potential strategic threats among the nations of the Asia-Pacific. Some in the region see a threat in the rise of China's economic, political, diplomatic and military power. The United States might see that rise as threatening to its strategic position in the Asia-Pacific. Beijing, in turn, might perceive the United States, with its enormous armaments and bilateral military alliances, as leading an effort to surround and “contain” China and prevent it from taking its rightful place in the world.