Current major problems facing the world are related to development, and the greatest threat to development is security problems.

Asia's security situation is not optimistic. Since the end of the Cold War, the risk of global military conflict has diminished. However amid the development of globalization, the rise of non-traditional security has posed a new global threat. Non-traditional security has an extensive range, but usually refers to terrorism, extremism, human trafficking, drug smuggling, weapons proliferation, ecological disasters, piracy, money laundering and other forms of organized crime. It also includes food security, plagues, resource shortages and so on. All in all, non-traditional security encompasses all phenomena deemed harmful to both people’s survival and livelihood.

Factors influencing non-traditional security differ from those influencing traditional security. Traditional security aims to counter arms races, military threats and even wars triggered by conflicts for spheres of influence among countries or groups. It reflects relations between countries. However, non-traditional security is influenced by comparatively more complex circumstances. These include not only political, economical and social factors, but also natural and non-artificial ones. It is impacted not only by relations between countries, but also conflicts between ethnic groups with different civilizations and cultures, and relations between people and nature. Numerous non-traditional security threats are caused by development problems, namely imbalanced or insufficient development either between countries or within a country, or by problems such as imbalanced development worldwide or within regions and countries where there is unjust allocation.

Asia, as a region with imbalanced development, big cultural differences and relatively concentrated poverty populations, is facing increasingly severe non-traditional security problems in need of urgent resolution. The main forms of non-traditional security in Asia are drug trafficking, terrorism, environmental and resource security, nuclear non-proliferation and so on, which threaten the development of Asian countries and have posed serious regional challenges.

Non-traditional security is a new challenge in the modern world, which no single country can address no matter how robust it is. While globalization is promoting cooperation and integration within the global economy, it has also led society to be faced with global security threats. Globalization has resulted in more convenient transportation and communication and frequent people-to-people exchanges. All these have accelerated the spread of many non-traditional security threats that have wreaked havoc and proven hard to eliminate. Drug smuggling, human trafficking and plagues rank among such non-traditional security threats. Coordinated efforts from multiple countries and even the world are needed to tackle these problems.

People cannot directly feel non-traditional security threats compared to traditional security threats. Sometimes used as a tool in geopolitical games, non-traditional security further complicates problems. For example, for many years the Six-Party Talks have sought to denuclearize the Korean peninsula without any major breakthrough. We therefore shouldn’t resolve non-traditional security problems by eliminating traditional security. Greater wisdom, broader contact and closer cooperation are needed instead.

In principle, coordinated efforts from all sides are needed to address security threats. The traditional mechanism to address security threats has limitations because it is established on the basis of political and military alliance. Meanwhile, traditional methods to deal with traditional security threats also have limitations. New ideas and methods are therefore needed to address non-traditional security threats, which are more complex by nature. We should overcome limitations of traditional concepts and knowledge. In particular, we should abandon the Cold War mentality and establish a win-win security principle.

It should be stressed that non-traditional security is almost unlimited and new threats can arise at any time, so no country alone can eliminate non-traditional security threats without international cooperation. Every country should abandon national egoism, otherwise regions or the entire world risk suffering great losses.

In short, Asia needs to establish a new security principle built on unity. Asia should recognize threats from traditional security to a country’s development, in addition to bigger threats from non-traditional security to a country’s development.

The author is the director of the Institute of Russian, Eastern European and Central Asian Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

The Chinese link: http://epaper.gmw.cn/gmrb/html/2014-05/12/nw.D110000gmrb_20140512_3-08.htm?div=-1

Translated by Yu Hui

Revised by Tom Fearon