The foreign ministers at the forum meeting on Wednesday and Thursday discussed a wide range of issues, including globalization's effects on security, proliferation of nuclear weapons, missile defense, the Korean Peninsula, the sovereignty dispute over islands in the South China Sea, the challenges to Indonesian unity, the recent political crises in Fiji and the Solomon Islands, and international crime, including trafficking in drugs, humans and small arms. Apart from the annual ministerial talks, the forum gathers civilian and military officials, as well as nongovernmental experts from member countries, to make recommendations to ministers on how these and other security problems should be confronted. The U.S. deputy secretary of state, Strobe Talbott, said the security forum should start thinking about developing organizational structure. One of the more contentious issues being discussed in the forum is whether it should shift from its focus on confidence-building measures to preventive diplomacy by agreeing on a set of guidelines for use in preventing disputes that could lead to armed conflict. Southeast Asian officials said China and some other members were concerned that preventive diplomacy could be used to justify intervention in their internal affairs.
China is especially sensitive about both Taiwan, which it regards as a rebel province, and Tibet.
Beijing will not allow such issues to be discussed in the forum, or permit Taiwan to become a member of forum, the officials said. But Mr. Downer said Australia believed that the group needed to be more active in preventive diplomacy and in building mechanisms for doing this.