The second ADMM-Plus - ASEAN Defense Ministers' Meeting plus their eight dialogue partners - in Brunei on Aug 29 will witness the second meeting between Chinese Defense Minister Chang Wanquan and US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel in 10 days.

The unprecedented second meeting between a Chinese defense minister and US secretary of defense in 10 days - the two held a meeting at the Pentagon on Aug 19 - highlights the progress China-US military-to-military relations have made. In more ways than one, this is a good omen for the once unpredictable security atmosphere in the Asia-Pacific region.

China and the US are expected to continue their positive interaction to maintain peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific, so that all countries in the region can jointly address the challenges and share the accruing benefits. But apart from closer contacts and interactions among the large countries, a stable Asia-Pacific security structure also requires the involvement of the relatively small countries in the region. It is precisely in this aspect that the ADMM-Plus can play a vital role as a regional security cooperation platform to balance the roles of the big and small countries.

The ADMM-Plus is a relatively new regional platform - the first meeting was held in Hanoi, Vietnam, in October 2010 - and comprises the 10 ASEAN member countries and their eight dialogue partners - the United States, the only superpower, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and the Republic of Korea, four developed countries, and China, Russia and India, three BRICS member states. Such a non-aligned combination of powerful and not-so-powerful, and big and not-so-big countries is well suited to deal with the security challenges in the region.

The international order is undergoing historical changes, which will trigger great reforms and give birth to new regional and global mechanisms. And compared with the existing regional security cooperation mechanisms, the ADMM-Plus has some of the salient features that a new structure should have.

First, the ADMM-Plus is the region's highest and only defense ministries-led multilateral defense and security dialogue cooperation mechanism. It is also the most representative.

Second, ASEAN, as expected, is playing the leading role in the ADMM-Plus. The "ASEAN-style" mechanism is an interactive platform and characterizes mutual benefit, mutual respect and a consensus-based decision-making process among its member states and dialogue partners, which will not only ensure ASEAN's core status, but also bring the strengths of the dialogue partners into full play.

Third, since the ADMM-Plus is in line with the changing trend in the Asia-Pacific, it will be in a position to address the diverse regional defense and security challenges and promote cooperation in non-traditional security fields. The five expert working groups of ADMM-Plus have already been cooperating fruitfully in areas of humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, maritime security, counter-terrorism, peacekeeping operations and military medicine. In keeping with the spirit of the ADMM-Plus, China sent a big group of People's Liberation Army personnel, the largest among all participating countries, to Brunei to take part in the first ADMM-Plus Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief and Military Medicine Exercise.

Fourth, the mechanism reflects a positive trend in regional security cooperation, which is to guard against becoming a "talking shop" by focusing on practical cooperation and capacity building through training and joint exercises and jointly addressing defense and security challenges.

The ideas that emerge from the practical cooperation and interactions at the ADMM-Plus will create a new regional security cooperation pattern that can go beyond the old-fashioned hegemony model, will be impartial toward all countries, big or small, focus on common security and seek cooperation step by step.

In an open and inclusive regional security mechanism, countries can embrace the new pattern featuring mutual trust, closer interactions and mutual benefit, and bury forever the old logic of an inevitable clash between a rising power and an established power.

The new security cooperation pattern will encourage regional countries to cooperate in non-traditional fields to accumulate positive forces, expand common interests and chart a common destiny for the Asia-Pacific. But ASEAN member states, China and the other regional countries have to make concerted efforts to transform the ADMM-Plus dream into reality.

The author is an assistant researcher at the Institute of Strategic Studies, PLA National Defense University.

(China Daily 08/29/2013 page9)