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To the Pugwash Community On April 1, as participants were gathering in Seoul for the Pugwash workshop on East Asian Security, events some 3,000 kilometers to the southwest were driving home the fact that security relations in the Asia-Pacific region are emerging as the most potentially explosive of any around the world. The mid-air collision between a Chinese F-8 fighter jet and a US Navy EP-3E reconnaissance plane led to a tense 12-day stand-off between the US and Chinese governments before the US crew of 24 was released from Hainan Island. The diplomatic fraying of nerves over the spy plane incident was followed three weeks later by the decision of the Bush administration to sell advanced weaponry, including diesel submarines and Kidd-class destroyers, to Taiwan, despite heated protests from Beijing. While the Taiwan arms sales did not include such contentious items as Aegis guided-missile cruisers or Patriot PAC-III missiles, US-China relations deteriorated still further, with China accusing the US of "inflammatory" actions. The Pugwash workshop in Seoul included extensive discussions on issues relating to China, the US, and Taiwan, as well as on the Korean peninsula security situation and the ramifications of national and theater missile defenses for East Asia (see the workshop report and essays by John Rhinelander and Li Bin). During the meeting, George Rathjens and Joseph Rotblat had an opportunity to meet with South Korean President Kim Dae-Jung, while the group as a whole traveled to the DMZ and participated in military briefings at Panmunjom. Especially noteworthy was a two-day visit to Pyongyang by Joseph Rotblat and Mark Suh, where they met with top government officials and held extensive discussions on reinvigorating North Korean participation in upcoming Pugwash meetings. The trip also included a stopover in Beijing and similar discussions with individuals from the Chinese Pugwash group. A week earlier, in late March, Pugwash was hosted by the India Pugwash Group for a workshop in New Delhi on the prospects and means for reducing and ultimately abolishing nuclear weapons (the workshop report and relevant articles by Joseph Rotblat and Ejaz Haider are also included in this issue). Following that meeting, George Rathjens traveled to Islamabad for two days of meetings with Pakistani Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar and a wide array of government and research specialists. With the 51st Pugwash Conference this year being held in Agra, India in November, there will be further opportunities to engage policymakers and specialists in detailed discussions and analysis of crucially important security issues emerging throughout the Asian-Pacific region. Pugwash Governance Continuous efforts have been underway since late 2000 on a number of issues related to the future of Pugwash. The search committee for a new President and Secretary General, comprised of Michael Atiyah, Ana Marķa Cetto, Francesco Calogero, and George Rathjens, have conferred regularly and will report their progress soon to the Pugwash Council. The new President and Secretary General are scheduled to take office immediately following the conclusion of the 52nd Pugwash Conference in La Jolla, California in August 2002. Two other subcommittees established by the Pugwash Council at the 50th Pugwash Conference in August 2000, charged with drafting new quenquennial documents on Pugwash goals/principles/structure and publications/publicity respectively, will present drafts of these documents for Council consideration at the Agra annual conference in November. These bylaws of Pugwash, establishing guidelines for the period 2002-2007, will likewise be adopted at the 52nd Conference in La Jolla in 2002. Publications, Website, Outreach The first in a new publication series, Pugwash Issue Briefs, will be published in June 2001 and will examine the effects of the US embargo on Cuba on scientific and academic cooperation between the two countries. Featuring an article by Kenneth Bridges, M.D., on the potential benefits for sickle cell anemia research if full and open scientific research were allowed between Cuban and American health specialists, the Pugwash Issue Brief will be released at a special session being convened by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, in Washington, DC on June 18, that will examine the broad effects of US policy toward Cuba on the free exchange of information and research. The Pugwash website continues to expand and incorporate new features, the latest being the hosting of individual web pages for several national Pugwash groups. As of May, web pages were posted for the French, Belgian, and UK national groups, with direct links provided to the separate web sites of Canadian and Netherlands Pugwash. Other national groups are encouraged to contact Anthony Baird (abaird@amacad.org) for assistance in creating additional national web pages. Acknowledgments As always, the Pugwash
Conferences are grateful to those whose financial support helps Pugwash
maintain and expand its publications, including the Cyrus Eaton Foundation,
the Italian National Research Council, the German Research Society,
and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. The Editors |
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