KUALA LUMPUR -- The annual Asia-Pacific Roundtable is an invaluable opportunity to take the pulse of Southeast Asian thinking about security issues. This year's meeting, the 17th, featured the usual U.S. bashing -- a predictable response to overwhelming American power and the Bush administration's readiness to use it -- but it also spent a good bit of time grappling with the ever thorny question of intervention.

The discussions suggested the emergence of a new norm and growing acceptance of the right -- if not obligation -- of governments to act to protect civilian populations even if it means violating the sovereignty of their neighbors. East Asian nations heretofore have been very skeptical of endorsing any intervention, no matter how grotesque the suffering.

Their hesitancy is understandable. They are relatively young states, reluctant to cede any of their newly won sovereignty. They remember too well how great powers interfered in their affairs and manipulated their politics. They see themselves as too weak to fend off powerful states and fear any opening will fatally compromise them.