Making A Difference

East Meets West

But many Asian nations will not be represented at the Bangkok meet in March

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East Meets West
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 IT'S called the Asia-Europe meeting (ASEM). But surprisingly, only 10 Asian nations have been invited for the two-day summit with the European Union, being held in Bangkok from March 1. India is not one of them.

 The meeting is another in a series of recent indications that the new world order will be one of regional trading blocs. These will sometimes overlap—as the new Asia-Europe grouping does with the more established Asia-Pacific Economic Corporation forum (APEC)—and sometimes clash. ASEM is widely seen as providing a new, logical strand in the web of world trading relationships.

 According to Yang Razali Kassim, a Singapore-based political commentator and chairman of AMPRO, an economic grouping of Muslim professionals in Singapore: "Europe is trying to catch up with the US and Japan in the race to get influence in the Asia-Pacific. The Europeans feel left out by the convergence of interests among the Asia-Pacific economies through APEC. South Asia, Australia and New Zealand have been left out because this is the beginning of an East Asian dialogue with Europe. And South Asia is not a part of East Asia, and neither is Australia and New Zealand a part of East Asia, although they claim to be. They (the summit countries) also want to keep the size small."

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From Europe's point of view, the Bangkok summit is a highly significant event and it's not only because of the growing perception that in the decades to come, Asia is going to be a key player on the world's economic stage. The fast-growing Asian economies represent important markets for European conglomerates desperately seeking exports to counter the slow growth at home. On another level, the Asians are seen as keen competitors who, with their low wages and high productivity, can flood Europe with cheap goods, threatening jobs and even the shaky European social order. Also, the US attempt to create an Asia-Pacific trade zone is seen as a ploy to exclude the European Union from this prosperous region. It's not surprising then that the event has received major media coverage in Europe. Helmut Kohl of Germany, Jacques Chirac of Franceand John Major of Britain are among those expected to attend the Bangkok summit. Only three European countries may not be sending their heads of government, at least one for domestic political reasons.

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 The meeting of 10 Asian (the ASEAN seven—Brunei, Thailand, Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and Vietnam—plus three East Asian nations, Japan, China and South Korea) and 15 EU countries will focus almost entirely on enhancing cooperation in trade and economic development. Political and security matters are to be downplayed, if not entirely ignored. "

  All the parties involved, whether from Asia or Europe, agree that it is important to look for ways to strengthen cooperation," said Surapong Jayanamaa, spokesman for the Thai Foreign Ministry. "And because all are looking for ways to promote cooperation, issues that can dilute the aim and objective of ASEM should be avoided." 

  At a meeting of ASEAN foreign ministers in Phuket, Thailand, in January, the hosts presented a list of topics for discussion at the Bangkok summit. It included reform of the United Nations, ways to check the proliferation of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons and a comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty, as well as regional security. "

  The goal is to avoid confrontation," said a source with the EU presidency—currently held by Italy—in Brussels, Belgium. "Even the most sensitive subjects will be touched upon, but in a consensual and non-conflictual way."

Sensitive subjects' is a code phrase for human rights, widely thought to be of more urgent concern to European governments than to their Asian counterparts. Portugal, in particular, will be 'duty bound' to raise the issue of the annexation of its former colony of East Timor by Indonesia and the widespread human rights abuse there. The EU's position on human rights is 'decisive', European Commission Vice-President Manuel Martin assured the European Parliament on February 13. "Portugal will raise the question and it will not be overlooked in Bangkok," he said.

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But as Indonesian Foreign Minister Ali Alatas recently warned: "I can think of 10 irrelevant issues that can seriously embarrass the European side, but we're not thinking of raising them. But neither should they raise certain issues which are not relevant." He was referring to the special interest groups in Europe, especially the Scandinavian nations, who want their governments to raise human rights issues at the summit, particularly the western allegations of infanticide in Chinese orphanages.

The criteria by which certain countries, particularly in Asia, were invited and others excluded are not fully clear, but those that will attend represent most of the dynamic economies of East Asia. However, neither Taiwan nor Hong Kong, both of whom are members of APEC (belonging as economies rather than as states), were invited, probably because of likely objections from China. Australia and New Zealand are known to have lobbied hard to be invited, but were left out because of conflicting definitions of what constitutes Asia and because Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammed and his Australian counterpart, Paul Keating, are on less than friendly terms. Keating called the Malaysian premier recalcitrant because of his refusal to attend the first APEC summit held in Seattle in 1993.

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India's efforts to get invited to the meet have been met only with vague assurances of sympathy. The official EU line is that though it was primarily for the ASEAN hosts to decide on the list of participants, the EU had tried—unsuccessfully—to lobby on India's behalf. Echoing this line, Anthony Smith of the European Commission office in India said the Bangkok meeting was not a one-off event and that the EU would certainly welcome India's participation at other similar meetings.

There seems to be little substance to rumours that ASEAN nations might have insisted on the inclusion of Iran and the former Soviet republics of Central Asia if the Europeans insisted on inviting Australia and New Zealand. Far from stretching it as far as Iran, the summit would have been hard pressed to include even India, according to diplomats in Bangkok. Had India been invited, they say, the Muslim countries in South-east Asia would have been forced to insist on Pakistan's inclusion. This would have forced the summit to address the Kashmir issue, something no one is eager to do. Another country that would have loved to attend, but was not invited, is the one that stretches across both Asia and Europe: Russia.

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Thai Deputy Prime Minister Amnuay Viravan has proposed what may become the summit's only, or at least primary, concrete achievement. He has urged that full trade and investment liberalisation between Asia and Europe be achieved by 2010 for developed economies and 2020 for less developed members. The formula would match that already agreed on by the members of APEC. "I think the EU should commit itself to liberalising trade and investment by the year 2010, because their members are all developed countries. What the APEC agreed on concerning trade and investment liberalisation will be extended to outside members including the EU. Therefore, the EU should do the same," he said. "We want ASEM to produce concrete results, meaning that a time-frame is needed," added a senior Thai official. "Otherwise ASEM will just be a waste of time."

The main purpose of the meeting seems to be to will into existence a supporting bureaucracy that will plan and implement similar annual meetings, like the APEC's annual summits held every November since 1993. But wishing does not always make it so, and the links between Asia and Europe are less solid and less geographically obvious than those among the economies of the Pacific Rim.

What will probably be the meeting's main logistical headache is symptomatic of how far the embryonic organisation has to go to even match what APEC has already achieved. English is the agreed-upon lingua franca of APEC. Several countries in Europe—"home to many proud races and nations," as a diplomat wryly puts it—have refused to allow English to play the same role at the ASEM. Thus, all proceedings will have to be translated into 11 European languages and several Asian ones. "That's the one thing I can see that's going to bring the whole thing to a crashing halt," observes the diplomat

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