Adding substance to ASEM dialogue

Adding substance to ASEM dialogue

The Fifth Asia Europe Meeting (ASEM) in Hanoi has been
significant for having taken place at all, given the dispute over
the admission of Myanmar.

After all, the differences between the European Union and
ASEAN over Yangon were wide enough for ministerial talks
scheduled last June to be called off. When Myanmar joined ASEAN
in 1997, the EU suspended the regular ASEAN-EU Ministerial
Meeting (AEMM) in protest against the human rights record of the
military junta in Myanmar and the absence of progress towards
democracy.

In contrast, while the compromise solution confined Myanmar to
representation by lower-ranking officials, 11 of the 26 EU
members of ASEM sent their top leaders to the Hanoi summit,
including French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor
Gerhard Schroeder. In the end, the importance of the ASEM process
was too valuable to be scuttled or to be overshadowed by the
impasse over Myanmar.

Nevertheless, the European determination to tighten the screws
on the Yangon regime by imposing new sanctions is a reminder that
the EU still does not share Asia's softly-softly approach which
is based on engagement rather than the isolation of Myanmar.

Whatever the differences, the forces driving the members of
ASEM closer together are even greater. Nowhere is this more
compelling than in economics, where trade among the 25 EU
countries and the 13 Asian nations in ASEM accounts for 43
percent of the global total and 46 percent of world gross
domestic product. The political imperatives are just as great.

-- New Straits Times, Kuala Lumpur