APEC faces rocky future
Asia-Pacific ministers are busy lauding the "giant" steps they have taken in recent days to open up markets, but free trade tensions are simmering even as they exchanged hearty handshakes with one another.
On Saturday, ministers from 18 Asia-Pacific economies unveiled the "Manila Action Plan for APEC", a collection of national and region-wide plans for the liberalization of trade and investment and deeper economic cooperation in a diverse region spanning North and Latin America to Asia.
The plan included schemes by each APEC economy detailing tariff cuts and statements of intent to open economies and ease business ties, though no huge breakthroughs occurred.
Some plans went beyond levels pledged under the World Trade Organization (WTO), and others were mere reiteration of existing trade liberalization steps and general statements of intent.
Several of APEC's 18 members gave plans cutting tariffs, 12 stated intentions to curb non-tariff barriers and others vowed measures to open areas from investments to financial services.
These were the products of APEC's voluntary and non-binding process, which had been expected to prod members into making bold moves. The collective plan is billed as APEC's first concrete action toward freeing up trade and investment by the year 2020, a goal set by Asia-Pacific leaders in 1993.
But an undercurrent of tension runs through the free trade front, not least due to different views of the pace and extent of trade liberalization under APEC's banner.
The differences were evident in APEC members' reactions to an effort by the United States to get their endorsement for its proposal to cut tariffs on information technology products worldwide to zero by the year 2000.
The caution that met the U.S. proposal shows that despite APEC officials' optimism, touching on matters of free trade will continue to be a sensitive issue in the forum.
In other words, free trade is unlikely to proceed down a straight road in APEC, which relies on consensus and voluntary action.
One phenomenon, however, has to be pointed out. Most of the Asian countries, led by Malaysia, are bent on killing the move toward an APEC free Trade Area.
This strategy of attrition, with its smokescreen of free trade verbiage and its emphasis on consensus, is presented (to borrow Mahathir's words) so as to disarm the "Asian Way."
An Asian-dominated de facto trading and investment bloc is just as problematic as a U.S.-dominated APEC free trade bloc. Both are guided by the pursuit of elite interests that diverge from that of the majority of people of the region.
-- The Nation, Bangkok