ASEAN integration, E. Asian cooperation top issues in summit

ASEAN integration, E. Asian cooperation top issues in summit

SINGAPORE (AFP): Steps to further integrate 10 countries
comprising the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and
expand cooperation with China, Japan and South Korea will take
center stage at a leaders' summit here later this month,
officials said Wednesday.

At the meeting from Nov. 24-25, the ASEAN leaders are also
expected to sign an "e-ASEAN framework" aimed at facilitating the
linkage of the diverse region through the Internet.

Michael Tay, the Singapore foreign ministry's ASEAN pointman,
said that while the summit will be informal without any fixed
agenda, the region's leaders were expected to tackle challenges
facing ASEAN on the political and economic fronts.

"The leaders will spend some time discussing where ASEAN is
going" as well as "concrete steps that have to be taken to move
ASEAN forward," Tay said in a media briefing.

ASEAN, which groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos,
Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and
Vietnam, needs greater economic integration in order to become a
credible organization, Tay said.

The group's 10 members vary in culture, political systems and
stages of economic development.

Critics have written off ASEAN as a "sunset organization",
saying that it failed to respond adequately to the Asian
financial crisis in 1997 that severely affected four of its
members.

ASEAN's long-standing policy of non-interference in members'
internal affairs has also come under fire from the West amid the
political crackdown in Myanmar and the brutality by pro-
Indonesian militias just after East Timor voted for independence.

Tay said strengthening the cooperation with China, Japan and
South Korea under the ASEAN plus three process was also expected
to top the agenda.

Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro
Mori and South Korean President Kim Dae Jung are expected to
attend the summit.

"The leaders will discuss how they see the future of East
Asia," Tay said, adding they would try to come up with "concrete
steps to move the ASEAN plus three process forward."

The ASEAN plus three process, which still has to adopt a
formal name, "is not a bloc, it is a process still," Tay said.

ASEAN leaders as a group will also hold one on one meetings
with the Chinese, Japanese and South Korean leaders.

The meeting with Japan will center on the results of a report
by academics and the private sector on how to advance ASEAN-Japan
ties.

South Korea's Kim is expected to brief the ASEAN leaders of
the progress in talks with the communist North Korea and South
Korea's efforts to sustain economic reforms, Tay said.

Despite political trouble in some ASEAN countries, no leader
has signified his intention to skip the meeting, Tay said.

ASEAN leaders hold formal summits every two years, with
informal meetings held in between.

Meanwhile, a code of conduct to ease tensions in the South
China Sea was unlikely to be signed during a summit of ASEAN
leaders in Singapore later this month, an official said
Wednesday.

"It looks like it won't be signed because the negotiations are
still ongoing," Tay told a news briefing.

Further meetings were to be held next year to iron out
differences, he said. Tay, however, did not specify the issues
holding up the signing of the code to govern conduct in the
Spratlys, a chain of islands in the South China Sea.

There had been expectations the code would be signed during
the Nov. 24-25 informal summit in Singapore of the leaders of the
10 ASEAN members. The summit will be preceded by a meeting of
foreign ministers from Nov. 22-23.