ASEAN leaders, Chinese premier to unite against SARS at summit
ASEAN leaders, Chinese premier to unite against SARS at summit
Samantha Brown and
P. Parameswaran
Agence France-Presse
Bangkok/Manila
In a rare emergency summit this week, ASEAN's 10 leaders plus
China's Premier Wen Jiabao will seek to present a unified front
to the world in their battle against the SARS crisis, while
behind-the-scenes negotiations with China are likely to be more
delicate, analysts say.
The summit is likely to produce a message of unity pitched
primarily at investors, as fears of Severe Acute Respiratory
Syndrome (SARS) soar with the relentless daily death tolls from
worst-hit China and Hong Kong persisting, they say.
"They will enumerate the measures they have taken, while
trying to sell the idea that the situation has stabilized," one
Bangkok-based Western diplomat said.
"The basic idea they will present is: agreeing the epidemic
has not been eradicated, but has been reduced, and saying, we
have taken firm and effective measures to contain it, therefore
it is not necessary to reduce investment."
SARS is wreaking havoc on ASEAN's economies, with growth
forecasts being steadily lowered and tourism plummeting, leaving
related industries, such as aviation, reeling.
Leaders from Southeast Asia will meet Wen in Bangkok on
Tuesday to come to grips with the SARS, which has emerged as the
biggest crisis in East Asia since the 1997-1998 financial
turmoil.
But unlike the financial crisis which broke out in Southeast
Asia and threatened to engulf the giant China, the SARS epidemic
erupted in China in November and has hit nearly all the Southeast
Asian economies.
The respiratory illness has now killed nearly 300 people, the
bulk of them in China and its special administrative region Hong
Kong, and threatens to retard economic growth in East Asia even
as the region tries to find its feet from the financial debacle
at the tail end of the last century.
"The ASEAN-China summit is crucial because to devise effective
measures to combat SARS, we have to first understand the problem
at the source," Sundram Pushpanathan, ASEAN's head of external
relations, told AFP.
The 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)
has hosted an annual dialog process with China since 1996 and
grappled with various crises, including the East Asian financial
turmoil and the thorny Spratly islands territorial dispute.
"We have already built a conducive setting for us to discuss
problems openly among ourselves and it will be the same for
SARS," Pushpanathan said.
"The important message that we hope will come from Tuesday's
meeting among the ASEAN leaders and the meeting between the ASEAN
leaders and the Chinese premier is that we are serious in wanting
to rid this problem and regaining the trust of the investors and
travelers."
Citing coordination and joint efforts by ASEAN and China that
helped end the regional financial turmoil, Pushpanathan said East
Asia could also contain the SARS problem through "coordinated and
concerted actions".
During the financial crisis, when Southeast Asian currencies
were falling rapidly, China bit the bullet and avoided
devaluation of its yuan currency to prevent the turmoil from
worsening.
China also spearheaded an East Asian move to set up a network
of bilateral currency swap arrangements to ward off speculators
who were blamed for the financial turmoil.
ASEAN officials said the group's leaders and Wen could agree
on preventive steps and sharing of information to deal with the
SARS problems.
This is the first meeting between Wen, who officially took
office in March, and the leaders of ASEAN members Brunei,
Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines,
Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
The Bangkok summit is also unprecedented because it is the
quickest to be convened by the ASEAN leaders in a crisis
situation.
"In about a month since the SARS crisis erupted in the region,
the ASEAN leaders are going to meet. So, if you look at the
timing, this is even quicker than events like the Bali bombing
and the financial crisis," Pushpanathan noted.
"This has now emerged a regional issue requiring a regional
solution and immediate attention," he said.
But China's failure to alert the world to the emergence of the
new virus in southern Guangdong province last November has
evinced widespread criticism, but ASEAN and China have realized
they must join forces if they have any chance of containing the
disease, analysts say.
At a meeting of East Asian health ministers in Malaysia's
Kuala Lumpur on Saturday ahead of the leaders' summit, China's
deputy health minister Huang Jiefu was asked about the value of
meeting with his ASEAN counterparts.
"I think solidarity and also (being) united and together as a
team to fight the epidemic," he said.
At the meeting, the ASEAN plus China, Japan and South Korea
vowed to enforce strict screening measures at all airports and
other exit points to prevent suspected SARS cases from leaving,
in a strong indication of cooperation.
How ASEAN deals with China behind the scenes, however, is less
certain, with the powerful country's presence possibly
complicating overall negotiations, the diplomat said.
"In terms of making a display, the fact that China is already
there is a sign of mobilization of the principal Asian countries,
which can only be well perceived. But the concrete results are
likely to be reduced. It is a delicate exercise," the diplomat
said.
"Either they will not announce anything with regard to China
or they will announce further measurements, but that is not
probable," he said, noting Singapore and Thailand's reliance on
China as a trade partner.