ASEAN leaders prepare to add emphasis to East Asia ties

ASEAN leaders prepare to add emphasis to East Asia ties

MANILA (Reuters): Southeast Asian leaders will take the
unusual step of revising the draft agreement for a weekend summit
in Manila to sharpen plans for greater trade and financial
cooperation with Japan, China and South Korea.

A minister-level meeting of the 10-member Association of
Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) decided on Friday that the draft,
finalized by senior diplomats earlier in the week, "be
extensively reviewed to reflect the seriousness of ASEAN to
pursue its goal for East Asia."

Usually, ASEAN's draft agreements are endorsed by summit
meetings with little or no change. The language of the ministers'
recommendation was blunt in terms of international diplomacy and
officials privately said it reflected an urgent desire to speed
up regional integration.

Sunday's summit of ASEAN was expected to agree on ways to
deepen cooperation with the three northern economic powerhouses
as the first step toward an East Asia-wide common market.

The draft agreement referred in general terms to carrying
forward cooperation between Southeast Asia and China, Japan and
South Korea, according to a copy made available to Reuters.

Friday's meeting of the region's foreign, financial and
economic ministers said "the joint statement (should) go
beyond...the manner of structure (and) implement the program as a
matter of priority attention."

The leaders of ASEAN -- Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Indonesia,
Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and
Vietnam -- will meet the heads of government of China, Japan and
South Korea on Sunday immediately after their own summit.

Common market

ASEAN is well on its way for a free trade area by 2002 and
ministers have said this could be expanded in future to its three
northern neighbors and then to North Korea and Mongolia.

It also wants to broaden cooperation to align financial
markets and has talked of creating a "common market", which could
eventually include use of a single East Asian currency.

Philippine Finance Secretary Edgardo Espiritu said on Friday
such a common currency might be 30 years away but other forms of
regional economic cooperation could come much more quickly.
"Our future depends on our relations with our neighbors," he told
Reuters in an interview.

"We are subjected to external pressure that we may not be able
to control. That is why there is need to look at what China is
going to do, what Japan is going to do, what South Korea is going
to do," he said.

Any East Asian common market would face seemingly
insurmountable barriers such as the rivalry between China and
Japan, the Taiwan problem and the divide between the Koreas.

But the realities of globalization and economic pragmatism are
powerful inducements to move forward. For ASEAN, desperate to
regain the high growth rates that were blighted by the 1997/98
financial crisis, regional cooperation has become essential.

Thai Foreign Minister Surin Pitsuwan told reporters ministers
wanted to prevent tensions and conflicts in the region and ensure
recovery through greater cooperation on human resources,
technological development and the creation of social safety nets.

"The crisis has given us the wake-up call that we cannot live
in isolation," he said.

Japan is seen as the linchpin for future cooperation.

Officials in Tokyo have said Japan would announce a new
program at the summit to help Southeast Asian nations get more
technological training, a key thrust in an effort to build
regional competitiveness in information technology industries.

"This is in the right direction", Surin said. "It will help us
shift towards an independent, self-sustained and home-grown
development of technology within Asia."

On Sunday, nine of the ASEAN leaders will meet executives from
global software and telecommunications companies to try to
improve use of high technology and the Internet in the region.

Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad will not attend due
to his country's general election.