Big power rows could burst Asian bubble: RP

Big power rows could burst Asian bubble: RP

MANILA (Reuter): Big power conflicts could "burst the bubble of stability" in the Asia-Pacific region and wreck APEC's potential as the world's biggest free-trade area, Philippine President Fidel Ramos warned yesterday.

He said even if the major powers kept the military balance among them, greed arising from unrestrained economic competition could ruin Asia's inter-connected markets.

Ramos spoke at the opening session of a two-day seminar among security experts and scholars on Southeast Asian security and the role of external powers in preserving regional peace.

He urged the integration of China into the Asia-Pacific community, as western Europe did in integrating post-war Germany into the European Union, in order to ensure regional stability.

"The regional environment continues to be unsettled because the big powers have yet to clear up their interests and intentions," Ramos said.

He cited the need for members of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum to first keep the peace among themselves.

"Any explosion of violence in any part of the Asia-Pacific will burst the bubble of stability that keeps its 'economic miracle' going," he said.

Leaders of the 18 member economies of APEC agreed at a summit held in the Philippines last week to step up the creation of a free-trade area encompassing half of the world's wealth.

Ramos said China's intentions in the South China Sea, widespread fears of the United States reverting to isolationism and trade tensions between Japan and the United States, which could affect their bilateral security alliance, were among the security worries of ASEAN and other small Asian countries.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, groups Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam and Brunei. Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar are observers and hope to join the grouping soon.

"China's rapidly expanding economy will unavoidably generate political and military pressures on the Asia-Pacific, even assuming that Beijing made no effort to build its capability to project power beyond its borders," he said.

Ramos said the success of the recent APEC meeting and the visit to Manila last week of Chinese President Jiang Zemin should reinforce ASEAN optimism that a solution could be found to the dispute over the South China Sea's Spratly islands.

The potentially oil-rich reefs are claimed wholly or in part by China, Taiwan, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei.

Ramos said he had suggested to Jiang that dialogue as well as multilateral talks could help resolve their dispute over the islands.

"How China exercises its economic, political and military power must also concern us all - and none more so than we southeast Asians, who are its closest neighbors."

Another source of uncertainty is the issue of how Japan can turn into a self-reliant nation in defense matters, he said. He added: "There is an anomaly and anachronism ... in Japan remaining a strategic client of the United States.

"This can only fan an unhealthy kind of nationalism in a nation acutely aware of its political uniqueness and economic power, increasing the danger that the bitter disputes over trade between the two countries would spill over into their security relationship."