Challenges ahead

Challenges ahead

After this year's Awakening Day, we should be more motivated in moving along development and realizing the ideals of Pancasila.

We have noted two important things in this year's celebration, which makes it different from the previous years.

First, as President Soeharto stated, we are entering a new phase of development and preparing for the "take-off" era. This "take-off" is going to be a rapid movement towards substantial national growth and prosperity.

Second, we have come to the time when the younger generation must ready itself to assume the responsibility that is now held by the present regime.

In view of the complexity of the future challenges, separatist attitudes, sectarianism and primordialism should be cast away. These negative attitudes can only hinder the way towards unity and implementation of the previously agreed concept of Pancasila.

-- Suara Pembaruan, Jakarta

Pacific community

In Asia, consider China and Japan. As partners of the U.S., they can lay the foundations for a prosperous and stable Asia that, in turn, underpins the dream of the Pacific community which Clinton unveiled in Seattle last year.

As antagonists of the U.S.-Asian relations, they also complicate Asian efforts to create a secure regional system.

The U.S., which in so many ways has been a balancing wheel in Asia, enjoys important advantages in bringing such a system into being. Yet, its relations with China are bogged down by a dispute over human rights, while its trade differences with Japan lurch from one stalemate to another.

Washington's relations with its two most important Asian partners in the lead-up to what is being called the Pacific Century capture the essence of its problems. International affairs are in swift transition.

The U.S. is the only superpower now, a fact that gives it relative advantages over emerging powers. But these advantages need to be pursued, actively and consistently, to secure both America's own long-term interests and the prospects of a stable international order.

That does not appear to be happening.

--The Straits Times, Singapore