KL presses for action on East Asian Community

KL presses for action on East Asian Community

M.Jegathesan, Agence France-Presse, Kuala Lumpur

Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi made a strong
push on Monday for early action on launching an East Asian
Community to face up to the threats and opportunities of an
expanded Europe and the free trade area of the Americas.

Abdullah told the second East Asia Congress here the time had
now come for the realization of an idea first proposed by his
predecessor, Mahathir Mohamad, more than 13 years ago. The idea
was dropped amid strong opposition from the United States.

"We in the region have dallied long enough. It is now time to
take the process of building our East Asian Community to new
heights and in new directions," he said in an opening address to
some 800 government officials, businessmen and academics from
around the region.

Abdullah warned that it would take "at least two generations
for East Asia to reach the European benchmark ... (so) the sooner
we start in all earnestness the better".

East Asia -- basically the 10 countries of the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) plus Japan, China and South Korea
-- could "work together to ensure that an expanded Europe and the
free trade area of the Americas will not be a threat but an
opportunity for us," he said.

At the same time, "we must ensure the strongest productive
relations with key countries outside East Asia such as the United
States, Saudi Arabia, India, the United Kingdom, France, Germany
and Australia".

The United States is the biggest foreign investor in ASEAN,
which comprises Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia,
Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

Southeast Asia is also America's third largest export market
worth about US$50 billion, more than twice the value of its
exports to China.

China and ASEAN have already reached a basic consensus that
would create the world's biggest trade zone, grouping 1.7 billion
consumers with a combined gross domestic product of $2 trillion.

ASEAN hopes to have its own free trade area beginning 2010 and
a European-style single market 10 years later.

Abdullah said the idea of an East Asian Community had passed
through the three stages identified by German philosopher
Schopenhauer for all great ideas in history -- first it was
ridiculed, second it was violently opposed and now it was
accepted as self-evident.

ASEAN had already "been able to work as one of the most
successful regional conflict reduction, peacemaking and
friendship-building machines in the history of the modern world,"
second only to the European Union, he said.

Abdullah listed six "cardinal imperatives" for a broader East
Asian Community. It should be: "Egalitarian and democratic;
omnidirectional and embracing, turning its back on no one; caring
and mutually beneficial; committed to global empowerment; devoted
to economic prosperity; obsessive about regional peace and
friendship."

Noting that the proposed members of the community already hold
an annual summit as ASEAN+3, he suggested that at a future
meeting they could produce a "Concord of East Asia" as a symbolic
laying down of a major milestone towards the ultimate goal.

Abdullah also suggested the creation of an Asian or East Asian
Monetary Fund, which would supplement and not supplant the
International Monetary Fund, in the same way the Asian
Development Bank did not challenge the World Bank in Washington.

An Asian Monetary Fund was first proposed by Japan in 1997
after the region was thrown into economic turmoil but the idea
was also withdrawn after strong US opposition. Many regional
leaders had supported Japan, which later refined the idea to
complementing IMF loans through a regional currency support
mechanism.