Malaysia host first East Asia Summit

Malaysia host first East Asia Summit

Jim Gomez, Associated Press/Vientiane

Southeast Asian leaders on Monday approved Malaysia's long-held dream to hold a summit of East Asian countries, seen as an important step toward creating a strong Asia trading bloc, but the number of countries that would be invited was left unclear.

Overcoming initial objections of Indonesia, leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) meeting at a summit in the Laotian capital decided to let Malaysia host the first East Asia Summit in 2005, according to a summit statement.

A leaders' statement initially said the summit would comprise the 10 members of ASEAN plus China, Japan and South Korea. But hours later a revised statement was issued without any mention of the participants.

"We agreed to hold the first EAS in Malaysia and in this connection, tasked our foreign ministers to work out the details concerning its modality and participation," the new statement said.

The 13 countries -- listed in the first statement -- already meet every year during the annual ASEAN summits, as "ASEAN plus 3." Nonetheless, former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad had long championed an additional summit in aspirations for a trade bloc to rival the European Union and North America.

The changes in the statement made it clear that Indonesia had extracted some concession for relenting to allow the summit.

Indonesia had argued that the additional meeting would be cosmetic and wasteful, and wanted any new annual summit to be expanded to include Australia, New Zealand and India -- but that was opposed by Malaysia, which has had uneasy relations with Australia.

"We would not be too impressed if an East Asia summit is simply an ASEAN plus 3 summit with a new label, an old wine in a new bottle," Indonesian Foreign Ministry spokesman Marty Natalegawa said.

Some ASEAN countries are concerned that their grouping would become a junior partner to an East Asia bloc, subsumed by the mighty economies of China, Japan and South Korea.

"We have to be careful in not diluting ASEAN but there have been so many countries that have been so keen in having the summit," Marty said.

"One issue is how to maintain the central role of ASEAN," Thai Foreign Ministry spokesman Sihasak Phuangketkeow said. "We don't know whether ASEAN is capable of leading or not."

ASEAN leaders decided to ask senior diplomats to study the implications for the region of forming the new bloc. The study will be submitted to ASEAN foreign ministers who will meet in the Philippines in March.

ASEAN comprises Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

Mahathir's campaign for an East Asia Summit initially drew lukewarm responses from Japan and South Korea because of pressure from their ally, the United States. The reluctance eroded when the 1997 Asian financial crisis forced regional leaders to consider new levels of cooperation.