Politics comes before economics at APEC meeting
Politics comes before economics at APEC meeting
By Endy M. Bayuni
OSAKA, Japan (JP): Political and security issues come before
economics at a gathering of the leaders of the Asia-Pacific
Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, although they are discussed on
the sidelines, rather than in the forum proper.
The leaders held yesterday separate bilateral meetings on the
eve of their annual summit, in which they are expected to endorse
an ambitious action agenda to turn the Asia-Pacific into free
trade zone by 2020 at the latest.
Despite declarations by their officials that APEC is strictly
a forum of consultation on economic issues, most of the 18 APEC
leaders arrived two days early, to use the opportunity to hold
bilateral meetings in which politics, including security issues,
feature prominently in the discussions.
Yesterday, President Soeharto of Indonesia held seven such
meetings, most of them at the Westin Hotel, where he is staying
for the three days of his Osaka visit.
He met with New Zealand Prime Minister Jim Bolger, Australian
Prime Minister Paul Keating, Singapore Prime Minister Goh Chok
Tong, Japanese Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama, President
Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon of Mexico, Koo Chen-fu
(representative of the Taiwan president), and Brunei Sultan
Hassanal Bolkiah.
Murayama, host of today's APEC summit, also held meetings with
most of the leaders, reviewing the preparations for the
conference and other political and security issues.
Security forum
Most APEC ministers, during the course of their meeting
earlier this week, rejected a suggestion made by U.S. Defense
Secretary William Perry to give APEC a security dimension.
Indonesian Minister of Foreign Affairs Ali Alatas dismissed
the proposal out of hand, saying that regional security concerns
are already addressed in another forum, the ASEAN Regional Forum
(ARF), which involves 18 countries.
APEC, Alatas said on Friday, "was never designed to, and must
never evolve into, something other than an economic consultative
and cooperation body".
"The ARF is to develop a capacity for transparency, mutual
confidence-building measures eventually for solving problems if
we have them.
"So let's keep them separate (ARF and APEC), if we don't we
may be mixing apples and pears and you won't get a good result,"
Alatas said.
Chinese Foreign Minister Qian Qichen and Australian Foreign
Minister Gareth Evans have also rejected Perry's idea.
Describing it as "an extreme complication at this stage",
Evans said that APEC has worked as well as it has because its
brief has wholly been focused on economic cooperation, trade and
investment liberalization.
Japanese Foreign Minister Yohei Kono also said that the proper
forum to discuss security concerns is the ARF.
Security of another kind is also the concern of the host
nation, which has deployed more than 25,000 police officers for
the APEC conferences, that began last week and reaches its climax
with the leaders meeting this Sunday.
With 18 leaders in town, the authorities are sparing no
efforts in ensuring their safety, putting up road blocks on roads
leading to the New Otani, Westin and other hotels where the
dignitaries are staying.
The 16th century Osaka Castle, the site where the APEC leaders
will go for their "retreat" on Sunday, has also been closed to
tourists and is heavily guarded.
Last night, Japanese Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama hosted
an informal dinner for the 17 other APEC leaders.
Action Agenda
APEC's Action Agenda, to be endorsed today, sets out nine
basic principles on trade liberalization and the steps that each
members should pursue to reach that goal of free trade by the
agreed deadline.
Fifteen areas have been earmarked for specific action in the
agenda: tariffs, non-tariff measures, services, investment,
standards and conformance, customs procedures, intellectual
property rights, competition policy, government procurement,
deregulation, rules of origin, dispute mediation, mobility of
business people, implementation of the Uruguay Round outcomes,
and information gathering and analysis.
APEC, founded in 1989 as a consultative forum, comprises
Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia,
Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New
Guinea, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand and the
United States.
This is the third time that APEC leaders meet. In Seattle, the
United States, in 1993, they set out their vision of an Asia-
Pacific community; in Bogor, Indonesia, the following year, they
declared their intention to move to completely free their
markets, setting a 2010 deadline for developed economies and 2020
for developing economies.