Positive moves amid all the gloom

One significant feature of the just-ended Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum was that speaker after speaker hammered home the same message: Globalization is here to stay; it is the way of the future.

Yes, the summit was held in the shadow of financial turmoil in Asia. But the majority of delegates obviously felt that countries in this region and elsewhere can still profit from the global system.

There is still a strong case, they insisted, for the view that open economies and the unhindered movement of capital are net creators of wealth.

In the post-Cold War world the concept of Pacific defense is no longer a narrow matter of military deployments alone.

A majority of APEC delegates clearly believe that security in the broadest and most important sense -- in an interdependent world where no one nation stands omnipotent -- is a matter of fostering ties with others based on common interests.

They also believe that these common interests include the ideal of global, free markets and unimpeded flows of capital.

There can be no doubt that the growing integration of the world economy has in general been an engine of mutual enrichment.

Why, then, do the critics of globalization continue to strike such a responsive chord?

It is human nature to fear change and the instinct of many nationalists to oppose it. But this kind of narrow, nationalist thinking did not carry much weight in Vancouver.

Participants in APEC meetings have, in the past, spent too much time chasing concepts which are mostly intangible. But this meeting was different.

The gloomy news from Asia forced delegates to come up with some practical, tangible steps aimed at avoiding a repetition of this kind of financial turmoil in the future.

And this was the biggest achievement of the APEC summit.

-- Hong Kong Standard