SE Asia seeks global role -- and global help

SE Asia seeks global role -- and global help

HANOI (Reuters): Southeast Asian foreign ministers met major global powers on Thursday in an effort to recapture a credible role on the world stage and win international assistance for their crippled economies.

The Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) is struggling to rebuild its relevance in the face of nagging internal divisions, declining economic clout and the growing regional political and economic ascendancy of China.

In a series of meetings in Hanoi this week with regional big- hitters China, Japan, South Korea and Australia, as well as the United States and the European Union, ASEAN ministers have sought to put past arguments behind them and unite.

But the most notable development to come out of the forum has been a further thaw in the thorny relationship between the U.S. and China, illustrating the struggle ASEAN faces to avoid being sidelined and overshadowed by its giant neighbor.

After a meeting on Wednesday between U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell and Chinese Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan, Beijing said on Thursday it had paroled two U.S.-based Chinese scholars jailed for 10 years earlier in the week for spying.

Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said it was heartening to see signs of progress in China-U.S. ties, demonstrated by the fact there had been little discussion of the U.S. missile defense plan at the Hanoi meetings.

"I think it's very important that they engage in intensive dialogue with China and make sure that China understands that the missile defense program is not directed at dealing with China but it's about what Americans call rogue states," he said.

But he warned that although "the signs are pretty good" on U.S.-China relations, "that is not to say one can't anticipate events that could occur to cause more damage to it."

Powell is due to make a one-day visit to China on Saturday to prepare for a visit by Bush in October.

A major theme of Thursday's talks was how to cope with the global economic slowdown that has dealt ASEAN a fresh blow.

China's Tang said richer countries must help the developing world through debt write-offs and greater trade access. "Developed countries that are the main beneficiaries of economic globalization should assume main responsibilities for stimulating growth of the world economy," he said.

ASEAN Secretary-General Rodolfo Severino said that in a working lunch, ASEAN participants urged that the new world trade round take into account concerns of developing countries.

Little progress was made during the week on one of the region's main concerns -- relations with North Korea. Hopes for a resumption of high-level dialogue in Hanoi between North Korea and the U.S. were dashed last week when Pyongyang said its foreign minister was too busy to attend.

Officials said the two countries remained far apart, with North Korea's representative telling the forum the U.S. was attaching too many preconditions to a resumption of dialogue.

Powell insisted Washington was eager for fresh talks and Downer said Washington had been taking a constructive approach by saying it would meet anywhere with an open agenda. "The North Koreans at this stage are sounding rather negative in getting these talks underway -- at least soon," he said.

Other unresolved regional spats include a row between Japan and China over trade, a new Japanese textbook which critics say glosses over wartime atrocities, and a controversial planned visit by Japan's prime minister to a shrine honoring war dead.

China and several ASEAN states are also in dispute on the Spratly Islands, a remote archipelago said to be rich in oil.

But at a gala dinner on Thursday, ministers have been asked to put their differences aside and sing, dance and tell jokes.

Vietnamese Foreign Minister Nguyen Dy Nien was scheduled to get the festivities started with a folk song, with each nation expected to provide a light-hearted party piece.

Amid reports that Powell had balked at singing, however, officials have said participation is not compulsory.

Powell, returning to Vietnam for the first time since he fought the communists as a soldier more than three decades ago, said his visit to Hanoi had been an emotional experience.

"So much has changed, of course, but so much is the same -- the rice paddies, the houses I remember, the people ... industrious, hard at work," he told reporters.