Shanghai APEC

Shanghai APEC

The Asia-Pacific rim countries meet every year to discuss
their economic woes, in particular how to promote international
trade by removing artificial, mostly government made, barriers.
The objective of the entry of the People's Republic of China into
the World Trade Organization is to facilitate the flow of trade
between APEC members.

The Sept. 11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New
York has suddenly created a rift within the ranks of the APEC
community, more so since the role of religion has now come into
play as well.

The ideals of APEC, originally aimed at spreading prosperity
evenly among the nations of the world, in practice only make the
rich nations richer and the developing nations poorer, according
to critics.

Now it seems that a tougher spirit of competition and
international mistrust following the September tragedy will lead
to the mightier nations getting more powerful. The weaker
nations, on the other hand, get more confused and disillusioned.
They have to accept handouts as they were.

Government subsidies were meant to be removed or minimized to
create a fair international trade exchange mechanism. Subsidies
were seen in the APEC spirit as foul play deserving "a red card".
However, the U.S. government has now to support airline companies
through massive subsidies if they are to be prevented from
bankruptcy due to dwindling revenues from ticket sales.

As for Indonesia, fortunately, Megawati has ensured that the
U.S. and Japan are to keep their pledges to assist Indonesia's
economic recovery whatever happens. Hopefully, the "opposition
leaders" will be happy with the results of Mega's "impossible
mission" to Shanghai.

GANDHI SUKARDI

Jakarta