Trade way down agenda at APEC summit

Trade way down agenda at APEC summit

AUCKLAND (Reuters): Leaders of the world's biggest nations
gathered in New Zealand on Saturday to talk about trade, but
ended up spending most of their time discussing politics.

Massacres in East Timor, Chinese threats against Taiwan and
strained Sino-U.S. relations dominated bilateral meetings between
the heads of the 21 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC)
economies before a summit on Sunday and Monday.

Top of the agenda for U.S. President Bill Clinton and many of
the other leaders was the carnage in East Timor, which has
dominated talks by APEC foreign and trade ministers who arrived
to discuss trade issues earlier in the week.

Set up 10 years ago to push for free trade, APEC has become
distracted by politics in recent years since the World Trade
Organization has become the main vehicle for opening markets.

This year's APEC summit, grouping countries with nearly half
the world's trade and US$16 trillion in economic output, was
billed as an overture to the next round of global trade talks due
to start in Seattle in November under the auspices of the WTO.
But there is little for the leaders to discuss.

A confidential draft copy of the APEC leaders' final
communique, due to be released on Monday but obtained by Reuters
on Friday, before most of the leaders even arrived in Auckland,
contained a collection of bland pronouncements about the value of
free markets and a few watered-down proposals.

The statement hailed the Asian economic recovery and pledged
further reform of markets to head off future crises, stressing
the need to boost financial market transparency and regulation.

It offered "the strongest possible support" to a new round of
global trade talks that open in Seattle in November, and calls
for the repeal of export farm subsidies.

But the declaration gave only the sketchiest road-map on trade
liberalization for the new round of WTO talks, avoiding any
proposals capable of offending APEC's diverse membership.

Clinton, Chinese President Jiang Zemin and South Korean leader
Kim dae-Jung, all on state visits, arrived to war dances by
troops of Maori warriors and Pacific islanders in flax skirts.

A platoon of about 20 bare-chested performers strutted,
chanted and waved spears in a "haka" welcome, an indigenous Maori
welcoming challenge, before the networking began.

Clinton and Jiang did discuss trade at their 90-minute summit
but a large part of it was about Beijing's application to join
the WTO this year, which Clinton said he supported but which a
top U.S. official said might not be possible because of
opposition from the U.S. Congress.

Much of their meeting was taken up with other concerns, such
as China's war games this week aimed at intimidating Taiwan after
its leader Lee Teng-hui declared that relations with the mainland
would be on a "special state-to-state basis".

Reports of the murder of thousands of people in East Timor
after the territory's 80 percent vote for independence last month
dominated discussions after the United States and several other
nations suspended military links with Indonesia.

"This APEC gathering...has seen round the clock diplomatic
activity aimed at restoring order in Timor," New Zealand Prime
Minister Jenny Shipley told a meeting of business leaders.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard said East Timor would
continue to be a central focus.

"The East Timor issue will dominate much of the reporting from
this conference and this meeting and will of course bulk
significantly in the bilateral discussions and perhaps in some of
the general discussions at the meeting of leaders," he said.

Outside the meeting, an orderly group of protesters and a 50-
strong police escort marched through Auckland's central business
district on Saturday before staging an East Timor freedom rally
near the talks.