U.S. gives conditional support to EAEC

JAKARTA (JP): The United States said yesterday that it would endorse the establishment of the proposed East Asia Economic Caucus (EAEC), promoted tirelessly by Malaysia, provided it remains open to all states in the region.

U.S. Undersecretary of State for Economic, Business and Agricultural Affairs Joan Spero said that her government's position on EAEC has been consistent in that it is not opposed to the caucus.

"If EAEC is supportive of trade liberalization, supportive and open, we have no opposition to EAEC," Spero said at a joint press conference at the closing of the regional forum and post ministerial meetings.

Spero noted that the United States would prefer to maintain the existing Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, in which it is a member, to establishing the caucus which could draw lines between the 18 APEC economies.

"What we are supportive of is that APEC is an organization that is open for all of its members, that there not be any kind of divisiveness or division within APEC and that if there is to be an EAEC, it be supportive of the idea of an open APEC, an open regionalism," Spero said.

Malaysian Foreign Minister Datuk Abdullah Badawi said earlier that there was no grounds for concerns that the EAEC would divide APEC members.

Pointing to the relatively trouble-free existence of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Australia-New Zealand Closer Economic Relations (CER) group, he said.

"If NAFTA or CER members within APEC cannot divide the group, nor can the EAEC... Open regionalism, which APEC subscribes to, does not and should not prohibit the right of association of like-minded countries," he argued.

First mooted by Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad in 1990, the EAEC is envisaged as a loose consultative forum grouping ASEAN, China, Japan and South Korea as its core members.

It would exclude the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, some of whom have dismissed the proposed caucus as, at best, a distraction from APEC and urged Japan and South Korea not to agree to it.

While the seven members of ASEAN -- Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam -- differ in their enthusiasm for the EAEC, ASEAN as a group has agreed to pursue it as a caucus within APEC.

ASEAN foreign ministers, who ended their annual meeting here last Sunday, said in their joint communique that they "reiterated their commitment toward the early realization of EAEC, which will intensify economic cooperation that is mutually beneficial to its members." (pwn/rid)