U.S. gives conditional support to EAEC

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)