ASEAN Aims To Hold Its Own at Talks In Seattle 
International Herald Tribune
November 16, 1993
Michael Richardson    

Southeast Asian countries, apprehensive about possible domination by the United States and worried by divisions within their own ranks, will seek to reassert control over the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum when ministers from the group meet in Seattle on Wednesday.

Analysts said that by acting together, members of ASEAN, the Association of South East Asian Nations, have the authority to ensure that no decision on trade or any other issue is made by the forum without their approval.

Officials said Tuesday that the six ASEAN countries - Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Brunei - have agreed that the forum, known as APEC, should remain a loose consultative body and not evolve into a trade negotiating body.

In discussions to develop a common position before the APEC foreign and trade ministers meet, ASEAN countries also agreed that it would be premature to endorse any proposal to create a Pacific free-trade area.

Officials said that in adopting this position, ASEAN wanted to ensure that no action was taken by the 15-member APEC forum that would weaken the global trading system and strengthen the trend toward regional economic blocs.

Officials said that ASEAN also wanted to preempt any move by the United States or Australia to open rapidly growing East Asian markets to their exports at a faster rate than was acceptable to countries in the region, many of which have relatively high tariff barriers.

The members of APEC are the United States, Japan, China, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and the six ASEAN countries.

ASEAN officials said that at a recent meeting in Jakarta, Ali Alatas, Indonesia's foreign minister, cautioned Prime Minister Paul Keating of Australia not to force the pace of trade liberalization in APEC because it would only strengthen fears among some Asian members that the forum would be dominated by non-Asian nations.

At about the same time, Mr. Alatas told journalists that while Indonesia shared the view that economic "liberalization is the way forward," the ASEAN position was that such reform "should be at a pace that is comfortable, that is in accordance with the capacity and the interests of developing countries."

Of the eleven East Asian members of APEC, only Singapore and Hong Kong have abolished virtually all barriers to the free movement of merchandise trade.

Although coming down across the region, tariff and non-tariff barriers in other East Asian countries remain a substantial source of irritation for the United States, which has large trade deficits with Japan and China, and smaller deficits with most other nations in the region.

For much of this year, while the United States has acted as an activist chairman of the APEC forum, ASEAN failed to put forward a cohesive view because of internal divisions.

Some ASEAN countries, led by Malaysia, warned that under Washington's leadership, APEC was becoming a regional organization that could overshadow and weaken smaller groups, such as ASEAN, even though they had been established for a much longer period of time and were critically important to their members.

Opening a conference Monday on trade and investment opportunities in Malaysia that was convened by the International Herald Tribune, Mahathir bin Mohamad, the Malaysian prime minister, reaffirmed that he would not attend a summit conference in Seattle on Saturday of APEC leaders that was initiated by President Bill Clinton.

"I really do not think this is an exercise in trying to resolve economic problems," Mr. Mahathir said, without elaborating.

Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong of Singapore indicated recently that even though Singapore favored using APEC to maximize the liberalization of regional trade and investment, solidarity among ASEAN nations was a paramount concern.

ASEAN insisted when APEC was established in 1989 that all decisions by forum members be made by consensus, meaning that strong objections by any one country would be enough to act as a veto.

Copyright © 2006 The International Herald Tribune