• by IPS Correspondents (by kalinga seneviratne sydney)
• Thursday, November 10, 1994
• Inter Press Service

By Kalinga Seneviratne SYDNEY, Nov 10 (IPS) - When Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad boycotted the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Seattle last year, Australian premier Paul Keating's scathing remarks about his no-show badly hurt ties between Kuala Lumpur and Canberra.

Mahathir will be in Bogor, Indonesia next week for this year's APEC summit -- but the Australians are still unhappy.

Canberra is hoping that a proposal to have a free trade zone by the year 2020 will be approved at the summit, and it is worried that Mahathir's presence at Bogor will help sway Asian opinion away from endorsing such a definite timetable. Malaysia and China are the most steadfast opposed any timetable.

Mahathir has made it clear he is against the proposal and any suggestion to turn APEC into more than a consultative forum. In recent years, he has instead suggested an East Asian Economic Caucus (EAEC) that would exclude all non-Asian members of APEC.

Analysts here say Canberra fears that if the APEC free trade proposal is rejected in Bogor, Mahathir's EAEC will pick up steam and leave Australia in a dangerous position of being left out without a voice in the most economically dynamic region in the world.

"The world will not stand still if APEC cannot reach an agreement and most of these countries have other options, except, for Australia and New Zealand," wrote Australian Dairy Industry Council head Peter Gallagher in the Australian Financial Review this week.

He noted, "(We) already suffer the unhappy distinction of being the only developed countries without free access to markets of at least 100 million consumers."

APEC was actually an Australian initiative first mooted in 1989 after Canberra began worrying that it was fast becoming an orphan in a world growing fond of trade blocs.

Today, it includes the Association of South-east Asian Nations (ASEAN) -- Brunei, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore -- along with Australia, the United States, New Zealand, Canada, China, Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, Papua New Guinea and Mexico. Chile becomes a full-fledged member on Saturday.

While some of the Asian countries have indicated willingness to consider a free trade zone in the Pacific Rim, most are balking at having to agree on a specific date to achieve it. Already, analysts are predicting that nothing more than a vague statement about trade liberalisation would come out of the summit.

Gallagher gives two reasons why accelerated trade liberalisation in APEC is crucial to Australia.

© Inter Press Service (2014) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service

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