[asia-apec 1184] Does APEC Make a Sound if No One is Listening?

[Asia Pacific Center for Justice and Peace]

Does APEC Make a Sound if No One is Listening?

The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum (APEC) will be meeting in New
Zealand next week. It is not clear why they are going to bother. Nothing of
substance will be decided and little of importance will be discussed. That
is pretty amazing considering that just a few years ago APEC was the focus
of tremendous interest and attention and each of its meetings, at whatever
level, was greeted with anticipation and tension, as diplomats maneuvered to
promote their country's views and interests.

How the mighty have fallen. With the collapse of Asia, we have seen the
collapse of nonsense about "The Asian Century." In fact, no one is expecting
very much from Asia, beyond the hope that it recovers to a decent degree.
Therefore, it follows that the importance of the Pacific Rim, which was
going to dwarf the European basin in significance, is on hold. APEC, the
organization that was to institutionalize the Pacific Rim, has been rendered
irrelevant.

Indeed, the main topic on the APEC agenda is not going to have to do with
APEC at all. It will have to do with maneuvering for the leadership of the
World Trade Organization (WTO), an entity whose own significance is
increasingly dubious. It was, in fact, made clear that nothing of substance
was going to come out of APEC this time around. Contentious issues, like
U.S. and New Zealand opposition to Japanese trade restriction on forestry
products and fish are going to be marginalized, and U.S. lamb quotas will
similarly be dealt with off on the side. Normal, pious platitudes to free
trade will be delivered, but the weaker Asian countries are going to have
nothing to do with them, although they will undoubtedly propose a that a
study be done. Preparations will be made for an APEC summit in Vancouver.
APEC has become an arena of meaninglessness. Indeed, it has become an arena
where minor tensions can easily be exacerbated. There is little point in
discussing problems that are insoluble unless the purpose is to increase
tensions. Frankly, from what we can see, APEC doesn't have the energy to
increase tensions anyway. It is a dinosaur, a leftover fantasy from an era
that was supposed to become permanent but proved fleeting indeed.

The real issues in the region are bilateral. The multilateral approach
assumes a commonality of condition and interest that is no longer present.
Everybody on the Pacific Rim once assumed that they shared a common interest
in managing exploding economic interconnectivity. Today, apart from Asian
Internet providers complaining about the unbalanced tariff structure that
favors the U.S., there are few dynamic sinews left. It is not that there is
no trade in the region. It is that the region has lost its dynamism and that
no one is looking at that regional trade as the engine driving the world's
future.

It is not that no one cares. It is only that so few care that it might as
well be no one.

fwd from www.stratfor.com

by

Paul Gonsalves
Bangalore, India
+ 91 80 525 4054
asfute at vsnl.com
http://members.xoom.com/asfute



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