[asia-apec 1310] Fw: Washington Post on APEC 99 Summit
APEC Monitoring Group
notoapec at clear.net.nz
Sat Sep 25 10:51:22 JST 1999
>>APEC Set On Plan for Financial Markets
>> Group to Support New Trade Talks
>>
>> By Clay Chandler
>> Washington Post Foreign Service
>> Monday, September 13, 1999; Page A16
>>
>> AUCKLAND, New Zealand, Sept. 12 (BThis island nation
>>takes
>> considerable pride in the steely discipline of its
>>yachting team, which gained
>> worldwide fame by capturing the most recent America's
>>Cup trophy.
>>
>> This weekend, however, New Zealand has been thrust
>>into the
>> international spotlight by a more fractious crew, one
>>that rarely charts a
>> common course. As it launched its seventh annual
>>summit here in the "City
>> of Sails," the 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic
>>Cooperation (APEC)
>> forum is adrift, divided not only over short-term
>>crises, such as the recent
>> violence in East Timor, but over long-range economic
>>issues that the group
>> was created to address.
>>
>> In a declaration to be released Monday, drafts of
>>which were leaked to
>> press, APEC members are expected to affirm their
>>commitment to "open,
>> transparent and well-governed financial markets."
>>
>> The nations also are likely to declare support for a
>>new round of
>> negotiations by the World Trade Organization to lower
>>tariffs on goods
>> and services.
>>
>> Beyond such vague pronouncements, however, there is
>>little consensus
>> among this group, which accounts for 45 percent of the
>>world's economic
>> output. On trade, where most members had the greatest
>>hope for common
>> action, APEC has made only modest progress toward
>>goals it set for itself
>> in recent years.
>>
>> In 1994, APEC leaders pledged to eliminate barriers to
>>trade and
>> investment among developed economies in 2010 and among
>>developing
>> economies in 2020. Those targets now seem unrealistic
>>to many members.
>> No new trade liberalization initiatives are on the
>>agenda this year.
>>
>> Despite expressions of support for new WTO talks, U.S.
>>and Japanese
>> leaders are at odds on how those talks should proceed.
>>At last year's
>> meeting Japan blocked a proposal to cut tariffs that
>>protect its fish and
>> forestry industries.
>>
>> The United States, meanwhile, retains tariffs or
>>quotas on textiles and many
>> agricultural goods, and has relied on anti-dumping
>>laws to fight steel and
>> other imports. And recently imposed restrictions on
>>imports of lamb are an
>> enormous irritant here in New Zealand and neighboring
>>Australia.
>>
>> During the Asian financial crisis, APEC choked, ceding
>>leadership to
>> officials at the International Monetary Fund and U.S.
>>Treasury
>> Department. Now, with many of the Asian economies
>>beginning to
>> recover, the group still has arrived at no common view
>>about the what
>> caused the catastrophe and has taken few concerted
>>measures to prevent
>> it from happening again.
>>
>> In a speech today at a meeting of business leaders
>>from around the region,
>> President Clinton warned against "complacency" on
>>economic matters.
>> "There is still hard work to be done and a great deal
>>to be won on the eve
>> of this new millennium," he said. Clearly, though, the
>>rebound of stock and
>> currency markets throughout the region has slowed
>>efforts in many APEC
>> societies to press ahead with painful restructuring
>>programs.
>>
>> Late this evening, the group achieved a legitimate
>>breakthrough on the East
>> Timor question, as a core group led by the United
>>States and Australia
>> worked out an arrangement to send a multinational
>>peace-keeping force to
>> the region to halt repression of pro-independence
>>groups in the region. But
>> the APEC meetings here served more as the backdrop
>>than the vehicle for
>> that accord. To the last, the decision drew resistance
>>from key APEC
>> members, notably Japan, which has extensive business
>>and political ties to
>> Indonesia, and China, which views East Timor through
>>the prism of its own
>> dealings with independence advocates from Taiwan to
>>Tibet.
>>
>> When Clinton was the host for a meeting of APEC heads
>>of state in Seattle
>> in 1993, he boldly proclaimed the gathering to be of
>>historic significance.
>> After a bonding session with other leaders in a native
>>American hut,
>> Clinton spoke in sweeping terms of a new era in which
>>shared interests
>> between the United States and nations around the
>>Pacific region surpassed
>> its traditionally strong bonds with Europe.
>>
>> In hindsight, many early APEC boosters now say, it was
>>naive to expect
>> so much from an organization encompassing nations as
>>dissimilar as the
>> United States, Russia, Vietnam, Chile, Paupa New
>>Guinea and Brunei.
>> Business executives, especially, are losing patience.
>>APEC's own business
>> advisory council recently warned that APEC had "lost
>>sight of its goals"
>> and needed to make "more serious and substantial
>>commitments" to open
>> stock and currency markets.
>>
>> "I think [the APEC leaders] are conscious of the all
>>the criticisms about of
>> the relative lack of progress," said Helmut Sohmen,
>>president of Hong
>> Kong-based Worldwide Shipping Agency and chairman of a
>>prominent
>> group of Pacific Rim executives. "That's made all the
>>personalities acutely
>> aware that they can't have another meeting this year
>>where they don't
>> accomplish anything." But what many business
>>executives hoped would be
>> the marquee achievement of this year's gathering--the
>>announcement of an
>> agreement between Washington and Beijing on terms of
>>China's admission
>> to the WTO--has yet to materialize.
>>
>> In the absence of substantive achievements, the APEC
>>gathering has taken
>> on a festival air. Proceedings began with a troupe of
>>two dozen
>> bare-chested Maori performers who chanted and waved
>>spears in a
>> traditional "haka" welcome. The leaders joined in
>>pressing noses, a
>> customary native greeting.
>>
>> The sessions also have become a lightening rod for
>>protest. Practitioners of
>> Falun Gong, the sect banned in China, gathered in
>>nearby Victoria Park.
>> Supporters of independence for East Timor clashed with
>>Indonesian
>> students protesting international condemnation of
>>their country.
>>
>> Then there are local merchants looking for a bit of
>>publicity. Among the
>> favorites this year: a billboard by the dockside
>>eatery Euro advertising its
>> cigar room: "Call us old fashioned, Mr. President, but
>>we prefer smoking
>> them."
>>
>> Perhaps a more thoughtful slogan was chalked on a
>>blackboard outside the
>> Loaded Hog pub, which offered an alternative
>>interpretation of the
>> acronym APEC: A Perfect Excuse for a Cold one.
>>
>>
>> ) Copyright 1999 The Washington Post Company
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