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APEC talks move from trade to
terrorism
By Marwaan Macan-Markar
BANGKOK - Leaders of 21 Pacific Rim economies
succeeded in salvaging some relevance to their gathering
- the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit -
by coming to the rescue of the World Trade Organization
(WTO) and by laying out a blueprint to take on
"transnational terrorist groups".
By the end of
the two-day summit in Bangkok on Tuesday, the leaders
had affirmed that they wanted to breathe life into the
WTO, after its latest round of ministerial talks
collapsed in Cancun, Mexico, last month.
The
declaration also cemented the new turn that APEC, which
was set up in 1989 to promote regional free trade, has
made - becoming another launching pad to back the US-led
"war against terrorism".
In fact, the language
in the four-page declaration revealed how marked this
shift has been. The Asia-Pacific leaders' commitments on
the security front were detailed and entailed concrete
measures, while the pledges about the WTO were rich in
rhetoric but short on specifics.
To combat
transnational terrorism, for instance, the Bangkok
Declaration stated that the APEC member economies had
agreed to adopt strict domestic export controls, to
secure stockpiles and to take domestic action to
"regulate the production, transfer and brokering" of
man-portable missiles, such as shoulder-fired
anti-aircraft missiles.
The leaders also agreed
to "dismantle, fully and without delay, transnational
terrorist groups that threaten the APEC economies".
They committed to establishing "a regional trade
and financial security initiative with the Asian
Development Bank, to support projects that enhance port
security, combat terrorist finance and achieve other
counter-terrorism objectives".
In keeping with
the focus on security, the APEC members also expressed
concern - although implicitly - about security threats
to the region posed by North Korea. As a result, they
made a commitment to "eliminate the severe and growing
danger posed by the proliferation of weapons of mass
destruction".
The overwhelming emphasis on
security matters at a gathering meant for trade marks
the continuation of a trend that first occurred at the
2001 APEC forum hosted by China, followed by last year's
meeting in Mexico.
This pattern - which emerged
in the wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks
in the United States - indicates a further shift away
from APEC's free-trade vision, affirmed in Bogor,
Indonesia, in 1994.
At that summit, members of
the developed economies committed to opening up to free
trade and investment by 2010, while the developing
economies were given until 2020 to achieve this goal.
In reference to the WTO, the Bangkok Declaration
stated that APEC "reaffirmed the primacy of the
multilateral trading system" and agreed to support
free-trade talks shaped by the Doha Development Agenda,
which was supposed to enable developing countries to
gain a secure foothold in the world economy.
That goal included APEC backing attempts to
abolish "all forms of agricultural export subsidies,
unjustifiable export prohibitions and restrictions, and
commit ourselves to work in the negotiating group on
rules in accordance with the Doha mandate".
At
last month's fifth ministerial meeting of the WTO in
Cancun, trade talks among its 146 member countries
collapsed amid a broad range of disagreements between
the developing world and the developed world, and
included clashes over the hefty subsidies the developed
countries were pumping into their agriculture sector.
But the significance of APEC's views on the WTO
was not lost on the leaders of Thailand and Chile in
wake of the fact that this week's meeting was the first
major international gathering after the WTO's dramatic
failure in Mexico.
"The message from us is
important: that the WTO talks should continue," Thai
Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra told a press
conference at the close of the APEC summit. "We would
like to send a political signal that we need to press
ahead with the Doha development round."
Chilean
President Ricardo Lagos Escobar told the media: "All of
us are committed to free trade. We feel there is some
room to open the doors that were closed in Cancun."
However, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir
Mohamad was more circumspect, stressing a point he has
come to be known for - that what the world needs is more
fair trade, not free trade. "Free trade may not be fair
but fair trade can be free," he told the press.
Although he said he supported the Bangkok
Declaration, Mahathir expressed concern about the
disadvantage developing countries face in the current
climate of a global free market. "You don't trade with a
country to impoverish it," he said. "We need to insist
on an equitable system."
Thaksin drew attention
to this matter in his final statement to the press.
"Development should be an important aspect" of the next
round of WTO talks, he said, adding that "differences in
the levels of development should not be ignored".
Among APEC's members are developing countries,
such as China, and developed countries, such as the
United States, who lined up on either side of the bitter
debate in Cancun that led to the WTO talks' collapse.
The 21 member economies of APEC are Australia,
Brunei, Canada, Chile, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia,
Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, Papua New Guinea,
New Zealand, Peru, the Philippines, Russia, Singapore,
Taiwan, Thailand, the United States and Vietnam.
The fact that animosity from Cancun is not
reflected in APEC's declaration "has to be welcomed",
said Asvin Dayal of the British development agency
Oxfam. "The language is more moderate and conciliatory,
and if there is a commitment to support the multilateral
trading arrangement that genuinely addresses developing
country concerns, it is good."
However, he
cautioned against optimism, since APEC has stuck to
language that is "sufficiently broad" and there is a
fear that the industrialized countries will "bully"
developing countries into toeing their line.
(Inter Press Service)
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