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Al-Ahram Weekly 3 - 9 August 2000 Issue No. 493 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 3 - 9 August 2000 Issue No. 493
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Features Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons 'Asia is one'
By Gamal Nkrumah
The three-day Organisation of African Unity (OAU) summit meeting that took place from 3 to 5 July in the Togolese capital Lomé is far more than a peg on which to hang a news story. African heads of state meet with monotonous regularity to produce final communiqués and churn out some warm, maybe even heated, words -- and nothing else. But I must say at once that the OAU's very survival, against all odds, is a triumph in its own right -- the thread of contextual, historical continuity is an important theme too.
A united Asia is in the making, as the great Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore foretold when he wrote, "Asia is one". The summit meeting last week of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) convened in the Thai capital Bangkok and was immediately followed by the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF). The summit might prove the legendary sage -- Asia's first Nobel laureate -- right.
Asia, by far the biggest, most populous and culturally diverse continent, is currently taking giant steps towards economic integration and closer political cooperation. With 3.5 billion people -- well over half the population of humankind -- the nations of Asia are divided by language, ideological orientation, religion and race. The differences run far deeper than superficial appearance.
Semantically, "Asia" can be traced back to 2,500 BC to an Akkadian word denoting the rising sun. Today a new dawn seems to engulf the continent. In the post-World War II period Asian economies attained phenomenal growth earning them the sobriquet "Tigers". It now looks like Asia is bracing itself for another economic leap forward. The Asian "tiger economies" have a traditional propensity to jump aboard speeding novelty bandwagons, and today there is no faster-accelerating vehicle than the one marked Asian regional integration. Asia is remaking itself at lightning speed.
Ironically, Asia remains the continent where regional politics is most coloured by the legacy of the Cold War. The Berlin Wall came down over a decade ago, but Korea remains a politically divided peninsula. Asia is both more vulnerable to, and acutely sensitive about, America's global political and military hegemony. Self-styled Communist regimes like China, Vietnam and North Korea flourish in Asia. In sharp contrast, with the demise of the Soviet Union, none are left in Africa and Europe.
But the bitter memories of the 1950-53 war between the two Koreas and their superpower backers are fast receding into oblivion. In an unprecedented development following the historic inter-Korean summit in the North Korean capital Pyongyang in June, North Korea is for the first time attending the ASEAN summit as an observer and is participating in the ARF, a 22-member state organisation that meets annually for consultation on security matters in Asia.
This is no less than a coup. In Bangkok, US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and North Korean Foreign Minister Paek Nam-Sun basked in the glitter of the international spotlight. For the first time the North Korean foreign minister held bilateral talks with his South Korean and Japanese counterparts. Australia and Canada established diplomatic relations with Pyongyang. North Korean membership in the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the Asian Development Fund is on the cards. And, Pyongyang is currently negotiating a normalisation of its relations with Tokyo.
China is key to continued inter-Korean dialogue. Seoul and Beijing now have a hot line linking their foreign ministers to help deal with bilateral issues. Beijing's quiet, but persevering, diplomacy was instrumental in bringing about the summit meeting between South Korean President Kim Dae-Jung and the North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il on 12 June. Asia is beginning to present a unified face and voice in international affairs.
But, of course, all these recent developments are just a beginning. There are still powerful and strongly-entrenched forces that prefer to see continued American domination of the Asian political and military arenas. Many an Asian capital still takes its cue from Washington -- at the same time, however, virulent anti-American sentiments are voiced. Asia cannot achieve a more meaningful political cohesion and clout without first resolving its often conflicting perceptions of Pax Americana.
There are two critical issues here: why is Asian unity gradually taking shape? And, why does it matter so much?
To begin with, there is growing dissatisfaction with the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum. A perceptible divide exists between Western nations like the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand -- all APEC member states -- who are far more forceful in their advocacy of democracy and human rights than their more politically complacent Asian trading partners. Asians favour a more pragmatic approach to the question of democratisation and seldom allow democracy to interfere with inter-Asian and cross-border cooperation.
On the eve of the ASEAN and ARF summit meetings, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad strongly criticised Western nations for using democracy and human rights as a Trojan Horse to recolonise Asia. Moreover, he warned that too much democracy is dangerous. Other Asian leaders might not be as vociferously forthright as Mahathir, but they harbour ambivalent attitudes about human rights and democracy. While Western nations treat Burma -- Mynmar as it is now officially called -- as a pariah state, ASEAN welcomed the impoverished country as a full-fledged member in 1999. The European Union doesn't recognise the ruling military junta in Burma, which declared the 1990 elections won by opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy null and void. Mynmar currently faces Western sanctions, but brisk business with Japan and other Asian nations, as well as a generous Japanese rescue aid package make a mockery of the trade embargo.
Secondly, the global economy is changing so rapidly that Asia now feels the need to close ranks and create a new economic and trading bloc. The Asia-Pacific region is expected to see economic growth rates in the range of 7.7 per cent this year. ASEAN members Brunei, Burma or Myanmar, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam have a combined population of 500 million. ASEAN is a formidable trading power -- total ASEAN trade is $720 billion. Still, the ten ASEAN member states have a collective gross domestic product of $737 billion -- a mere 1.5 per cent of world GDP. ASEAN leaders believe that they must join forces with China, Japan and other East Asian powers if they are to successfully face the challenges of globalisation.
To this end, ASEAN leaders officially inaugurated the "ASEAN plus Three", an East Asian caucus that will include China, Japan and South Korea. The new forum incorporates elements of the East Asian Economic Group (EAEG) first proposed by Mahathir Mohamad in 1997 which was torpedoed by Washington on the grounds that it could emerge as a protectionist trade bloc.
The US eyes the ASEAN plus Three with barely-suppressed suspicion. The US trade deficit hit an unprecedented $300 billion record at the end of 1999, eclipsing 1998's record $220 billion. The Chinese economy, meanwhile, is booming. China's GDP grew at 8.2 per cent in the first six months of 2000. Exports have been the spur for this year's growth. By July, China's growth reached $114.5 billion creating a trade surplus of $12.4 billion. The EU and US provide substantial support to their domestic farm sectors which enhances their competitive advantage and negatively impacts developing countries, including the emerging Asian markets. Trade issues topped the agenda at the Asia-Europe (ASEM) biennial meetings in Bangkok in1996 and in London in 1998. The ASEAN plus Three have strongly objected to what they see as the US and EU protectionist policies and unfair trade practices.
Thirdly, ASEAN leaders are acutely conscious of the grouping's shortcomings. ASEAN faces a serious challenge attracting investment as large economies and regional free trade zones in other parts of the world gain strength. Foreign direct investment (FDI) to ASEAN member states plunged from $21.5 billion in 1997 to $16.8 billion in 1998 and fell further to $13 billion in 1999. Although ASEAN economies recovered impressively last year from the financial crisis of 1997-98, FDI fell sharply. Only Singapore registered an increase in FDI last year. ASEAN leaders believe that they must respond to the rapid decline in FDI by speeding up economic integration.
At the informal ASEAN plus Three summit in Bangkok - the fourth such meeting - Malaysia's premier again proposed the EAEG, but instead the East Asia Vision Group (EAVG) was established at the suggestion of South Korean President Kim Dae-Jung. Plans are afoot for the East Asian Common Market.
ASEAN leaders urged the World Trade Organisation (WTO)
to accelerate the accession process for Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. China's imminent admission to the trade body will undoubtedly pose a formidable competitive challenge to ASEAN - hence ASEAN's overtures to China are based on the notion that, 'if you can't beat them, then join them.' ASEAN sets great store by its coordination with China, Japan and South Korea. Internet start-ups are proliferating in China, boosted by venture capital from overseas. China is expected to have 20 million Internet users by the end of 2000. In 1990, there were fewer than 10 million telephone lines in China. Today there are 125 million lines, with two million being laid every month. China, with 70 million mobile phones, is the world's biggest mobile market. ASEAN hopes to cash in on the Chinese experience. With the exception of Singapore, which is by far the region's most wired nation, the prosperous city-state is emerging as a hub for high-tech information technologies in Asia.
The continent's emerging markets, notwithstanding recession-bound Japan, have admirably weathered the Asian financial storm. Thailand experienced three per cent growth rates in 1999 after its economy contracted by nine per cent in 1998. South Korea's economy bounced back with growth accelerating from 4.8 per cent in the first quarter of 1999 to 9.8 per cent in the second. South Korea. With a GDP of $321.3 billion in 1998 and a per capita income of $6.920, Seoul had a $25 billion current accounts surplus last year. Industrial production in South Korea grew by 24.5 per cent last year. And, South Korea's foreign reserves which stood at $3.9 billion at the start of the Asian financial crisis have been replenished and now exceed $80 billion. The Southeast Asians are courting the Northeast Asian powers, but they want an equal partnership. In the past Japan and Korea saw Southeast Asia as essentially a source of raw materials and cheap labour. This warped vision of Southeast Asia is changing.
ASEAN was set up purposefully to arrest the spread of Communism in Southeast Asia. Today, Vietnam is a fully-fledged member and ASEAN's newest members -- Cambodia, Laos and Burma -- among the world's poorest and least developed countries, are trying to catch up with their wealthier fellow member-states. Still, the gap between haves and have-nots in the group is widening. A quarter of Burma's 45 million people live below the minimum subsistence level. The World Bank estimates Burmese per capita income to be $300. Singapore, with a per capita income of $45,000, and oil-rich Brunei are in a league of their own. Obvious national differences will make it difficult to reach agreement on ASEAN's ultimate powers and rule-book. Moreover, intense US hostility to Asian economic union, let alone political unity, compounds the problem. At the same time it is clear that Asia is pressing ahead with plans for closer economic cooperation and political coordination. ASEAN's final communiqué called for the promotion of information technology in the region in order to foster knowledge-based industries, as well as a commitment to regional economic integration and the implementation of a planned free-trade zone by 2002. Progress towards Asian economic union is more likely to come from painstakingly slow negotiations, rather than grand, dirigiste summit resolutions.
