Arroyo: Stalled Doha talks drive East Asia integration
Philippines Daily Inquirer 05/25/2007
Arroyo: Stalled Doha talks drive East Asia integration
By Leah P. Makabenta
Inquirer
TOKYO — The stalled Doha round of talks of the World Trade Organization is what is driving the process of integration in East Asia, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo said Thursday.
The Doha Round was called the development round because it was supposed to bring the benefits of the global trading system to developing countries, she said at the opening of the 13th Future of Asia conference here.
Arroyo said the developed countries let the developing countries down when, realizing they would have to give up their subsidies or markets, they put up the “yellow light of caution” in the Doha Round.
“We will not just wait around. We aim to go full speed ahead in the Philippines and ASEAN [Association of Southeast Asian Nations] to strengthen our economic ties, regardless of what Doha does or does not do,” she said.
Arroyo, the chairperson of ASEAN’s revolving leadership this year, was the keynote speaker at the forum that gathers the region’s leaders to discuss their vision of an emerging East Asian community.
“We believe that trade is a catalyst to progress and as the president of the Philippines and chair of ASEAN I have been aggressive in seeking multilateral and bilateral trade relationships,” she said.
As a result, ASEAN has eagerly moved forward with free trade negotiations and free trade agreements (FTAs) with China, South Korea, the European Union and Japan.
“These agreements demonstrate our collective voice in ASEAN. Because the future will belong to those nations that seek common ground to resolve common problems,” Arroyo said.
Vital alliances must be forged to keep the world stable so an East Asian community is a step in the right direction, she said.
To many, there is already a de facto East Asian integration in the community composed of the 10-member ASEAN — Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Burma, Cambodia, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Indonesia and the Philippines — and Northeast Asia (Japan, China and South Korea), India, Australia and New Zealand.
All of these are ASEAN’s partners in its dialogue process, so Arroyo can rightly claim that ASEAN is the driver of East Asian integration.
“We have been pushing it in the ASEAN summits and so it is the driver of this concept. But also because ASEAN is geographically located at the center of East Asia,” she said.
Momentum for an East Asian integration has been building for some time. But being a collection of countries divided by culture and political differences, not until intra-regional trade and investment had expanded which promoted interdependence could the idea of a community emerge.
Asian crisis
The Asian currency crisis in 1997 was an additional impetus.
Toshihiro Nikai, MP and chairman of the Diet affairs committee of Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party, said ASEAN might be the driver or the core of East Asian integration but the initiative came from Japan.
During the 1990s when the Japanese economy experienced a long period of stagnation, other East Asian countries also suffered.
“We were not able to respond to their expectations. We also faced a declining population ... and many people feared that the Japanese economy would continue to be mired in stagnation,” said Nikai, who was an official at the Ministry of Trade and Industry at the time.
The Japanese had to map out a growth strategy to arrest the decline. They realized they had to link themselves to the dynamism of the Asian economies.
“Japan needed to be more deeply engaged with East Asia whose economies have been the fastest growing since the 1990s. It would like to contribute to East Asian economic growth and would like to promote economic integration,” Nikai said.
ASEAN has taken the lead in establishing partnerships in promoting closer ties among these countries.
“The idea is to underpin this growing integration with institutions,” said Nikai. “The economies have been growing very rapidly, as is the division of labor. In other words, economic partnership has been growing ahead of other aspects of relations in East Asia.”
For instance, Japan is proposing to bundle together these FTAs into a comprehensive economic partnership agreement.
“If this can be realized in East Asia, the production and manufacturing network will become even more efficient and the industrial competitiveness of the region will be strengthened,” said Nikai.
In 2001, an expert panel called the East Asia Vision Group, urged East Asia to take steps to become a true regional community much like the European Union.
In December 2005, Malaysia hosted the first inaugural meeting of the East Asia summit, a top-level discussion among heads of state and governments of the 16 countries — ASEAN and its dialogue partners, ASEAN+3 (Japan, China and South Korea) and India, Australia and New Zealand.
The second East Asian summit was hosted by the Philippines last December.
