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October 7, 2003 -
Article from Herald Tribune, October 7, 2003
BALI, Indonesia Southeast Asian leaders from 10 nations signed a landmark accord Tuesday that would pull together their disparate region into a European-style economic community in less than two decades.
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations wants to band together to counter the burgeoning economic might of India and China, Asian powerhouses that are siphoning off investment and trade seen as essential for Southeast Asia's development.
"We have just witnessed a watershed in the history of ASEAN," Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri said. "It will make it possible for our children and their children to live in enduring peace, stability and shared prosperity."
The blueprint, dubbed the Bali Concord II, envisions a single market eliminating tariff and non-tariff barriers within an economic grouping encompassing 500 million people and annual trade totaling $720 billion.
The accord sets deadlines for lowering tariffs and travel restrictions. It aims to create by 2020 the ASEAN Economic Community, modeled on European integration of the 1960s and 1970s - before the advent of the European Union.
Leaders who gathered for a two-day ASEAN summit on this resort island acknowledged that the diversity of governance - which includes communist autocracies and a military dictatorship as well as fledgling democracies and an absolute monarchy - will complicate efforts to emulate European integration.
ASEAN comprises Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore, Myanmar, Malaysia and Thailand.
Talks leading up to the annual summit were complicated by the Myanmar military government's continued detention of democracy campaigner and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi - an embarrassment for fellow ASEAN members.
Despite the grouping's tradition of staying out of domestic politics, members pushed for Suu Kyi's pre-summit release from house arrest as a goodwill gesture - but without success. Once the summit began, leaders focused on economics, not politics, and backed away from criticizing Myanmar.
Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, who is retiring later this month, urged colleagues not to abandon this policy of "noninterference in the internal affairs of member countries."
Human rights groups say ASEAN is sweeping the Suu Kyi issue under the rug. Some Asian leaders also have called for a re-examination of the grouping's noninterference principle, saying flagrant human rights violations hurt integration efforts,
"The ASEAN leaders have wimped out as far as Burma is concerned," said Debbie Stothard of the Bangkok-based activist group ALTSEAN, at a protest outside the summit venue.
Speaking at a parallel business summit on Tuesday, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said the region should not shy away from discussing political issues. "A sound political environment is indispensable to ... expand trade and investment," he said.
The summit's ASEAN-only portion closed Tuesday, but the group was holding meetings involving China, Japan, South Korean and India before the summit's close on Wednesday.
At the ASEAN business summit, delegates noted that Southeast Asia, a star performer of the global economy until the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis, is now attracting only a fifth of what China is receiving in foreign investment.
About 75 percent of direct American investment in East Asia went to nations in Southeast Asia a decade ago - but that figure has plunged to 10 percent as companies now put 80 percent of that money into China, according to the US-ASEAN Business Council.
The ASEAN leaders also were expected to move closer to a free trade agreement with China. It would eventually create a market of 1.7 billion consumers with a combined gross domestic product of $2 trillion - the biggest free trade zone in terms of population.
India, Japan and South Korea also are hoping to sign free-trade agreements with ASEAN within the next decade.
The Bali venue was chosen to show that the region will not be cowed by the terrorists who blew up two nightclubs here a year ago, killing 202 people, mostly foreign tourists.
ASEAN leaders also are discussing setting up a security community alongside the economic one, though without any formal military alliance like NATO. Terrorism, along with SARS and lingering effects of the Asian financial crisis, has dragged down regional economies.
Indonesian Foreign Ministry spokesman Marty Natalegawa said Southeast Asia is facing new threats such as terrorism, money laundering, people smuggling and arms trafficking that require new responses.
"We must tackle them in a more effective manner. ... So far we've done it in a very piecemeal fashion," Natalegawa said.
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