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"The purpose was to provide an upfront direct briefing to heads of government on the content of the Australian proposal, and the process going forward," he said.
Taking to the media, he said that the region must decide whether it wants to drift in the direction of old and bad patterns of behavior based on conflicts or move toward a culture of cooperation. "What is important is to have the leaders of our region focus on the end point of where we want to be as a region in a decade or so’s time."
Bundling his proposal under the theme, “Growth, equity and sustainable development: ideas for a future agenda of APEC," Rudd told leaders that amid the global crisis, Asian economies should not neglect important issues like human security, preservation of peace and prosperity, as well as climate change to reduce emissions of toxic gases. He said that nations cannot act in isolation to counter the financial crisis and that joint involvement was necessary.
While Rudd has called for the involvement of a pan-regional body to tackle political, social and economic challenges in the region, and claims his ideas were received with considerable interest by member states, they did not appear in the final declaration by APEC leaders.
At the conclusion of the APEC summit themed “A New Commitment to Asia-Pacific Development,” leaders in a joint declaration on Sunday said, “Noting the increased economic integration in the region, we also discussed Australia’s suggestions on how regional architecture can keep pace with changing circumstances.” Barring that, there is no mention of Rudd’s Asia Pacific Community idea in the declaration.
Australia can take some consolation from the fact that no new decisions were taken by the leaders, as some analysts had predicted. Rather, the summit turned out to be yet another event to cement cooperation among Asian and Pacific Rim countries and endorse trade proposals suggested by leaders at the G20 summit a week ago.
Still, Rudd is pushing hard for greater acceptability of his vision by Asian nations before any formal framework or structure is proposed. According to media reports, he was happy with the reception it received from APEC leaders but believes that realizing the proposal is a slow and steady process, which he said would be discussed again at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit in Chiang Mai, Thailand, next month. In fact, consultations in the region by Richard Woolcott, Rudd’s special envoy, began soon after the plan was first unveiled at the Asia Society’s Sydney-based AustralAsia Center on June 4.
Rudd’s idea is to build on ASEAN initiatives and create a broader platform that gives greater autonomy to more Asian nations to engage with other member states. By doing so, member states can benefit from common goals set for the region with respect to security, free trade agreements, climate change, aid programs and peace initiatives, while retaining their cultural diversity and religious identity.
In a speech to the Kokoda Foundation in Canberra last Thursday, before departing for the APEC summit, Rudd said that ASEAN was a good example of how cooperation rather than confrontation could be developed as the driver of responses to new challenges the region faced. Besides, it also played a crucial role in maintaining peace.
“Developing strong institutions, which foster trust and cooperation to underpin peace and stability, is a key factor driving this government’s proposal for an Asia-Pacific Community,” he said.
However, when asked whether it would be more advantageous to modify and adapt existing institutions rather than attempting to create a new one, Rudd said it was not a question of substitution or innovation. “My interest is to encourage a regional dialogue on drawing the threads of our pan-regional cooperation in order to encourage and institutionalize the habits of cooperation across the policy spheres.”
APEC deals with an exclusive economic agenda and other current bodies exclude the United States, whom Rudd wants to include in his plans. “I would like to see a pan-regional body, which includes America and which is also capable of embracing a wide policy agenda which covers the breadth of our interconnectedness – political, economic and security in the future,” he said.
Rudd’s grand blueprint for an all-embracing regional body, however, has hit its first roadblock on home soil. There are growing concerns in political circles that Asia remains a flashpoint for potential conflict given the conflict on the Korean peninsula, the Taiwan Strait issue, problems over Kashmir and Tibet and the growing regional power of China and India. In such a volatile atmosphere, there is little that Rudd’s initiative can achieve, some local politicians say.
Rudd has dismissed this claim, however. He believes that the danger is in not taking action and succumbing to the perception that conflict is inevitable, and has warned that there is no international body to regulate regional conflicts.
Although, historically, Australia has relied on its postwar alliance with the United States, it is now heavily dependant economically on Asian states. Balancing its relations with the United States on one hand and Asian business partners on the other, especially China, is seen as a complex act at a time when the United States is strengthening its alliances with Australia, Japan and India to counter China’s growing power.
The former Howard government, while backing the U.S.-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, had refrained from signing a joint security declaration with Japan in 2007, tacitly aimed at China. Although Rudd’s plan could cool tensions, commentators believe that bringing the United States and China together under an Asia-Pacific umbrella is unlikely to happen. Australian media has dubbed it a “seemingly impossible mission” to bring together the competing powers of India, China, Japan and the United States.
Former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating also criticized Rudd’s plan as a very difficult and inappropriate task that cannot emulate even the first step toward a European-style community. Keating believes that China will not share any of its sovereignty after years of war and internal turmoil, while Japan, one of the most insular and monocultural countries in the world, is still reminiscing over its war experiences and its foray into Chinese Manchuria in the 1930’s.
Perhaps Kerry Brown’s review of Bill Emmott’s book “Rivals: How the power struggle between China, India and Japan will shape the next decade,” sums up the political situation.
“By 2020, India, Japan and China will, between them, be the world's largest market, the largest economic entity, and a force for global prosperity and good. The worst case scenario is that any of the many flashpoints will set them against each other, and drag in some of the many, and deep, historical animosities and resentments that they hold against each other, escalating into regional, and possible global, conflict,” Brown writes.
Political dilemmas are likely to put Rudd’s community idea in a tailspin, especially as Australia is widely viewed as a U.S. proxy in the region. However, economic dependence, regional trade and broader issues relating to climate change programs, fighting terrorism and peace initiatives are factors that could ultimately tie Asian nations into a common, united community. As Rudd said, “No such body in the region does that at present, either by dint of its membership or by dint of its agreed agenda. It is time we moved towards such a body.”
The one thing Rudd is banking on is time. “Shaped by the dialogue and the discussion, the endpoint that we have established is a 2020 objective. There is plenty of time to do that.”
