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US not
invited, Russia wants to join. Note the politesse details, beyond the grasp of certain
cowboys. kwc Asian
Leaders Agree to New 16-Nation Association By Edward Cody, Washington
Post Foreign Service, Wednesday, December 14, 2005; 10:22 AM KUALA LUMPUR,
Malaysia - Asian leaders agreed Wednesday to create a new, loosely united
regional group, including India and Australia, to work on combating Asia's
economic, security and political problems. The 16-nation association, which
will hold annual summit conferences, significantly widened the traditional
circle of cooperation among Asian nations represented by the 10-member
Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and a sister group, ASEAN Plus
Three, including China, Japan and South Korea. Its formation,
decided at the first East Asian Summit, marked an attempt to respond to a
growing conviction among Asian leaders that their region requires a stronger
independent voice in world affairs and a new forum without the preponderant
role that has been played here by the United States since World War II. "We have established the East Asia Summit as a forum
for dialogue on broad strategic, political and economic
issues of common
interest and concern with the aim of promoting peace, stability and economic
prosperity in East Asia," a communiqué said. "This is
something that is accepted by us all," added Malaysia's prime minister,
Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, who hosted the summit in Kuala Lumpur in tandem with
ASEAN's regular annual meetings. But by accepting
Australia, New Zealand and India into the new group, the leaders opened a
number of unanswered questions about what goals it would seek, how unified it
would try to become and how it would relate to the longstanding ASEAN and ASEAN
Plus Three groupings. A team of senior Asian officials was assigned to weigh
these issues and bring proposals to the next East Asia Summit, scheduled a year
from now in the Philippines, Badawi said. One question they
will have to address is Russia's desire to join, raised by President Vladimir Putin in
an appearance as an observer here and in an address to the gathered Asian
leaders. The United
States, which participates in other Asian-Pacific group, was not invited to the inaugural summit conference and
did not participate even as an observer. U.S. diplomats
earlier had expressed concern about being left out, pointing out longstanding
U.S. interests in the region and the U.S. military's dominant role in Asian
security. But as the group was broadened to include Australia, India and New
Zealand, it became clear there was plenty of weight to balance Chinese
influence and, particularly through Australia, a ready channel for U.S.
concerns. Badawi, in a
chairman's statement, said ASEAN's 10 members should remain "the driving
force" behind attempts to tighten regional integration despite the welcome
accorded to India, Australia and New Zealand. "ASEAN is the heart,"
he added at a news conference. "ASEAN will be playing the role of
driver." He suggested that,
in any case, Australia,
New Zealand and India could not be integrated to the same degree as other East
Asian nations because of their ethnic, historical and strategic differences. At the same time, he said, they have
interests that coincide with those of East Asian nations and thus it makes
sense for them to join in discussions about the region's future. Underlying the
ambiguity about the new group's role and degrees of membership was concern over
evolving power relationships as China becomes stronger and increasingly willing
- even eager - to exercise regional leadership and Japan moves strategically
closer to the United States. China and Japan
also have been divided by increasingly tense differences over Prime Minister
Junichiro Koizumi's regular visits to a shrine honoring Japan's war dead and
rival claims to oil deposits and several small islands in the East Asian Sea.
Those differences were on vivid display in Kuala Lumpur, where Premier Wen Jiabao refused to sit down with
Koizumi for a regular
China-Japan-South Korea meeting. Seeking to soften
the atmosphere, Koizumi
leaned over during a
signing ceremony Wednesday to ask Wen to loan him a pen. When the Chinese
premier smiled and
handed it over,
assembled diplomats applauded. Aside from the
politesse, however, Japan joined Indonesia and Singapore in leading the fight to
include India, Australia and New Zealand in the new grouping, diplomats said. As originally
conceived by Malaysia and pushed by China, the new summit group was to include
only the 10 ASEAN countries along with China, Japan and South Korea. That would
have made it a vessel for Chinese diplomatic leadership in a forum distinct
from other groups, such as the ASEAN Regional Forum or the Asian Pacific
Economic Cooperation forum, that also include the United States. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/14/AR2005121400505.html |
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