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-- .---~--GRAND VISION:pdmeMinister Kevin Rudd at yesterday's Asia-Pacific community conference in Sydney, which drew participants from 21 countries. Photo:BEN RUSHTON
Rudd renews call for Asia-Pacific body
By Philip Dorling
Despite a lukewarm response from regional leaders, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has renewed his push for the development of a new Asia- Pacific community to deal with regional economic and security challenges.
Mr Rudd argued yesterday that Asia-Pacific countries need a wider and more inclusive organisation to address economic, trade and security issues. However the precise structure and its relationship with existing forums including ASEAN, APEC,the East Asia Summit and the Asian Regional Forum remains highly uncertain.
Mr Rudd was addressing
government officials,politicians and academics from 21 countries attending a two-day Asia-Pacific community conference in Sydney organised by the Department of.
Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Lowy Institute for International Policy.
The conference follows 18 months of inconclusive regional discussions, including extensive travels by Mr Rudd's special envoy, former Foreign Affairs secretary Dick Wooleott, about developing a new forum for Asia-Pacific countries including China,Japan, the United States and Australia.
.Mr Rudd said yesterday that economic and strategic power was shifting to the Asia-Pacific region, which was expected to account for
75per cent of global economic growth in 2010.
However the Prime Minister also highlighted the potential for tensions and conflict, driven by population growth and a scramble for dwindling resources in a region that already has some of the largest standing armies- in the.world.
"History should caution us not to assume that peace, harmony and concord are somehow
predetermined and therefore inevitable for our region," he said.
"The Asia-Pacific region is still without a regional institution with wide membership and a wide mandate to deal with the breadth and depth of political security, economic and environinental challenges that we will face in the 21st century."
Mr Rudd argued that a new structure for Asia-Pacific
cooperation needed to deal with all major questions that affect the region - political, economic and strategic.
"We need a mechanism that draws these threads together, and allows us to act on all fronts,in an integrated way, where possible anticipating developments rather than simply reacting to crises and doing sowith
an increasing sense of regional . community," he said.
"There is widespread recognition that none of our existing regional bodies, as currently configured, meets all these criteria."
Mr Rudd was quick to rule out" a supra-national decision making structure" modelled on the European Union.
"It is equally clear to me that We do not need an additional institutio to add to the many which already populate the region's architecture,"
he said.
"We certainly cannot ask the leaders of the region to add a further meeting to their already heavy schedules."
Mr Rudd said he did not expect th two-day conference would result in an instant solution, but he hoped it would advance debate and result in some concrete ideas for
consideration by regional leaders.
