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  • Asia looks to 'lead the world' with EU-style bloc

    Asian leaders discussed plans at a summit on Saturday to "lead the world" by forming an EU-style community, as regional giants China and India tried to cool a simmering border spat.

    Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama pressed his regional counterparts to move towards the creation of an East Asian bloc and to take advantage of the region's more rapid recovery from the global recession compared to the West.


    "It would be meaningful for us to have the aspiration that East Asia is going to lead the world," Hatoyama, who outlined proposals for the bloc after taking office last month, told the Bangkok Post newspaper.

    The community would involve the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) with regional partners China, Japan, South Korea, India, Australia and New Zealand, Japanese officials have said.

    But as the Japanese premier outlined his proposals, there was debate at the summit in the Thai beach resort of Hua Hin over whether the grouping would also include the United States.

    Hatoyama said Tokyo's alliance with Washington was the "cornerstone" of Japanese policy but urged the region to "try to reduce as much as possible the gaps, the disparities that exist amongst the Asian countries".

    East Asian nations would carry out a feasibility study for a huge free trade zone covering ASEAN, China, Japan and South Korea and also for a larger, looser grouping also involving India, Australia and New Zealand, officials said.

    ASEAN leaders have been discussing plans to create their own political and economic community for Southeast Asia by 2015. They also launched the region's first ever human rights watchdog on Friday.

    Increased integration has been a recurring theme of the meetings in Thailand, but rows over borders and human rights have dogged the summit.

    Chinese premier Wen Jiabao agreed with his Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh during talks on the sidelines of the summit on Saturday to work towards narrowing differences on a long-simmering border dispute, Chinese state media reported.

    Beijing has voiced its opposition to a recent visit by Singh to Arunachal Pradesh, an Indian border state at the core of the dispute, and to a planned visit there next month by the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader.

    India and China clashed in 1962 in the area.


    "The two sides agreed to continue talks, with the aim of incrementally removing the barriers to a solution that was fair and acceptable to both sides," the official Xinhua news agency said.

    Indian officials would not confirm an agreement, but the country's external affairs ministry website said Singh "stressed that neither side should let our differences act as impediment to the growth of functional cooperation".

    Host nation Thailand and neighbouring Cambodia however remained at loggerheads over the fate of fugitive former Thai leader Thaksin Shinawatra, after Cambodian premier Hun Sen offered him a job as his economic adviser.

    Meanwhile, ASEAN leaders in a statement on Saturday urged military-ruled member state Myanmar to hold free and fair elections in 2010 but made no mention of detained pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi.

    The group has faced international criticism in the past for failing to press Myanmar's junta to free Suu Kyi. The Nobel Peace Prize winner was sentenced to a further 18 months under house arrest in August.

    The statement also said that communist North Korea should "comply fully with its obligations" under UN Security Council resolutions on its nuclear programme and urged it to return to multi-nation disarmament talks.

    Around 18,000 troops and dozens of armoured vehicles have been deployed in Hua Hin after the Asian summit was twice postponed by anti-government protests, with another 18,000 on standby or on duty in Bangkok. - AFP/ms
    channelnewsasia.com - Asia looks to 'lead the world' with EU-style bloc

    Lots of wishful thinking IMO, but I think we could see an East Asian Bloc in the future.

    ASEAN is still getting it together and even by 2015 they’ll be nowhere near unified as the EU.

    Nebula82.

  • #2
    economics first, politics follows. that's the right way for the regional cooperation.

    there are too many issues to tackle before it forge a completely united bloc.
    http://forum.globaltimes.cn

    Comment


    • #3
      I don't know if a block is the way to go..maybe some kind of sphere.

      Comment


      • #4
        A Greater Asia co prosperity sphere would be very interesting for everyone involved. :)

        I don't see anything coming further than NAFTA or MERCOSUR, China has zero interests in strengthening a multilateral organization that could counterbalance its influence in the region.

        Comment


        • #5
          Oscar

          China has been one of the biggest support of the AU concept. if anything, it would mean more isolation for Taiwan and a stable region means more trade.
          “the misery of being exploited by capitalists is nothing compared to the misery of not being exploited at all” -- Joan Robinson

          Comment


          • #6
            Originally posted by xinhui View Post
            Oscar

            China has been one of the biggest support of the AU concept. if anything, it would mean more isolation for Taiwan and a stable region means more trade.
            I have no doubt that peace and stability are one of China's main objectives in the region but the EU would push integration at a whole new level, especially if China is not in the core group.

            Anyway there's nothing of the conditions on the ground that would transform ASEAN into an Asian EU: too many radically divergent interests, no post WWII hangover that pushed European countries to cooperate, completely different institutions (commie or military dictatorships, liberal democracies, etc...), religions, etc... they have just nothing in common, apart from being called Asians.

            Comment


            • #7
              SK, JP and PRC will be the core of the East Asia Community. For now, it is geared more to ward as a regular forum for regional dialog.

              http://www.worldaffairsboard.com/ris...community.html
              “the misery of being exploited by capitalists is nothing compared to the misery of not being exploited at all” -- Joan Robinson

              Comment


              • #8
                An East Asian economic bloc is in the offing. It is just a question of when...
                Totalitarianism-Feudalism in new garbs

                Comment


                • #9
                  Originally posted by ZekeJones View Post
                  I don't know if a block is the way to go..maybe some kind of sphere.
                  Not an ovoid? Too polarizing?
                  "Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Originally posted by gunnut View Post
                    Not an ovoid? Too polarizing?
                    It'll end up an ovoid, with China on one end and Japan on the other.

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Originally posted by ZekeJones View Post
                      It'll end up an ovoid, with China on one end and Japan on the other.
                      Yeah, they'll get along just fine.
                      "Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Originally posted by gunnut View Post
                        Yeah, they'll get along just fine.
                        They'll get along fine for awhile, then their own interests will cause a rift of some sort.
                        But it does look like this is the way of the future, nations organizing into mutually beneficial groups. How long they will last is another story.

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Originally posted by Oscar View Post
                          I have no doubt that peace and stability are one of China's main objectives in the region but the EU would push integration at a whole new level, especially if China is not in the core group.

                          Anyway there's nothing of the conditions on the ground that would transform ASEAN into an Asian EU: too many radically divergent interests, no post WWII hangover that pushed European countries to cooperate, completely different institutions (commie or military dictatorships, liberal democracies, etc...), religions, etc... they have just nothing in common, apart from being called Asians.
                          I guess you are wrong.

                          China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Myanmar, Singapore... all these countries have cultural, ethnical and linguistic links among them. They have been called Confucian Sphere.

                          Communism vs. Capitalism? That's naive western concept.
                          http://forum.globaltimes.cn

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Confucian sphere? Are you kidding?
                            Both the Chinese and the Koreans hate the Japanese, even 60 plus years after ww2.
                            For Gallifrey! For Victory! For the end of time itself!!

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Myanmar, Singapore...
                              Yeah continue...Philipines, Indonesia, Malaysia...

                              all these countries have cultural, ethnical and linguistic links among them. They have been called Confucian Sphere.
                              You're right the Chinese and Koreans should have reminded that to the Japanese before they slaughter them by the millions.

                              Communism vs. Capitalism? That's naive western concept.
                              Quite true. You have to be very naive to see a difference between Singapore and Vietnam, or between South and North Korea...

                              Comment

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