PRIME MINISTER
TRANSCRIPT OF INTERVIEW WITH THE PRIME MINISTER, THE HON P J
KEATING, M. P. ABC AM PROGRAM
SEATTLE, U. S. A.
SATURDAY 20 NOVEMEBER, 1993
E OE PROOF COPY
GD: Is the decision to have another summit in Jakarta next year a sweet victory?
PM: Well. I think, rather than a sweet victory I think it's a very pleasing achievement
to see Australian diplomacy reach the point where it has taken the interests of not
just the United States but most of the major countries of South East Asia and
North Asia, to come together over this weekend to form, for the first time, a
meeting of the APEC leaders and to agree that the meeting was so successful as
to go on again and do it again.
GD: But, doing it again does roll over some of the scepticism that was coming from
some of the Asian leaders coming into this meeting, doesn't it?
PM: Well, yes, it may well do. But, I don't think there was so much scepticism as
there was some caution, about APEC. As I've said before, there's no road map
with APEC, this is all new so people have got to try and find their way around
where it's leading from an information secretariat, which it first was, to a body
which is drawing a lot of executive power and a lot of executive attention. I think
the people have convinced themselves that it is very much in their interests that
the largest economy in the world, the United States, and the second largest
economy, Japan, and one of the emerging economies, China for the three of
them to multilateralise themselves, that is, to subject themselves to disciplines and
dispute settling mechanisms of an organisation like A. PEC there is a
recognition that they have given something up for something greater. r r U fC ci c-
And, hence, a willingness on the part of the rest of the countries involved to take
this at face value and to take it on for the very important body that I think it will
become.
GD: In terms of the Malaysian fears though, about APEC overshadowing ASEAN,
ASEAN has had about four summits in about 25 years, you're looking at getting
two APEC summits in five years is that proof that APEC is growing very
quickly?
PM: I think APEC has grown very, very rapidly but I think it needs to. That is, that the
growth of the Asia-Pacific, which is important now to all of us, does have
bottlenecks about it. We've had spectacular growth of quite small economies
spectacular growth of, in some cases, small levels of activity. So, you can get
very high growth. As these economies get larger it is not so easy to continue
these growth rates and there will be bottlenecks in infrastructure, in power, in
hydrocarbons, in all sorts of things. And, I think that is where some general
attention, on the part of major governments, to these questions can continue to see
growth, or will facilitate growth, into the future. I think most of the APEC
constituency recognises that and knows that to be important and needing to be
addressed.
GD: How much further has APEC moved towards becoming a policy making body?
PM: Well, the fact that it has, sitting in its leadership group, the President of the United
States, the Prime Minister of Japan, the President of China, the President of
Indonesia and other heads of government, means that it has an enormously
powerful set of sponsors. And so, therefore, it can undertake executive tasks and
it can get them done.
GD: Because of those sponsors is APEC going to be able to drag along the doubters,
such as Malaysia which talks about Australia being too extreme, pushing too hard
trying to get an Asia-Pacific community and free trade?
PM: Well, look, Malaysia is represented ministerially at this, I think it would have
been better in Malaysian terms had the Malaysian Prime Minister come. But,
again, that issue was decided some time ago, it took no attention this weekend
whatsoever. APEC is going to be bigger than any one of its constituent members
and that includes Malaysia.
GD: The vision statement that you put out talked of a new voice in the Asia-Pacific, a
new voice on the world stage. What sort of voice do you think it is going to be?
PM: Well, APEC's not going to be a European Community-type structure, it's not
going to be a Brussels-type supra-national organisation that makes decisions for
national governments. It's not going to be that, there's going to be no Treaty of
Rome equivalent or Maastricht Treaty or the endorsement of those treaties by
nation states. It will be a much looser, cooperative body, but, I think, no less
effective because these economies have already proved that they can grow and
grow quite spectacularly. And, given a bit of help and direction, can do much
better. But, APEC provides such enormous opportunities to, if you like, deal with
the interests of the United States and Japan and China and just so many other
important economies like Korea and Indonesia etc. And ourselves. This is the
first time Australia has really sat at a very big table, in its own right. Years ago,
the question was, could we get into the GI10 or maybe, perhaps, in our dreams, the
G7? It was always, you know, would we be let into something? What has
happened here is Australian diplomacy, with the help of others, fashioned
something else, something new, which I think will become a major body and of
which it is a full constituent member.
GD: Does that picture of President Clinton and the Asian leaders, does that picture
send a real jolt to Europe? Does it say to Europe if there's not a result in the
Uruguay Round that it won't be a three block world but, that it will be the
Americans joining Asia to face Europe?
PM: No, I don't necessarily think that and it won't be a three-bloc world whatever
happens because I think the advent of APEC means we won't see the Americas
bloc up with NAFTA and we won't see a yen bloc in Asia. But, rather, we will
see, sensibly, the melding of interests of North and South Asia and the Western
Pacific. Essentially, that is what APEC has accomplished. It's pulled together the
policy interests of North and South Asia and the United States, North America,
Canada and Mexico. So, it will behave as a trading area. This will be noticed in
Europe because it means...
GD: A bit of a scare for Europe?
PM: No, well it's not designed for that. But, it will be noticed in Europe and some of
that sort of smugness that Europe has about its importance it means that the
United States, which already has a preponderance of its trade in the Pacific
$ 300 billion of its trade is in the Pacific, $ 200 billion in the Atlantic well
obviously the $ 300 billion is going to grow faster in the Pacific than the $ 200
billion in the Atlantic. And these other economies are making markets
themselves. See, APEC is very integrated. It's more integrated than the European
Community now. 66% of its exports are traded within its own member states,
where the equivalent figure in the European Community is 61 And the
equivalent figure for NAFTA is 42%. So, APEC's already.. there's already
tremendous trade between APEC member states and, therefore, the dependency
on Europe is going to be less and less as time goes by. Therefore, there's a
message in this for the Europeans they shouldn't be too cocky about their
importance.
GD: Is APEC on its way to being as equal in importance as, say, the G7, or being more
able to move policy along than the G7 has been able to over the last few years?
PM: APEC will be far more focused because it will have, all the time, common
interests which the G7 has never had. You've got the United States and Japan,
Germany, Italy, Britain, Canada it's such a disparate group, the G7 couldn't
effectively be the kind of body that APEC is capable of being.
GD: The big bilateral out of this was the meeting between the Presidents of China and
America, the first bilateral since Tiananmen Square. Do you think that APEC can
give a sort of structure which will allow these to deal with the problems they have
over human rights, that issue the Americans have been hammering China on?
PM: I think so. A very important thing about this meeting was the chemistry and
atmospherics of the meeting which, as it went on, were pretty spectacular. The
relationship of everyone, after a day or two, started to get much more, not just
more friendly, but more prepared to talk about things, more confident of one
another. Now, give this a few years and of course this will dramatically improve
relations. It's not to say that countries won't keep their interests but it means
they'll be able to open topics up in a non hostile environment. In fact, a much
easier environment with APEC rather than, say, a foreign policy environment.
And the bilaterals are important. I had the opportunity myself of talking to the
President of China, the Prime Minister of Japan, the Prime Minister of Thailand,
amongst others, the President of Korea. These are all useful and valuable
discussions. In one place you can do so many things. Now, this will be true for
the whole body so APEC will be able to transact business probably beyond its
agenda, by mere virtue of the fact that these people will be talking civilly and
sanely and harmoniously together.
GD: Finally then, if this was summit number one, a getting to know you summit, what
does that make summit number two in Jakarta next year?
PM: Well, I think, in the meantime we have decided to do quite a few things. We've
decided to, in the first place, support a successful conclusion of the Uruguay
Round, to seek there to establish over the course of the year work on a common,
non-binding set of investment principles a first step towards a regional
investment agreement. We're going to be examining links between energy use in
the area, which is going to be vast, and the environment. Also, to set up a
business group which will have two members of the business community of each
country from it and adopt, also, the work of the Ministerial Committee here for
consideration next year. So, there's going to be quite an agenda, this thing will
have work to do.
And, as you enquired about human rights... I was able, for instance, to talk to the
President about Hong Kong I stressed there the importance of a smooth
transition, of the protection of peoples' rights. I've got no doubt President Clinton
did the same with the U. S. concerns about human rights and China. The mere fact
that you've got this leadership coming together in a forum where you can have a
meeting and discuss things means that you can obviously discuss things beyond
the trade and investment framework.
GD: You talked about it in historic terms, I suppose I should ask you if it struck
you as historic, your personal reaction to this meeting with this diverse range of
leaders?
PM: Oh yes. I have got no doubt about the historic nature of it. Because, there you are
with this amazing group half the world's production, 40% of the world's
population sitting there, chatting away in a group, at a table. Talking freely on
the boat on the way out, you know, swapping the odd story, finding the odd
amusing thing. It was highly unusual to see such a collection of people, all
focused on the one task. From the President of the United States down through
the Pacific economies.
GD: Thank you, Prime Minister.
PM: Thank you.
Ends.