TRANSCRIPT OF SATELLITE HOOKUP INTERVIEW WITH JOHN HORGAN,
PACRIM CONFERENCE, HONG KONG, 22 FEBRUARY 1989
E 0 E PROOF ONLY
PM.: I have just returned from a visit to the region. I
visited Korea, Thailand then Pakistan and India. In each of
those countries that I visited I witnessed the benefits of
the reduction in tension that is being associated with the
dialogue between the United States and the Soviet Union and
also between the Soviet Union and China.
We have a situation now where in Korea the new leadership of
President Roh who may I say I think is an extremely
distinguished and able leader is not only leading his
country towards democracy now but is also opening up
dialogue with the North with North Korea and with the
socialist countries while of course retaining the firmest of
alliance relationships with the West.
Now that is extremely important because it means that we can
look that region at the reduction of tension and with
the reduction of tension comes the opportunity for-greater
trading opportunities. So I think the Korean peninsula is
looking much better than at any stage in the period since
the beginning of the 1950s. Of course there's an extremely
strong and growing economy.
But Thailand is extraordinarily interesting. There we have
a situation where it has emerged as one of the most rapidly
growing economies in the region over 10 per cent last year
-similar expectations for the future a country which is
now taking a very prominent role in the dialogues and
discussion involving the resolution of the Kampuchean
situation. Thailand is positioning itself not merely in those processes
but in the firm belief, which I think is fairly solidly
justified, that we will see a resolution of the Kampuchean
problem before the end of this year. Thailand will be well
positioned to participate in what it sees as the opening up
of the new markets of Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam itself and
certainly I think all enterprises around the region and all
countries around the region that are looking to the future
should be seeing Thailand as a very important centre of
economic development itself and also well positioned to take
advantage of the new opportunities in the region immediately
adjacent to it.
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PM ( cont): Now of course I went from there to Pakistan and
India and there we have again the optimism associated with
the withdrawal of the Soviet troops from Afghanistan there
is still going to be a bloody mess in Afghanistan one way or
another but the superpower rivalry has essentially
diminished and the opportunities I think are now better for
a constructive relationship between Pakistan and India than
they have been for a very long period.
The personal relationship and chemistry between Prime
Minister Bhutto in Pakistan and Rajiv Ghandi in India is
very good and I believe that there is reason to hope that as
they see themselves able to contemplate a more amicable
relationship that we may in time see a reduction in defence
outlays in both those countries, the greater emphasis
therefore upon their own internal development, and that in
turn of course has great importance for the region.
So that is a summary of my assessment of the region. The
region now ( is) not merely the most economically dynamic
region in the world, which we're all aware of, but also a
region which offers even greater hope for the future as we
see these reductions in political tension which have so
bedevilled parts of the region now for too long.
It was within that framework John and ladies and gentlemen
that I made the observations that I thought the time had
come when we should in fact try and give greater substance
to what has been over a period now a time where there have
been calls for greater regional cooperation. I think the
point ought to be made and understood that if you look at
this region, trade within the region, between countries in
the region, there's about twice what it is as their share of
total world trade and that certainly for my country,
Australia, is true that trade in 87/ 88 with the Western
Pacific region constituted just under 50% 48.6% and if
you're taking North America, 66.7% of all our trade was in
that region.
Now I have made the suggestion that the time has come when
we ought to look at how we can have a sort of organisation
which will make possible greater consultation, effective
consultation, between the countries in the region and I
suggested an OECD type model not necessarilly it would be
exactly that but to distinguish it from a bloc.
I mean I'm not looking at the idea of a trading bloc in the
region but I think if we get a mechanism whereby we can
understand more consistently what's happening in each of the
economies in the region then we'll all be able to conduct
our own policies better. We'll be better placed I think to
bring influence to bear upon the rest of the world to ensure
the maintenance of a free multilateral trading system and
PM ( cont): we'll also be better established it seems to me
to see on the examination of our own economies and
understanding the complementarities of our resources and
capacities how we may best be able to improve our own
situations and the situation and of the region as a whole.
I got a good reaction to that suggestion and we will try and
process the discussions now for the rest of this year to see
whether there may be the possibility of a ministerial
meeting later this year to then look at what possibility
there is for the establishment of such an organisation.
Now summing it all up John and ladies and gentlemen let me
put it this way. There has been a lot of talk as we know
over recent years about the 21st century being the Pacific
century. I believe that that is sensible talk. The
evidence of the present sustains that prediction for the
future. But it's not going to be something which will just
happen automatically or we won't maximise the opportunities
of that Pacific century just by sitting back and allowing
things to go ahead. I think we've got to understand the
total inter-dependence we have, understand the great
potential complementarities we have and work hard at
assisting ourselves in a sense by assisting one another,
intermeshing our economies more effectively than we do to
this stage. If we do that we have the opportunity now in a
world which at no point in the nuclear age has been better
poised to talk optimistically about being a world and a
region living at peace. So the politics are good, the
economic potentials are enormous. I feel it's an excitingi
time to be a leader in this region and I'm certainly very,
very proud of the fact that Australia more and more is
seeing itself as part of this region.
HORGAN: Mr Hawke, we have delegates here at PACRI. from 34
0 scoomuen trqiueess tiion nst het o rpeugti ont o anydo u. t heyI n haMvaey tghiev enw ormle d iwn ilald vawnicteness
the first Sino-Soviet summit in 30 years. what do you see
of significance for the Pacific region flowing from the
prospect of Russia and China opening this historic dialogue?
PM: The first thing to say John is that we shouldn't be
afraid of it. I think if you examine the past and analyse
the present to try and read the future the right conclusion
to which to come is this, that when that break occurred in.
1969/ 60 between the two communist giants, in one sense it
was an irreversible decision. By that I mean that I don't
think we in our lifetimes or in the foreseeable future are
going to see a resumption of a situation where the Soviet
Union and China will be allies, but they will be friends and
they will be economic cooperators. That is good for the
Soviet Union and China and importantly it's good for the
region. If you look at the two speeches that were made by
Mr Gorbachev in Vladisvostok in 1986 and last year in
Krasnoyarsk, what Mr Gorbachev was saying then can really be
divided into two parts. He was making a political ploy, if
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PM ( cont): you like, to try and talk about greater
political cooperation. We haven't yet seen a great deal of
evidence some, but not a great deal yet to flesh out the
intentions of Vladivostok and of Krasnoyarsk. But,
importantly, what Mr Gorbachev is flagging is the desire to
orient Siberia in the Soviet far east into a greater
economic relationship with our region. I think that is to
be welcomed. We alreay have in China as you know the
establishment of the Pacific economic zones there,
significant economic progress in China. They are baulking
at this stage at taking the reform process further. The
implementation of price reform is a serious political
problem but I think the basic thrust of change in China is
irreversible. Now, if we have a situation where the two
giants are in fact going to strengthen their own economic
performance, which is what we want to see, and do it in a
way which wants to see greater cooperation with our
countries in the region, that's good, because we have in the
region the technology, the expertise, the capital to be of
assistance to their plans for development. So I welcome the
summit, I have taken the view consistently, I think probably
I've been at the forefront of world leaders going back in
regard to the changes in China in recognising their
importance and asserting their irreversibility. I therefore
welcome the fact that the rapprochement, the essentially
economic rapprochement between China and the Soviet is going
to mean, I think, a lessening of political tensions and the
overwhelming evidence of that is the decision they've
obviously made to secure resolution of the Kampuchean
conflict. So I think, summing it up, the summit will
confirm not merely a reduction in tension between them but:
it will provide a cement for a lessening of tensions in the
region, including the Korean peninsula as one part,
Kampuchea as another, but it will also create the
environment, I think, for great economic opportunities of
development both within and between the two countries and
for us in this region. So in total I welcome the summit and
I think we all should.
HORGAN: Thank you very much for that comment on the
Russia/ China summit. Another question, and you have touched
on this a little bit in your address, maybe you could
expand. Last month you called for the formation of an Asian
based trade group loosely modelled on the OECD. Can you
tell us why you advocate such steps and what they could lead
to for the region's traders, businesses and nations?
PM: Yes, I to some extent touched on that in my comments..
Just let me flesh it out a bit more. As I say, it's not the
first sort of observation of this type that's been made
although I think I've probably concretised it a little bit
more. The important point to re-emphasise John and ladies
and gentlemen is this, and it's very important that people
understand it. I am not arguing for the creation of a
trading bloc. There is no person and certainly no nation
more than myself and my country committed to not merely the
I
PM ( cont): but the development of a strong free
multilateral trading system. So what I see as one of the
results of the formation of some sort of consultative
mechanism along the OECD model is not merely the internal
benefits that will derive from that because the time for
insular economic programming and policy making is past. No
country in our region if it's sensible and properly attuned
to the realities of this world can think that it can just
make its own economic policy without knowledge of and
understanding of what's happening in the region. So the
basic thing that I'm about in what I've been putting is the
creation of an organisation which will enable us to get the
greatest benefit from knowledge and understanding of what
one another is doing. That's why I've sort of used the OECD
type model. But I also believe that if we can come together
in this way we can say to North America and we can to say to
Europe, look, we are the fastest growing dynamic region in
the world, we're not a threat to you, we want to have a
world trading system within which we can all benefit and
think that's one external benefit of the formation of this
grouping that I'm talking about. At the same time within
the region we can look at what are the possibilites of the
lowering of barriers within the region that do exist and I
think that's very important. As I've said John and ladies
and gentlemen in my opening remarks, there are a lot of
complementarities between the economies of our region and it
just seems to me that the formation of some sort of
organisation of the type that I'm talking about would enable
us in a concentrated continuous analytical way to maximise
the opportunites of those complementarities. In other words
we'd all be better off if we created, I think, the mechanism
for understanding what we're all doing. We'll make better
policies in each country if we understand what the others
are doing and will maximise the opportunities for growth in
the region as a whole.
HORGAN: We have the satellite now for another two minutes,
this is probably a tough question to end on, but your
Government is turning Australia towards an open market to
face global competition. Just briefly, how are you doing
this? PM: Firstly, I'm trying to change the attitude of
Australia, that is to make them understand that this nation
of sixteen and a half million people in a world of five
billion has got to construct itself and have the attitudes
that relate to that world. It will never be able to be
island fortress Australia. We will condemn ourselves and
our future generations if we have that attitude. So what
are we doing? I have with my colleagues created a movement
towards a more outward looking Australian economy. We have
floated the Australian dollar, we've deregulated the
financial system, we have very very signifcantly liberalised
the foreign investment guidelines and we have run a fiscal
policy which has very signficantly reduced the call of the
public sector on the savings of our country so that we can
PM ( cont): release resources to the private sector. Just
last May we had a 30% reduction in tariffs and the
attitudinal change in Australia may be judged by the fact
that Australians accepted, almost welcomed that as compared
to back in the 1970s when there was a 25% reduction and it
was the end of the world. So we are in those macroeconomic
senses doing those things which are creating a more outward
looking economy, we're reforming a microeconomy, we're
making the infrastructure more competitive, better able to
service the Australian economy. In this way we are going to
make Australia outward looking, competitive and make it in
my words more enmeshed in the region.
HORGAN: Thank you Mr Hawke. May I express to you in
conclusion on behalf of all the delegates here from 34
countries how pleased we are and our sincere gratitude for
you being part of our symposium and making such a
significant contribution.
ends