Thank you very much, and thank you for that kind introduction, and it's great to be back here in Singapore, and can I congratulate each of you as representatives of the business communities of this great and dynamic region for attending this conference.
This has been a very difficult year for business around the world. You've had to wrestle with the challenges of the global financial crisis, which has become has become an economic crisis, which has become an employment crisis in many countries, and it has sapped a lot of confidence in the global economy. But the fact that you as leaders of business around the world and around our region, which represents 56 percent of the global economy is a testament to your strong resolve, because together governments and business have made a difference in the last 12 months.
One of the global institutions which has helped makes a difference is the G20, and together with my colleague from Mexico and elsewhere around the region and the world, and the fact that we have nine member states of APEC who are members of the G20 underlines the significance of that institution in underpinning the seeds for economic recovery.
In fact, if you look at the fact that we are now in a part of the economy which sees growth in the world in 2009, for the first time since 1951 being negative, the global economy contracting, this has placed very large challenges indeed on the shoulders of global economic governance and on regional institutional cooperation. This is where governments have a role to play.
Secondly, when we are asked, as Tommy has, to address the question of the adequacy of regional institutions, let us assess what is going right before we assess then how we can do it better in the future. Take this great institution, APEC, which this year celebrates its 20th anniversary. Prime Minister Hawke of Australia, was an initiator of this great institution in 1989, and when you looked at the challenges back then about drawing down the boundaries of protectionism within this great region, people looked then very sceptically about what we could achieve.
But the figures now demonstrate success. Back then the general protection level of nearly 20 percent centre across this region - now, over that period time, have been brought down closer to 5 (percent). And when you look at the fact that as a region we generate $6.2 trillion of trade, and we have managed to take out such a large amount of protectionism, in terms of the economic activity across borders, this is a significant achievement. And moves to liberalise the economy do not happen automatically. They happen as a consequence of governments getting together and deciding to make things work, to make it easier for business to do what business does best.
So on the positive report card, APEC, in my judgement, has been an extraordinary success story.
Secondly, when APEC translated in the 1990s to a summit-level operation, it presented new opportunities as well. Those opportunities where for Heads of Government to gather each year in non-crisis mode across our region, to discuss the wider challenges facing the Asia-Pacific region. Challenges of security, challenges of broader global collaboration, including most recently, challenges concerning climate change.
This should not be underestimated as an additional value which we've obtained from APEC. The ability for leaders from the United States, from China, from Japan, and from elsewhere in the region, from Mexico, from Australia, and in Southeast Asia, to gather each year to spend time with each other on the common challenges of our region, beyond the specific agenda of trade liberalisation. That has been the second great achievement of APEC. The task we are left with to answer here, however, is how can we take these institutions of existing regional governance and improve them in the future? And that is why Australia has initiated a debate concerning an Asia-Pacific community by 2020.
Let me outline briefly the proposition and the case. Right now, we have a vast array of institutions. Each of them performing a critical and valuable role. We have APEC, I've just referred to. We have the emergence, also, of the East Asia Summit, which brings together the dynamic economies of South-East Asia and ASEAN, with the three powerhouses of North East Asia, China, Korea, as well as Japan. As well as, now, India, Australia and New Zealand. This is a good gathering. It is achieving good momentum. We also have, in our region, ASEAN itself, the oldest success story in terms of regional institutionalism.
And when people reflect on why institutions matter, think about this - when ASEAN was created in 1967, the thought of it forty years later, having within it the traditional warring parties of Communist IndoChina and non-Communist Southeast-Asia was inconceivable. What it's achieved in forty years is actually to bring together a sense of common, regional community, soft security community, as well as enhanced economic cooperation across all these countries of Southeast Asia. It is an outstanding success story. For the region at large, how do we take the success of ASEAN and generalise it for the future challenges of the Asia-Pacific region at large?
How do we avoid the re-emergence of fundamental strategic rifts in our region in the future, when we're still required to deal with some of the deep, underlying challenges concerning territorial claims. Unresolved territorial claims in the Korean Peninsula and the Taiwan Straits, in the South China Sea and elsewhere. How do you avoid any future conflict which would underpin the trajectory of growth that we've had so successfully in this region now for many decades? And how do we enhance further our cooperation to create over time a single market in these vast economies which we represent here?
Our proposal for an Asia-Pacific Community seeks to do this - it seeks to bring together in a single institution over time the economies and countries of our region, with an agenda which covers the entire space, not just part of it.
Political cooperation, security cooperation, as well as economic cooperation- as well as many other areas, including climate change. At present, APEC has no political or security agenda explicitly. It is a gathering of economies. The East Asian Summit has its strengths, but it (inaudible) our great friends and partners the United States, from its gatherings so far. And ASEAN of course is legitimately concentrated on Southeast Asia. So our vision for the future is how do we create an institution which draws all these (inaudible) economies, and, most importantly, together with an agenda which covers the political, security, and economic space, to encourage the habits of cooperation, the habits which underpin security cooperation, the habits which underpin a common sense of community in our region.
I conclude by saying this. Often, we assume that somehow peace and security are delivered by some deterministic means. That they are inevitable. That is not the case. Peace and cooperation across our region have been hard fought through the institutions of existing cooperation over recent decades, because the history prior to that is not a happy history at all.
Therefore, we have to encourage through direct institution-building these habits of cooperation to become entrenched and normal in the future. Think of this with Europe. Europe fought disastrous wars from the 17th century to the 18th century to the 19th century, and finally, the cataclysm of two world wars in the 20th century, before finally realising that they had to fashion an institution which would put conflict to one side, and fashion instead the habits of cooperation. And that is the European Union.
I do not advocate a European Union model for the countries of the Asia Pacific region, but I believe we can learn from that example, and learn from the example fashioned within our own neighbourhood through ASEAN itself, an extraordinary successful organisation.
So let us have an ambition to move our region in this direction. We in Australia are entirely relaxed and patient about how long this may take. We have set ourselves the goal of 2020. We have a one and a half track conference convened on our concept of an Asia Pacific community to be held in Sydney next month. And I'm pleased to say that Governments and countries across the region have sent a high level set of delegations to attend that conference. But we will move patiently, and consistently, with the expressions of views from across the region, and they will be many and varied.
But my concluding point is this. It is far better that we seek to shape the future by encouraging, institutionally, the habits of cooperation across the wider region, than simply to take a passive approach and allow the future to shape us.
Thank you for your attention.