Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has proposed the creation of a new Asia-Pacific body, similar to the EU, to cooperate in economic, security and political matters.
In a speech to the Asia Society on Wednesday night, Rudd suggested an Asia-Pacific Community would reflect the region’s growing importance and incorporate a broader vision than existing organizations like APEC, ASEAN and the East Asia Summit.
“We believe that we need to anticipate the historic changes in our region and seek to shape them, rather than simply reacting to them,” Rudd said, adding that the existing groups could continue or be part of the building blocks of a future Asia-Pacific Community.
Rudd’s call was prompted by Asia’s growing economic and strategic importance in the world, and he said Australia needed to position itself to make a strong contribution to the region.
The prime minister wants the new body to be in place by 2020 and span the entire Asia-Pacific region, including the US, Japan, China, India and Indonesia.
In an interview with Fairfax Radio Network yesterday, Rudd said the Asia-Pacific Community would enhance the region’s “fragmented” security and political cooperation.
“Remember, the region is currently host to a whole range of unresolved territorial conflicts: the Taiwan Straits [sic], the Korean Peninsula, Kashmir, involving a whole range of nuclear weapons states,” he said.
“We can either stand back and allow things to drift, or we can say, actually, there should be a better way of handling this. And that’s what we are putting forward as an ambitious proposal for the future,” Rudd said.
He said any future Asia-Pacific Community could learn lessons from Europe but would not exactly mirror the EU, which groups 27 nations in a single market with some common trade and development policies.
His speech gave few other details on the structure and purpose of the organization but Rudd has already appointed an envoy to spread the idea through the region.
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