Asian leaders converged yesterday on idyllic Bali about one year after its devastating nightclub bombings to display they are not cowed by terrorism and to discuss trade, anti-terror efforts and Southeast Asia's plans for economic integration by 2020.
Leaders or heads of state from India to Japan were arriving on the Indonesian island under extraordinarily tight security for an annual summit today and tomorrow of the 10-nation group, plus four of the region's biggest neighbors.
Talks leading up to the summit have been soured by Myanmar's continued detention of high-profile democracy advocate Aung San Suu Kyi -- an embarrassment for Myanmar's fellow ASEAN members and hindrance to the region's efforts to attract foreign investment.
PHOTO: AP
ASEAN comprises Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.
ASEAN has tried with limited success for more than a decade to reduce tariffs among members, and the grouping has been criticized as all talk and little action.
ASEAN Secretary-General Ong Keng Yong said this year's summit will be more than just "old wine in a new bottle."
The group has drafted a timeline for implementing an ASEAN Economic Community, proposed at last year's summit and to be created by 2020.
A draft summit statement promises to standardize customs procedures by next year. By 2005, members would start to break down non-tariff trade barriers and to open up sensitive trade sectors. ASEAN members would banish visa requirements for residents of fellow ASEAN countries by 2005.
ASEAN wants to keep foreign investment from getting redirected to other sources of cheap labor -- especially China to the north and India to the west -- partly by setting up a network of standardized free-trade zones across Southeast Asia.
The hope is that while labor costs rise in well-performing economies such as Malaysia and Thailand, investors can be enticed into moving production to less-developed ASEAN countries rather than to China.
At the same time, ASEAN is moving toward its own free-trade agreements with nearby competitors like China and India.
The summit agenda includes side deals with China, Japan and India, involving both trade and security issues, such as fighting terrorism.
This year's summit statement is to be called the Bali Concord II. The first concord was penned at ASEAN's first summit in 1976, also held in Bali.
Leaders decided to return to the tropical island just ahead of the anniversary of last year's nightclub bombings on Oct. 12 which killed 202 people -- mostly foreigners -- as a show of support for Indonesia's efforts to crack down on the Islamic militants blamed for the attack.
Also See Story:
ASEAN must do more to draw investors
China’s military news agency yesterday warned that Japanese militarism is infiltrating society through series such as Pokemon and Detective Conan, after recent controversies involving events at sensitive sites. In recent days, anime conventions throughout China have reportedly banned participants from dressing as characters from Pokemon or Detective Conan and prohibited sales of related products. China Military Online yesterday posted an article titled “Their schemes — beware the infiltration of Japanese militarism in culture and sports.” The article referenced recent controversies around the popular anime series Pokemon, Detective Conan and My Hero Academia, saying that “the evil influence of Japanese militarism lives on in
DIPLOMATIC THAW: The Canadian prime minister’s China visit and improved Beijing-Ottawa ties raised lawyer Zhang Dongshuo’s hopes for a positive outcome in the retrial China has overturned the death sentence of Canadian Robert Schellenberg, a Canadian official said on Friday, in a possible sign of a diplomatic thaw as Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney seeks to boost trade ties with Beijing. Schellenberg’s lawyer, Zhang Dongshuo (張東碩), yesterday confirmed China’s Supreme People’s Court struck down the sentence. Schellenberg was detained on drug charges in 2014 before China-Canada ties nosedived following the 2018 arrest in Vancouver of Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou (孟晚舟). That arrest infuriated Beijing, which detained two Canadians — Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig — on espionage charges that Ottawa condemned as retaliatory. In January
Two medieval fortresses face each other across the Narva River separating Estonia from Russia on Europe’s eastern edge. Once a symbol of cooperation, the “Friendship Bridge” connecting the two snow-covered banks has been reinforced with rows of razor wire and “dragon’s teeth” anti-tank obstacles on the Estonian side. “The name is kind of ironic,” regional border chief Eerik Purgel said. Some fear the border town of more than 50,0000 people — a mixture of Estonians, Russians and people left stateless after the fall of the Soviet Union — could be Russian President Vladimir Putin’s next target. On the Estonian side of the bridge,
Jeremiah Kithinji had never touched a computer before he finished high school. A decade later, he is teaching robotics, and even took a team of rural Kenyans to the World Robotics Olympiad in Singapore. In a classroom in Laikipia County — a sparsely populated grasslands region of northern Kenya known for its rhinos and cheetahs — pupils are busy snapping together wheels, motors and sensors to assemble a robot. Guiding them is Kithinji, 27, who runs a string of robotics clubs in the area that have taken some of his pupils far beyond the rural landscapes outside. In November, he took a team
RSS