Background
document
Founding of the ASEM: the 1996 Bangkok Summit
5. "ASEM" consists of the 15 members of the European Union (EU), (Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Belgium, France, United Kingdom, Ireland, Austria, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece) plus the European Commission; and ten Asian countries(Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, China, Japan and Korea). Other Asian countries have expressed an interest in joining, notably India and Australia, but there is some reluctance to widen the group further especially on the Asian side. Membership is decided by consensus and the European side have not agreed to include the new members of ASEAN, Burma (Myanmar), Cambodia and Laos.
6. ASEM has grown out of an earlier and continuing series of EU/ASEAN meetings. The first ASEM Summit of heads of state or government took place on 1-2 March 1996 in Bangkok. The second was on 3-4 April 1998 in London. ASEM is essentially a process for organised inter-regional discussions at various levels on issues of agreed common concern. It is steered by foreign ministers who prepare the Summits of ASEM Heads of State and Government. In addition to the heads of state meetings, there have also been various meetings at both ministerial level and that of senior officials, to discuss trade, finance, investment, customs, security, and technology.
7. The major Asian government interest in the arrangement is to counterbalance the weight of US and Japanese trade and investment in their countries. For the European Union it is to develop ties with a big and fast growing region as a parallel to the APEC process. The clear motivation for both is business. Since the Asian Economic Crisis of 1997-98, ASEM has been a forum for the promotion of financial reform and co-operation, as well as assistance from the richer ASEM members to assist the countries that were hardest hit by the crisis to stabilise their economies and begin to once again achieve economic growth. At the 1998 London Summit, heads of state and government set up the ASEM-EU Asian Financial Crisis Response Fund (ASEM Trust Fund) at the World Bank.
8. At Bangkok, the leaders reaffirmed their strong commitment to various UN Declarations and Programmes of Action; the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, the 1986 Declaration on the Right to Development, the 1992 Rio Declaration, the 1993 Vienna Declaration, the 1994 Cairo Programme of Action, the 1995 Copenhagen Declaration and Programme of Action, and the 1995 Beijing Declaration and Platform of Action, as well as the UN Charter.
9. The Chairman's Statement of the first ASEM meeting in Bangkok articulated the meeting in terms of three distinct dimensions of co-operation. These dimensions, according to which the ASEM process is effectively organised, are the political, the economic, and the other, which has come to be known as the cultural. The political dimension is a forum to discuss regional and international security issues, topics such as non-proliferation and disarmament, and to use political dialogue and co-operation to work toward peace, stability and prosperity. The economic dimension is primarily a vehicle for establishing greater inter-regional trade and investment. In this context, the WTO is a main focus, including the recommendation by both ASEM Summits that all major trading nations should be members of the WTO. The Asian Financial Crisis, and the conditions for recovery, has also become an important item for discussion.
10. The Bangkok meeting was itself a recognition of the economic potential of increased co-operation between the two regions. The leaders agreed that economic links were the basis for inter-regional partnership, and that to further this partnership, they would strive to increase two-way trade and investment flows. Any regionalism, though, would have to agree with the spirit of the WTO, and be open and outward-looking. As concerns the WTO, the increased trade and investment flows brought about by ASEM should strengthen and support the global trading system, and indeed (according to the Leaders' Communiqué) the WTO would benefit from the membership of all the ASEM countries.
11. The simplification of Customs procedures and standards conformance were identified by leaders as items on which co-operation would bring trade-promoting effects. In the slightly longer term, science and technology transfers between the regions would also bring economic benefits. This was thought to be especially important in energy, agriculture, transport and information technologies (IT's).
12. The Asia-Europe Business Forum was established at ASEM1, and was expected to devote some of its focus to small and medium sized enterprises. This Forum, which has held five annual meetings since then, the last in Vienna on 29 September 2000, has become more closely involved with the Summit process since Bangkok. The Co-operation Framework Document adopted at ASEM2 emphasised the central role of the Business Forum, and there is a recommendation in the Vision Group report that this interaction be formalised into a Business Advisory Council.
13. The third thematic group is essentially the catch-all for what does not fall within either of the other two groupings. While listed in the Chairman's report from the Bangkok Summit under co-operation in other areas, human resource development is considered an important component of economic co-operation. Also in this grouping, as matters for co-operation, but not considered economic or political, are development, with priority to poverty alleviation, public health and gender issues, and environmental issues such as desertification and deforestation, biodiversity, and global warming. Many of the initiatives in this grouping are described as cultural, a major focus being to bring the regions' citizens closer through cultural exchanges such as tourism, the arts, and student or youth oriented activities.
14. The leaders left Bangkok having agreed to follow up on numerous initiatives, including various Ministerial and Senior Official's Meetings(SOM) to monitor the follow up. The leaders were agreed that these intersessional meetings, and indeed the ASEM process as a whole, need not be institutionalised. The Senior Officials Meeting on Trade and Investment(SOMTI) was charged with finding specific ways of boosting trade and investment, and a joint Government and Private Sector group was convened to draw up an Investment Promotion Action Plan (IPAP). The draft IPAP was first disseminated at the first meeting of the Business Forum, and then edited to reflect the forum's views before being submitted to ASEM members. At the first SOMTI in July 1996, officials also agreed to draft a Trade Facilitation Action Plan(TFAP). Customs and quarantine procedures, standards, intellectual property rights and business travel were identified as some initial priorities of TFAP. It was decided to use the existing fora of SOMTI and the Asia Europe Business Forum(AEBF) to further develop TFAP.
© Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung I October 2000
Draft
statement
to
ASEM 3