ALBRIGHT 7/28 REMARKS AT ASEAN NINE

[moe@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Subject: ALBRIGHT 7/28 REMARKS AT ASEAN NINE-PLUS-TEN SESSION 


28 July 1997 

TEXT: ALBRIGHT 7/28 REMARKS AT ASEAN NINE-PLUS-TEN
SESSION 

(ASEAN must provide leadership while maintaining cohesion)  (4000)

Kuala Lumpur -- The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)
faces a dual challenge: to provide positive and dynamic leadership on
regional issues while managing its own expansion in a way that
preserves its cohesion, according to Secretary of State Madeleine
Albright.

The United States shares ASEAN's goal of an integrated southeast Asia
with 10 full members, Albright said in July 28 remarks at the
Nine-Plus-Ten session of the ASEAN Post-Ministerial Conference.

"We believe that the growth of institutions and arrangements that link
less developed nations to their more developed neighbors is one of the
most hopeful trends of our time. This is what the United States and
our European partners are doing by welcoming strong new democracies
into NATO and the EU, and what we are doing in our hemisphere by
building a Free Trade Area of the Americas," she said.

"But in a world that is still marked by tremendous disparities,
integration also carries challenges," Albright warned. "In this
region, it includes nations seared by political crisis, held back by
poverty, and burdened by problems such as drug trafficking, refugee
migration, epidemic disease, and pollution. These are problems that
could come home to all our nations if we do not address them together
and now.

"In this region, as in every other, integration is not an end in
itself and it requires far more than bringing new nations into old
organizations. The point of international cooperation is to raise
standards. We must be bullish on our ability to improve on the past
and not slow our push to open our economies and to build new
partnerships. But we must also address the concerns our citizens have
-- creating good jobs, preventing crime, protecting the environment
and promoting human rights and human dignity," she said.

Following is the text of Albright's remarks:

(begin text)

SECRETARY OF STATE MADELEINE K. ALBRIGHT
STATEMENT AT THE ASEAN POST MINISTERIAL CONFERENCE
NINE-PLUS-TEN SESSION, SUNWAY LAGOON HOTEL
KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA, JULY 28, 1997
AS RELEASED BY THE OFFICE OF THE SPOKESMAN
IN KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE

I am very pleased to represent the United States at this year's ASEAN
post-Ministerial Conference. I welcome this opportunity to discuss
economic and global issues with a group that includes not only the
members of ASEAN, but our most important partners from Europe, North
America, East Asia and South Asia. For the challenges we face can only
be met together.

The United States is determined to deepen its cooperation with our
partners in this region and beyond. This commitment is solid because
it is solidly based on American interests.

We have an abiding security interest in a region where we have fought
three wars in the last half-century, and where almost any significant
outbreak of international violence would threaten our well-being and
that of our friends.

We have an abiding economic interest in a region that is experiencing
phenomenal growth.

We have an abiding strategic interest in a region whose cooperation we
need in responding to threats of proliferation, terrorism, narcotics,
and damage to the environment.

And we have an abiding political interest in supporting democracy and
respect for human rights and the rule of law, because stability and
prosperity ultimately depend on it.

The list of issues on our agenda today reflects the breadth of the
interests we share with the nations and peoples of this region. It
also reminds us just how far ASEAN has come since the days when it was
primarily a forum for economic cooperation.

In this 30th anniversary year of ASEAN's birth, we have much to
celebrate. When ASEAN was created, virtually every nation in this
region was engulfed or threatened by violence. For many nations, the
question of the hour was "How can we survive?" not "How can we
thrive?"

ASEAN helped to change all that. It established the patterns of
consultation that have transformed this region. It helped to fuel a
quarter century of economic growth that has exceeded the wildest
expectations of its founders.

ASEAN includes nations of vastly different size and strength, yet it
has forged a model of cooperation among equals. It stands at the
confluence of many cultures and religions, yet it offers a troubled
world a model of harmony and stability.

Today, the nations of this region are taking ASEAN to a new level. In
doing so, they confront two fundamental challenges that are shared by
virtually every similar grouping.

The first is the challenge of looking outward to a world that welcomes
and increasingly needs positive and dynamic leadership from this
region on the great questions of our time.

ASEAN already has an impressive record to build upon, including its
role in the Paris Peace Accords, in moderating tensions in South China
Sea, in the formation of APEC and the ARF, and in the effort to
liberalize global trade. From Indonesia's support for population
programs in Asia to Malaysia's contributions to the cause of peace in
Bosnia, ASEAN's member nations are doing their part as well.

The primary aim of America's engagement with ASEAN is to encourage
this development. We view ASEAN as an important contributor not only
to regional security and prosperity, but to the global effort to bring
nations closer together around basic principles of political freedom,
open markets, law and shared commitment to peace.

The second challenge ASEAN faces is that of looking within, to manage
its expansion in a way that preserves its cohesion.

The United States shares the goal of an integrated southeast Asia and
ultimately of ASEAN at 10. In fact, we believe that the growth of
institutions and arrangements that link less developed nations to
their more developed neighbors is one of the most hopeful trends of
our time. This is what the United States and our European partners are
doing by welcoming strong new democracies into NATO and the EU, and
what we are doing in our hemisphere by building a Free Trade Area of
the Americas.

But in a world that is still marked by tremendous disparities,
integration also carries challenges. In this region, it includes
nations seared by political crisis, held back by poverty, and burdened
by problems such as drug trafficking, refugee migration, epidemic
disease, and pollution. These are problems that could come home to all
our nations if we do not address them together and now.

In this region, as in every other, integration is not an end in itself
and it requires far more than bringing new nations into old
organizations. The point of international cooperation is to raise
standards. We must be bullish on our ability to improve on the past
and not slow our push to open our economies and to build new
partnerships. But we must also address the concerns our citizens have
-- creating good jobs, preventing crime, protecting the environment
and promoting human rights and human dignity.

Looking Outward and Forward to an Open Global Economy

It is not necessary to remind this audience how close the economic
links between the United States and ASEAN are. American investment in
this region now exceeds $35 billion, and it grew by over 200 percent
between 1990 and 1996. Collectively, ASEAN is the United States'
fourth largest trading partner, and our exports to ASEAN support
700,000 U.S. jobs. On my way to Kuala Lumpur, I stopped in California
-- America's biggest exporting state. A full 25 percent of the
products leaving California are destined for Southeast Asian ports.

Our host Malaysia is by itself the world's 12th largest exporter.
Today, Malaysia looks to the future with innovative plans for a
Multimedia Super Corridor that can vault it into the vanguard of the
information age.

The United States has been watching developments in Southeast Asian
financial markets very closely. Our Treasury Department is in close
contact with the IMF.

It is important that we distinguish among the countries in the region,
as fundamentals differ significantly. Appropriate market oriented
responses by a number of countries have also helped to dampen currency
volatility. This response reinforces the ASEAN consensus that sound
economic policies and open markets are the best path to long-term
development. The initiatives we are discussing here, including the
effort to liberalize trade in financial services, have a critical part
to play in ensuring continued growth and prosperity in the region.

We are reminded again that none of us can rest on our laurels. We
cannot assume that success in the future will flow easily and
naturally from our success in the past.

The world will look to ASEAN to continue making the right choices,
together with its many partners. For the members of ASEAN have become
a powerful force in steering the global economy. They will have a
crucial role in determining whether future generations will witness
the translation of regional initiatives into global benefits, or the
slide of regional exclusivity into universal stagnation.

On their own and through APEC, ASEAN countries made crucial
contributions over the last year to World Trade Organization
negotiations to liberalize trade in information technology and
telecommunications. They helped to shape a critical mass of
newly-industrialized economies willing to make bold liberalizing
offers. By doing so, ASEAN members showed they are ready and able to
assume greater responsibility for the open trading system that has
enabled them to prosper and grow.

This year, the ASEAN countries have the chance to play the same
positive role in WTO negotiations to liberalize financial services. No
country can have a world class, high-tech economy without a
world-class, properly regulated financial services sector to allocate
capital efficiently. Significantly improved offers from all ASEAN
states will help generate the momentum needed to reach a global
agreement by the December 12 deadline. ASEAN input is also vital to
the alliances we must build with business to promote meaningful
service sector reform.

ASEAN countries are also a dynamic force within APEC. An ASEAN state
has hosted APEC's leaders meetings every other year and achieved
impressive results -- under Indonesia's direction, the historic
agreement to achieve free trade and investment in the region by
2010/2020; during the Philippines' tenure, the adoption of 18 action
plans for reaching that goal. Next year, Malaysia will lead APEC at a
pivotal point in our drive for liberalization across the Pacific
Basin.

Our immediate challenge is to sustain APEC's momentum in Vancouver
this November. We should advance four goals: gaining the support of
all APEC members for a global financial services agreement; improving
our Individual Action Plans for meaningful progress toward open trade;
making voluntary offers to liberalize quickly in key sectors; and
finally, pushing for concrete, focused outcomes that offer immediate
benefits to our businesses and workers.

ASEAN's own path-breaking plans to cut tariffs among its members
through the development of an ASEAN Free Trade Area are important as
well. The United States applauds them and looks forward to further
progress toward opening the fast-growing trade in services. ASEAN
countries have also been leaders in APEC's effort to liberalize trade
in telecommunications equipment -- and can do more. ASEAN's plans to
harmonize customs procedures, to accelerate the implementation of
GATT's methods of valuing trade, and to work toward lowering
non-tariff barriers will also stimulate trade and create jobs in this
region and beyond.

ASEAN countries have played an important role over the past year in
advancing the protection of intellectual property rights. The
Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam have strengthened their
IPR legislation and enforcement or beefed up international cooperation
to combat IPR violation. We now face the challenge of ensuring these
new provisions are carried out fully.

Civil Aviation is another arena that will benefit from liberalization.
We have seen Open Skies agreements as much as double travel between
nations. In the past four months, the United States has concluded Open
Skies agreements with Singapore, New Zealand, Brunei and Malaysia. I
hope these pioneering efforts will prepare the way for a broader Open
Skies regime in Asia and around the world.

Of course, it takes more than trade agreements to build a stable and
open global economy. All the nations represented here have seen that
transparent and strong legal systems are critical to sustain the
confidence of investors, producers and workers.

The consensus for open markets is fragile. To strengthen it, we must
do more to lift the stifling hand of corruption from our economies.
Last year, Secretary Christopher urged that the fight against illicit
payments be a priority for the nations of ASEAN and the world. Since
then, the United States has worked through the UN, the OECD and the
WTO to combat and criminalize corruption. Let us continue to work
together bilaterally and through APEC to raise standards and encourage
transparency.

Among our people, the consensus for free trade also rests on an
expectation that core labor standards will be met. It is in our
interest to see workers everywhere enjoy the benefits of those rights,
such as freedom of association and freedom from child and forced
labor, that we have all accepted. More and more corporations, too, are
finding that codes of conduct make for good business and good
citizenship. I hope ASEAN governments will accelerate this trend by
encouraging their companies to sign the Model Business Principles that
the United States introduced last year at the International Labor
Organization.

Meeting Transnational Threats

I am very pleased that ASEAN has added a discussion of transnational
issues to its agenda. Problems such as drug trafficking and
deforestation threaten us all as much as protectionism and recession
do. They represent a particular challenge in Southeast Asia, where
integration among nations has proceeded even faster than change within
nations.

Nothing has done more to harm the health of our people and their faith
in government and law than the epidemic of drug addiction. The
American people have suffered tremendously from this plague. I know
that the people of Southeast Asia have as well. I know that the spread
of cheap heroin and the recent influx of methamphetamines have spared
no nation in ASEAN. We have to attack this problem at all levels --
production, transportation and consumption.

The primary source of these drugs is Burma, which is itself
experiencing an alarming rise in drug abuse and AIDS infection.
Narcotics production has grown in Burma year after year, defying every
international effort to solve the problem. As a result, drug
traffickers who once spent their days leading mule trains down jungle
tracks are now leading lights in Burma's new market economy and
leading figures in its new political order.

We are increasingly concerned that Burma's drug traffickers, with
official encouragement, are laundering their profits through Burmese
banks and companies -- some of which are joint ventures with foreign
businesses. Drug money has become so pervasive in Burma that it taints
legitimate investment and threatens the region as a whole. This is a
challenge we must face together -- and another reminder that it will
be hard to do normal business in Burma until a climate of law is
restored to that country.

Indeed, it is hard to imagine a lasting solution to this region's
narcotics problem without a lasting solution to Burma's political
crisis. This is one reason why President Clinton has barred future
U.S. investment in the country.

Other nations in this region are showing what can be done when
governments and citizens work together to fight the drug trade.
Thailand's program of crop eradication and interdiction has
dramatically cut heroin production and increased the number of
traffickers brought to justice at home and abroad.

And in Laos, a U.S.-supported alternative crop project in one province
has reduced opium cultivation to non-commercial levels. We plan to
sponsor more such programs in Laos and elsewhere. We urge others to
contribute by strengthening legal frameworks, criminalizing money
laundering and sponsoring efforts to deny traffickers freedom of
operation.

With economies whose growth often outpaces government efforts at
regulation, ASEAN nations are vulnerable to criminals looking for a
place to operate, or a place to hide. Because international criminals
respect no law or border, it is in every nation's interest to fight
them together.

We must also strike hard together against terrorism. We are making
progress: The number of attacks worldwide in 1996 hit a 25 year low.
But far too many lives are still being lost. And terrorism still
fosters destruction and division that undermine what we seek to
achieve through our diplomatic and economic cooperation. I trust the
members of ASEAN will continue to stand with us in this fight, by
ratifying the 11 existing anti-terrorism agreements and turning the
full weight of their authority against all terrorist activity.

Environmental threats such as deforestation, coral reef degradation,
and global climate change could also undermine ASEAN's future. They
could even alter the contours of our maps in the none-too-distant
future.

The difference between action and inaction may be the difference
between sustainable agriculture and failing agriculture; between
stable societies and societies in conflict over dwindling resources;
between nations in which the quality of life is improving and nations
in which fewer and fewer people can look to the future with hope.

The United States is committed to making environmental cooperation a
central part of our cooperation with ASEAN states. That is why we have
opened a regional environmental hub in our embassy in Bangkok, and why
we are working on projects from controlling emissions in the
Philippines to building wind generators in Indonesia.

As you know, we are staunch proponents of the UN-sponsored
negotiations to slow the process of global climate change.

There is no question that the world's wealthiest economies have
contributed the lion's share of the greenhouse gases that threaten us
right now. We have a moral and political responsibility to act -- and
act fast. That is why last month, in his speech to the UN General
Assembly Special Session, President Clinton undertook to "bring to the
Kyoto conference a strong American commitment to realistic and binding
limits that will significantly reduce our emissions."

That is why we are also leading the way in negotiations to apply
innovative strategies to cut greenhouse gas levels, such as selling or
trading emission rights, supporting new technologies, and rewarding
countries that provide assistance to others.

But the same science that tells us that today the United States is
responsible for 22 percent of the world's carbon emissions also tells
us that in the next 30 years developing world emissions will surpass
those of the developed world. The rapidly industrializing countries of
Asia, with their increasing need for electrical power, will be major
contributors.

We are all wiser than we were a generation or two ago. If we each take
our turn to pollute the world, we will each pay a terrible price. Just
as you cannot erase a budget deficit by cutting spending in one area
and piling up loans somewhere else, we will not be able to sustain
safe levels of greenhouse gases without action by developed and
developing countries alike.

For the balance of this century, no decision we take will gave a
greater impact on the future of the global economy, not to mention the
global environment, than the one we will take in Kyoto. We have to do
it right. We have to do it cooperatively. We all have to do it.

And here ASEAN has another shining opportunity for leadership, because
you have the know how, the proven skills at innovation and adaptation,
that will help us find the technologies we all need for greener
development. I urge you to take up the challenge and to work with the
United States and others to craft a global consensus that will
safeguard the nature preserves of Borneo, the islands of the Mergui
Archipelago, and the livelihoods of our children and grandchildren.

I congratulate ASEAN for all it has achieved in strengthening regional
cooperation in these areas, and in reaching out to others beyond this
region who share the same interests and the same fundamental goals. I
pledge to you my best efforts, and those of the United States, to
ensure we keep moving forward together.

(end text)