Asem4people

Asem4people
(Asia Europe People's Forum IV)
Copenhagen, Denmark, 19-22 September 2002

• Introduction
• Declaration asem4people
• People's Security is Not for Sale, by Sven Hansen
• Disagreements on Iraq, Unity in Dealing with North-Korea, by Sven Hansen
• A Reflection on the Asem4people, by Rae Street
• Press Release 20 September 2002
• Press Release 16 September 2002
• TNI Publication: Asia Europe Crosspoints
• ASEM's Corporate Bias
• Conference Programme
• Background to the Conference Themes
• Calendar of Preparatory Activities
• Berlin, March 2002: Social Policy and the ASEM Process
• Bonn, March 2002: Open Dialogue on a Social Dimension of ASEM
• Berlin, March 2002: AEPF International Organising Committee Meeting

ASEM IV: Disagreements on Iraq, unity in dealing with North-Korea
by Sven Hansen
26 September 2002

International terrorism, Iraq, the Korean peninsula and the euro have dominated the fourth Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM). The summit took place on September 23 and 24 in Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark, which holds the rotating EU-presidency in the second half of 2002. The meeting of the 25 heads of state and government of 15 European and 10 East- and Southeast-Asian countries plus the President of the European Commission came up with an "ASEM Declaration on Cooperation against International Terrorism" including a "Cooperation Programme".

Cooperation against international terrorism

ASEM IV regards international terrorism as "one of the most serious threats to international peace and security and a challenge to all states and to all humanity". The ASEM-leaders pledged "to work together to combat this threat" and stressed, that the fight against terrorism "must be based on the principles of the UN Charter and basic norms of international law". International cooperation is regarded as important as the leading role of the United Nations. This is a signal to the United States of America to stick to a multilateral approach while the reference to basic norms of international law is an appeal to every country to keep to basic human rights standards.

According to the declaration the fight against terrorism requires a comprehensive approach, which not only comprises military and legal, but also political, economic and diplomatic means and has to take into account the root causes of terrorism (which are not named). ASEM stresses that terrorism is not related with any religion, race or nationality. The link between terrorism and transnational organised crime like money laundering, trafficking in human beings and arms and illicit drugs is described as "complex set of new security challenges".

ASEM agreed on establishing an informal ad hoc consultative mechanism among Coordinators and Senior Officials to "facilitate cooperation" in the common fight. In 2003 there will be an ASEM seminar on anti-terrorism being held in China. Its aim is to strengthen the "UN's leading role and ASEM cooperation on anti-terrorism". In addition there will be an ASEM symposium on combating underground banking in Germany in 2003.

Rightly, ASEM also stresses the need for building mutual understanding and for sustainable economic development to enhance a climate preventing the acceptance of terrorist acts. But strangely, the elitist Asia-Europe Foundation (ASEF) and a further trade liberalisation in accordance within the neoliberal WTO-framework are named as most important tools for this.

Disagreement on Iraq

While it had been relatively easy for the ASEM leaders to agree on a declaration against terrorism, they were divided on the issue of Iraq and its suspected production of weapons of mass destruction. With China, Great Britain and France three of the five permanent members of the UN security council are represented in ASEM, which has the charm of being the biggest meeting of political leaders of the industrialised and industrialising countries without the USA.

But the final Chairman's Statement merely stated that "the Iraq issue" had been discussed. The leaders held different views, being split even within the continents. The two most outspoken positions, represented by Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair, a staunch supporter of the US-war course towards Iraq, and Germany's chancellor Gerhard Schröder, who rejects any military intervention in Iraq even with an UN-mandate, were absent. Blair had to face parliament about his Iraq course and Schröder had to contest general elections. From the Asian side, only the Presidents of Indonesia and the Philippines, Megawati Sukarnoputri and Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, didn't come to Copenhagen.

According to the President of the EU-Commission, Romano Prodi, the disagreements on Iraq were more on methods than aims. This was underlined by the host, Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who said at a press conference that there had been a general agreement that Iraq had to comply with the UN-resolutions and had to allow free and unconditional access to the UN weapons inspectors. According to Rasmussen the leaders agreed that the UN Security Council and the UN Secretary General should play the leading role in resolving the Iraq issue. Obviously, ASEM rejected the US-threat of unilateral action but is not willing and united to confront Washington on this in strong terms. Instead, the Prime Ministers of Italy, Denmark and Spain seemed to support the political course of US-President George W. Bush.

Support for Korean's sunshine policy

The USA were directly mentioned in regard to dealing with North-Korea. The Asian and European leaders in their "ASEM Copenhagen Political Declaration for Peace on the Korean Peninsula" reconfirmed "the importance of engaging the DPRK [North Korea] in the international community through constructive dialogue". The Bush-administration had stopped the dialogue with Pyongyang right after taking office. In January this year Bush named North-Korea together with Iran and Iraq as "axis of evil". The ASEM declaration expressed hope that the dialogue between Washington and Pyongyang would improve, clearly showing the different approach of ASEM's engagement policy and Washington's course of containment.

At the first meeting of the summit, at an informal dinner before the official opening at the castle of Elsinore, South Korean President Kim Dae-jung reported about the recent start of construction for an Inter-Korean railway which be extended as far as Europe one day, why he dubbed it "Iron Silk Road". In addition, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi reported from his recent trip to Pyongyang, where the North-Korean leader for the first time admitted the abduction of Japanese citizens in the 70s and 80s by North-Korean agents. After this unresolved issue is now nearing a solution, a breakthrough in Japanese-North-Korean relations could be reached.

Euro of high interest for Asian members

The introduction of the single European currency, the euro, had been the dominating economic and financial issue. The Europeans were surprised about the strong interest of their Asian partners in the euro. The discussions on this issue were much more intensive and took much longer than anticipated. ASEM agreed in setting up a taskforce of five experts from each of the two regions who should among others look into the possibilities for a Eurobond market in Asia and the use of the euro as a currency for trade and foreign exchange reserves in Asia. As Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said according to Reuters in Copenhagen: "We are watching the performance of the euro... It is very important for us to have an alternative currency to the US dollar when we trade."

Leaders for the first time went into a retreat which they spent on a "Dialogue on Cultures and Civilizations". The final Chairman's Statement described cultural diversity as an asset. As the host Rasmussen said in front of the press: "We rejected any idea of a clash of civilizations." The leaders regarded the concept of ASEM, which is a dialogue on the basis of respect for equal dignity of all civilisations, as a constructive course in promoting unity in diversity. They stressed the need for further bi-regional exchanges, especially among young people, and decided to organise ASEM Youth Games in the future to raise mutual awareness and understanding.

Strong words - weak substance

As in the past, ASEM had been strong on words and quite weak on concrete substance. The overall setting of the meeting remained unchanged. ASEM remains an informal talking shop with unbinding statements and voluntary decisions. While this produces little concrete results, it provides channels for a relatively open dialogue in bi-, multilateral and interregional form, for mutual confidence building and in preventive diplomacy. Many officials regard this as an asset of ASEM and speak quite enthusiastic about it, while the press has hardly anything concrete to report about. Many times the reporters focus on national or bilateral issues as this more easily finds an interested public.

Among the political leaders and their officials ASEM now is a well established process for interregional exchange. ASEM doesn't seem to be in question any more. For the Europeans it is a training ground in developing a common foreign policy, while the Asians feel accepted as equal partners and develop a common identity beyond the more narrow ASEAN-framework. Both sides are quite happy of successfully engaging China. Indeed, sometimes it looks like as if China is one of the most enthusiastic ASEM members. Beijing sees Asem as an important symbol of its foreign policy mantra of a multipolar world and therefore a counterbalance to US-hegemony. But Beijing is realistic enough to not use ASEM as forum for anti-US tirades

During the talks in Copenhagen human rights issues do not seem to have been touched explicitly at all. When Chinese Prime Minister Zhu Rongji was faced with a critical question at the final press conference about the repression of Falung Gong he called this is an internal matter and insisted: "This is not an human rights issue".

The economic and financial topics were again mostly discussed in a neoliberal framework except for a more social-democratic workshop on "The Future of Employment and the Quality of Labour", which was submitted by Germany. The workshop aims at integrating the labour and social affairs ministers into the ASEM process and wants to include an exchange with trade unions and employers. The seminar aims at optimising "globalisation opportunities for the working population" and explore the possibilities in managing work migration.

While at the previous Seoul summit (ASEM III) there had been official contacts at the ministerial level with NGOs, who organised a parallel "People Forum" of civil society groups, the new conservative government of Denmark didn't follow up the promises made by its social-democratic predecessor and evaded most official contacts with NGOs. ASEM remains a top down approach with hardly any relevance for ordinary citizens and nearly no exchange on the grassroot level.

Sven Hansen is the Asia-Pacific desk editor of the German daily "die tageszeitung" in Berlin and wrote this article for the Asia-Europe Dialogue project of the Heirich Böll Foundation www.ased.org