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APEC summit : Terrorism hijacks discussions |
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When the 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation [APEC] organisation was founded 123 year ago, it was decided that the forum would never discuss politics or anything other than ways and means to promote economic growth. But, the two-day Shanghai gathering in China that ended on Oct. 21 deviated from the chosen path, of course, under the extraordinary circumstances following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the USA. The world leaders, including President Bush and Chinese President Jiang Zemin, who gathered under the extremely tight security discussed, besides trade-related issues, the non-economic problem “terrorism” but “in general political terms”.
APEC sources say this was unavoidable as terrorism lead to economic instability which must be prevented by ever international grouping. Moreover, the USA was specifically interested in winning from this significant gathering, dominated by Asian nations, unrestricted support for the military action in Afghanistan. President George W. Bush, who left the shores of his country for the first time after terrorists struck at New York’s World Trade Centre and the Pentagon in Washington, lobbied backing for his Operation Enduring Freedom, but could not succeed beyond what the Shanghai declaration said, “Leaders commit to prevent and suppress all forms of terrorist acts”, besides giving a “call for increased cooperation to bring perpetrators to justice”. There was no mention of the US-led military campaign in Afghanistan and President Bush won conditional approval for his war on terrorism from Asian leaders.
In fact, host China joined the two predominantly Muslim APEC members - Malaysia and Indonesia - to express qualms about what was going on in that landlocked country ruled by the condemned Taliban militia. The Malaysian and Indonesian stand was that any measure taken to stamp out terrorism should not go against the civilian population. Indonesian President Medgawati Skarnoputri wants the bombing on Afghanistan to end soon as it may lead to socio-economic destabilization in her country. But, more embarrassing was the statement issued by China and certain other APEC members that there should be “no double standards” in tackling the internationals scourge. China has its own terrorism problem in Xinjiang province where the Uighur minority [Muslims] are up in arms demanding separation from the mainland. The Chinese action to suppress the separatist demand there is described as human rights violations by the United States. The Chinese Vice Foreign Minister, Mr. Wang Guangya said in Shanghai that there should not be any double standards, adding that such a view is shared by many of the countries participating in the PAEC deliberations.
No less important to the global anti-terror ambience were the bilateral meetings that President Bush held with his Chinese and Russian counterparts in Shanghai on the sidelines of the APEC summit. President Jiang Zemin advocated a role for the UN in this “campaign” while Mr. Putin downplayed Mr. Bush’s apprehensions that the international terrorists might manage to lay their hands on intercontinental ballistic missiles and activate them. Yet, among all the APEC leaders, it was Mr. Putin who came closest to Mr. Bush in articulating the terrorist threats. With Mr. Bush advocating a missile defence system by showing the terrorist challenge as a new strategic compulsion, Mr. Putin agreed to look at futurist ways of defending global stability only after evaluating the long-term viability of the existing framework. A serious Russian-American strategic dialogue seems to be beginning in this new context.
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