Asia Times: SE Asian leaders demand new global order



	February 15, 2000	atimes.com

Southeast Asia

SE Asian leaders demand new global order
By Ranjit Dev Raj

BANGKOK - The clamor for a new global order to manage globalization and liberalization has been loudest from Southeast Asian leaders at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development which began here on Saturday.

Both bitter critics and ardent supporters of the two processes came together to blame the post-Cold War dispensation for the economic crisis experienced by countries in the region in recent years.

Speaking at the plenary session, Singapore Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong said the end of the Cold War had opened up vast potential for international cooperation unconstrained by ideological conflict. But ''these hopes have long been dashed'' he told the meeting that marked the opening of the tenth session of Unctad.

The meeting, which drew most heads of governments of Southeast Asian countries, aims to produce a program for Unctad to shape more equitable trade and development policies at a time when free trade and liberalization is suffering a backlash from countries and groups left out of its benefits.

According to Goh, the end of the Cold War may even have rendered international cooperation less likely because the political interests dictated by ideological conflict, which once shaped economic policies, have changed.

Goh observed that the United States, which without hesitation implemented the Marshall Plan and generously opened its market to support an open international trading system, succumbed, at Seattle in November 1999, to domestic protectionism. ''The expectation that the post-Cold War international system would be multi-polar has proved premature,'' Goh said, adding that globalization led from the West bore the ''strong imprint of the American political and economic power''.

Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said the existing international financial architecture dominated by the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund and World Bank had to be inadequate to deal effectively with developmental problems and crises. ''The Asian financial crisis has shown clearly shown the inability of the developed world and the international institutions to respond to crises and the effects of contagion,'' he said.

Mahathir demanded that developing countries be allowed to participate in global decision-making processes in order to manage the pace and direction of liberalization and globalization.

''Frankly speaking, I am worried and frightened at the preparations being made by corporations in certain industries and business activities in order to take advantage of liberalization and globalization,'' added Mahathir, who has blamed financial speculators for much of the financial shock that Asia suffered in 1997 and which reversed the region's decades-long economic boom.

The Malaysian premier said that while there was much talk about lack of transparency and accountability, the central issue remained reform of the international financial system to address the volatility of capital flows, through ''direct regulation of hedge funds and highly leveraged institutions''.

Chuan Leekpai, Prime Minister of Thailand, said that ''undeniably, the negative effects of the process - together with the international community's own weaknesses - had led to a severe and far-reaching crisis in the Asian region''. He added that Thailand, which had been at the epicenter of the Asian crisis, is ''attempting to put the lessons it has learned to good use''.

Phlippine President Joseph Estrada admitted to a need to minimize ''volatility induced by the untrammeled flight of speculative capital'' but said efforts should continue to ''strengthen financial systems and develop capital markets''. According to Estrada, the grip of the Asian crisis has loosened thanks to the generous response of international institutions and countries like Japan.

Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi, the only head of government from the Group of Seven club of industrialized countries who is attending the Unctad meeting, pledged benefits for developing countries through the multilateral trading system embodied in the World Trade Organization. Obuchi made a plea to extend debt relief to ''those countries that have been marginalized in the process of globalization'' but cautioned that debt relief was no panacea for the problems of developing countries.

(Inter Press Service)

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