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APEC Summit: Making Russia's presence felt

Barrister Harun ur Rashid
Russia, which hosts its first annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit on September 8-9 in Vladivostok, is
seeking to assert its presence in the fastgrowing region of Asia-Pacific during troubled European economic times. To host the event, Russia has reportedly invested about $20 billion in building two bridges spanning the Vladivostok port, an airport terminal and a new airport rail link.
To be a member of APEC a country must be in Asia and share borders with the Pacific directly or indirectly through sea, such as Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore via Malacca Straits and Thailand through the Gulf of Thailand. As of now, APEC has 21 members.
APEC countries represent 55% of world's GDP and 40% of world's population. Five of the world's six biggest standing armies and four of the world's eight declared nuclear powers cluster around the table. Furthermore, around the APEC table are also six of the world's ten biggest carbon-emitting countries.
APEC Forum was an initiative of Australia's Labour Prime Minister Bob Hawke in 1989, in which 12 countries participated. His successor Paul Keating elevated it to summit level in agreement with President Clinton, and the first summit was held in 1993. It meets every year.
APEC was founded on economic cooperation and not on the basis of
nation-state, which is why Taiwan and Hong Kong are members. There is a moratorium on new members but some countries including Australia want to get India as a member. Some countries oppose India's entry because India cannot claim to be a Pacific country given its geography.
APEC provides an opportunity for Asia Pacific leaders to meet with each other beyond bilateral visits. This year, because of US presidential election in November, President Obama is not scheduled to attend.
Its main agenda is trade and economic cooperation and includes secu-
nomic interests," said Gennady Ovechko, Russia's envoy to APEC.
Key members of APEC include China, with whom Russia has built close relations, and Japan with whom Russia is embroiled in a territorial dispute (Kuril Islands). But the Kremlin is hoping for major economic gains by playing a bigger regional role.
Other issues may dominate the deliberations of the Summit. The first is how to handle China's assertiveness in the region, which has been a major concern to many of its neighbours. Currently, the US, Japan and Australia have a security alliance.
rity, climate change and energy. Since 9/11, counter-terrorism also has become an important agenda item. Business leaders of the member countries discussed major global and regional issues and recommended plans for action to the political leaders on September 2.
Russia is looking to diversify its exports of natural resources at a time when the expanding Asian economies are hungry for oil and gas imports. "Russia's share in total regional (Asia-Pacific) trade is around one percent. Clearly this neither corresponds to Russia's political profile nor its eco-
The second issue is how to turn China's entry into the strategic environment of Asia Pacific into a positive factor. Some commentators state that the US should have a regional security policy through which China may contribute to security and stability in the Asia Pacific region.
In her meetings in Beijing on September 4 with senior Chinese officials, including President Hu Jintao, although the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reportedly raised issues of competing territorial claims in the South China Sea, analysts suggest that the over-arching reason for Clinton's
Beijing visit is to calm down the concerns of China because of robust strategic presence of the US. During her Pacific Islands trip, Hillary Clinton is quoted to have said that the South Pacific was big enough for both the United States and China.
Analysts say both countries could play a role in contributing to stability and prosperity -- rather than conflict --in the resource and trade-rich Asia Pacific region. Some strategists suggest that a new forum consisting of the US and representatives from countries of East Asia and North Asia could be set up for addressing the central issues affecting regional security and economic cooperation
Furthermore, APEC is an economic forum where India is missing. That is why two other forums in the region have cropped up. One is the Asean +3 (Japan, China and South Korea) group and the other is East Asia Summit with Asean + 6 (Japan, China, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, and India). In 2010, the East Asia Summit invited the US and Russia to join the group.
Russian territory extends from Baltic Sea to the Pacific Ocean, and Russia claims to be both a European and an Asia-Pacific power. "Holding the summit in Vladivostok is a symbolic choice," said Dmitry Trenin of the Carnegie Moscow Centre. "It's a sign not just of a desire to increase the quality of life on Russia's eastern borders but also a desire to consider its eastern territory as an interface between Asia, the Pacific and Russia."
The writer is a former Bangladesh Ambassador to the
UN, Geneva.
***"Holding the summit in Vladivostok is a symbolic choice," said Dmitry Trenin of the Carnegie Moscow Centre. "It's a sign not just of a desire to increase the quality of life on Russia's eastern borders but also a desire to consider its eastern territory as an interface between Asia, the Pacific and Russia."***