Draft 8
13 February 2001
The Coming Pan-Asian Regional Bloc: APEC & ASEAN
|
Japan's New
Greater East-Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere
in the 21st Century
Non-industrial members of APEC 2020
Agreed At Bogor, Indonesia
1996
http://www.arts.monash.edu.au/ausapec/future.htm
DRAFT 8
| "We have got to get
Japan back into, I am afraid, the old Co-Prosperity Sphere." (Philip Taylor to George Kennan, 1949 regarding US policy towards Japan post-war economic recovery) in
REVERSALS OF FORTUNE THE UNITED STATES, JAPAN, AND CHINA, 1948-51 AND 1969-73 Michael Schaller, University of Arizona
SCAP 1 in Japan and the aborted abolition of the Zaibatsu, courtesy of William H Draper (also vice-president of Dillon Read) as Underscretary of the US Army who also failed to de-nazify the German economy after WWII http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~asiactr/TR_Schaller.htm
War Without MercyWAR WITHOUT MERCY: RACE AND POWER IN THE PACIFIC WAR by John W. Dower. New York: Pantheon Books, 1986, Reviewed by Jack WikoffWar Without Mercy by John Dower on the Japanese plans for the colonisation of Asia, Australia and New Zealand with Australia to have 2.5 million Japanese colony , read it. in Global Policy with the Yamato Race as the Nucleus" In 1981 the discovery of a volume of war-time documents in a used-book store in Tokyo 1ed to the unearthing of the full six-volume, 3,127-page report, completed July 1, 1943, entitled Investigation of Global Policy with the Yamato [Japanese] Race Nucleus, in the archives of the Japanese Ministry of Health and Welfare. This unusual and valuable document is the subject of one excellent chapter. Dower elucidates the Japanese equivalent of "blood and soil" and hierarchic patterns of thinking, but only lightly touches on the similarities between National Socialist and Japanese racial, economic, and political theories. One of the few failings of War Without Mercy concerns the author's occasional superficial remarks about Japan's National Socialist ally. A very important insight into the APEC and ASEAN's WWII pan-asianist rhetoric for unity of Asia and Oceania. See the book review http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v07/v07p483_Wikoff.html .
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Historical Precedents
Empires have existed throughout Human History, stronger nations have absorbed weaker ones. In the 20th Century people witnessed the latest struggle for a global empire, and the dissolution of the last vestiges of the old colonial empires in Europe.
In the closing days of the 20th Century, we have witnessed the formation of three rather discreet blocs or regions, these are East Asia, dominated by Japan, The Americas dominated by USA and Europe dominated Germany.
Russia's Failed Empire?
This is not to dismiss the potential of a resurgent Russia, which had its heyday during the Cold War but spent itself by the fractioning of the Communist Bloc of China and Russia. Russia as the Soviet Union took a similar expansionist policy and fomented number of National Liberation Fronts as a ideological strategy to absorb, annex and or allied itself with the Super Power. Thanks to American foreign policy Russian (Soviet Union ) expansionism was paralysed and saw its demise in 1989. The Soviet Union had similar imperialist goals as one of its former KGB bureaucrat Anatoly Golitsin admits in "New Lies For Old"; Russia sought a World Socialist State and anticipated quite accurately the strategy of disinformation and the later liberalisation and break up of the Soviet Union and subsequent election of a liberal leader in the Soviet Union, he said this a mere ploy to modernise Russia, the origin of this stratagem lies in the translations Sun Tsu' s Art of War, a contribution of Mao Tze Tung's victory in China.
Japan's Empire
On the eve of WWII, Japanese ideologues , like their European and American counterparts, working at the behest of the military and the Zaibatsu trading companies like Mitsubishi and Mitsui Bank decided to rationalise their goals for political union of nations within their respective spheres of influence ( where their investments where located ) in Asia under the guise of a 'righteous' doctrine : The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, which they argued would help the nations of Asia defend themselves from the Western Imperialism such American, French, Dutch and the British. However, they also said that the best qualified nation to implement this task was Japan. Japan would take the mantle of protecting its Asian neighbours from Western exploitation. But reality soon caught up with the high faluting rhetoric, a coup d'etat ensued and the Japanese Diet was shut down by the military.
Germany's Empire
Germany followed suit with the formation of the German Nation-State, the elite in Germany were at pains to invent an ideology that would glue and provide the rationale for German expansionism, the solution came as Pan-Germanism, "unite all Germans, wherever German is spoken" shouted the nationalists. Eventually, these expansionists ideologies came into conflict with each other as the proceeded to encroach into one another's spheres of influence. In Germany after the fall of the Monarchy at WW1's end, an advocate of an idiosyncratic strain of Pan-Germanism (Nazism) Adolf Hitler was injured during a tear gas attack, this would change history...
America's Empire
The Monroe Doctine
Not long after the national independence of the thirteen colonies in America in 1776, United States grew rapidly, The Monroe Doctrine grew out of the increasing levels of investments outside United States; paraphrasing United States will not tolerate European colonialism in the New World. But in fact United States began to act as an imperial power within its immediate sphere of influence in the Americas.
In the 1900's
United States is pursuing a similar policy under the guise of Pan-Americanism, a prototypical exercise in institution building has been the Organization of American States (OAS). Currently, they are busying with the melding of Mercosur countries with NAFTA.
The 'Trade Bloc Trojan Horse' is not only relegated to these three nations but also is being pursued by a regional US ally for example Turkey and MENA and Russia.
Corporate States
America's Case
Japan's Case
Germany's Case
Commonalities
Militarism
Industrialism
Authoritarianism
Corporatisatism
Competition for Spheres of Influence
The Breakthrough: Ideological Innovation
Imperialism Comes of Age
The Anglo-American Establishment was faced with a number of questions by the early 20th Century, among one and most important how to keep an empire and maintain moral legitimacy, when faced with the rising of tide of Nationalism in Western Europe and insurgency in the colonies.
This is not say, that Imperialism was reinvented consistently throughout the Core Nations but was the phenomenon of the Anglo-Saxon Elites.
The Influence of the Rhodes Scholarships
Cecil Rhodes ( -) founder of the Rhodes Scholarships has had great influence in shaping the co-optation, indoctrination of elites, perpeutating its institutional ideology and defusing challenge to its legitimacy. This is achieved by way becoming a career ladder and source of prestige for rising intellectual, social networking ('old boy network') and political elites. Its scholars are well-known in the Anglo-Saxon nations as candidates for elites positions in government, industry and academia.
The League of Nations
John D Rockefeller and the Anglo-American Esblishement.
The United Nations
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Universal after all?
International Law
Nation State Membership:Covenant of the United Nations
The Socialist International, Alger Hiss, Yale University and the Rockefeller Dynasty.
Peace-Keeping Forces: A Fledging Gobal Army
Special Rights for Minorities
International Criminal Court
A New Form of Fascism: Non-Governmental Organisations
Global Corporate State: Private-Public Partnerships
The Role of UNIDO
The Role of Tax-Exempt Foundations
The Role of Think-Tanks
The Role of Corporatist Business Organisations
The Role of International Institutions
GATT
WTO
IMF
World Bank
The Failed Multilateral Agreement on Investement (MAI)
The Multilateral Investment Guaranteed AgencyMIGA
Accident or Plan?
Club of Rome's Crises Mongering
OPEC and the Oil Shocks
Chronology
1914 WWI breaks out ....
1918 The signing of the armistice ends WWI, "the Great War", Woodrow Wilson Peace Plan and the Treaty of Versailles
1919 The League of Nations pursuant to the Paris Peace Conference, fails to get the support from the US Senate, deemed unconstitutional .
US Financial aid sent to Germany and Russia to build stability in the European Continent
under the doctrine "Balance of Power" during the period known as the New
Economic Policy (NEP) implemented by Lenin in Russia, an offset against German Militarism
in the East.
1929 -the Great Depression
1933-39 Appeasement of Nazi Germany and build-up of its military capacity thanks to the policy of Balance of Power doctrine by the Council on Foreign Relations and especially by The Royal Institute of International Affairs, so they argued to offset a strong militarist France and a Bolshevik Russia. High collaboration of Standard Oil, Osram and Ford in building up the German War Economy. I.G. Farben heavily involved in the conversion of coal into oil and achieving German oil self-sufficiency. Henry Ford receives medal from the Nazis for his funding of the Nazi election campaign in 1933, also noted appreciation appears in Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf.
1939 WWII breaks out...
1944 Bretton Woods Agreement creates post-war global financial institutions
After 1945, The Aftermath : US Global Dominance and the Council on Foreign Relations
In 1941, the CFR convened a number of War and Peace Study Groups to investigate ways and means to organise the world after WWII with a number of scenarios; one of these reports tabled to the CFR said as follows in Recommendation P-B23 (July, 1941) without incurring the same obstacles of traditional nation-based Imperialism to create a a mark 2 League of Nations and a body of growing international law and treaties which deposit the jurisdiction of national parliaments in foreign unelected global institutions:
Recommendation P-B23 (July, 1941) ...stated that worldwide financial institutions (*International Monetary fund, Bretton Woods Agreement, World Bank,World Trade Organisation and the OECD and the United Nations) were necessary for the purpose of "stabilizing currencies and facilitating programs of capital investment for constructive undertakings in backward and underdeveloped regions." During the last half of 1941 and in the first months of 1942, the Council developed this idea for the integration of the world.... Isaiah Bowman first suggested a way to solve the problem of maintaining effective control over weaker territories while avoiding overt imperial conquest. At a Council meeting in May 1942, he stated that the United States had to exercise the strength needed to assure "security," and at the same time "avoid conventional forms of imperialism." The way to do this, he argued, was to make the exercise of that power international in character through a United Nations body. * Italics my own. See the complete recommendation in appendix 5 |
Harry Truman and the Containment of International Communism (Truman Doctrine)
Corporate State in Germany remained:
The structure economic and political structure of Germany kept, needed to combat European Communism, a weak Germany without heavy industries could not brake the Soviet advance westwards.
Corporate State in Japan remained: Douglas McArthur after completing the new constitution for Japan, stopped by Washington on his dismantling of the Japanese Corporate State, mobilisation needed to fight in Korea.
Reasons for not dismantling the Corporate States:
strong industrialist, militant anti-communist in socio-economic structure but also illiberal and authoritarian brand of capitalism, US Foreign Policy is to create a united anti-bolshevik bloc.
Strong activity of Soviet Union in Eastern Europe,.
Eastern European States begin to fall to the Soviets..
The Marshall Plan for Europe, US foreign aid helps rebuild Europe and prevent Soviet take over of Western Europe.
1949 Fall of China to Mao Tze-Tung
1950's
The upsurge of the defeated powers
1960 OPEC founded
CFR's Free -World Burden
Vietnam proves America's wrong
1970 Oil Crises, OPEC, Neo-Liberalism and the death of Keynesianism.
1973
Sharing the Global Empire between the Three
As we know, Japan and Germany lost WWII, but in 1973 with formation of the Trilateral Commission, America was pressured by a declining political and economic dominance of global affairs to collaborate with its WWII foes as mentioned before Japan and Germany.
One of the instrumental factors was the question of Soviet Expansionism, which was tying a noose around Germany and in the East with China encircling Japan.
America managed to convince the traditionally nation-oriented elites that without their collaboration they'd be under the mercy of the International Communism. There would have to be an international compromise.
This balance of power, forced the national elites to waver their claims against each other and form a coalition of three Trilateral countries (Japan, USA and Germany).
What then?.... Japan would again resume its sphere of influence doctrine "the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere " but with a more international approach; it would use diplomacy to build two regional 'free trade blocs'. These blocs would enclose South East Asian countries within its new found sphere of influence, as way to cement politically the economic sphere, without the drawbacks of bringing the bitter WWII memories of foreign occupation . How did they do it? -they used proxies- They convinced the leaders of a despotic regime Suharto to initiate a series of regular regional summits with other SE Asian leaders to foment 'free trade' and implement policies of regional integration.
1968 ASEAN was formed, as the instigation of General Suharto of Indonesia.
While in Europe, a similar event was occurring, Pan-German imperialism had been remarketed as the 'highly cultured and cosmopolitan' Pan-Europeanism, of which the European Movement was a key agent of indoctrination. The European Movement received ongoing funding from the CIA, during the early days of the Cold War and the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe.
1973 Bretton Woods Agreement Collapses, US Dollar not longer convertible into Gold.
1980 Monetarism, Milton Friedman, the Chicago School, and the Economic Rationalists.
1989 APEC Formed
1990 Free Trade and 'Free Trade Blocs', NAFTA and EU consolidated.
Next in the agenda of regional integration, was Australia in the late '80s, former Senator John Button (As It Happened) and later Gareth Evans (Australia's Foreign Relations) had a number of meetings with the Japanese heads of industry (MITI) who suggested that a 'free trade bloc' be formed. They did listen and in 1989 APEC came into being. Eventually, and predictably the heads of government and especially ours, Paul Keating and the pan-asianists think-tanks (ie: The Sydney Institute and especially the Asia Australia Institute, the Asia Society) funded by 'political-driven' corporations began agitating for a merger of national economies regard the euphemism , they are calling for the admission of Australia into ASEAN and soon to follow a merger of ASEAN and APEC, as suggested by the pan-asianist Centre for International Economics. Currently, ASEAN enlarged to include Burma (Myamar) and Vietnam.
1996 Bogor Declaration
Bogor Declaration made by APEC Leaders Australia's most Prominent Pan-asianist Think-tank the Asia Australia Institute has as one of its members Minister for Foreign Affairs Alexander Downer as 3-5 December 2000; he agreed to reopen the dialogue with Indonesia...http://www.arts.monash.edu.au/ausapec/future.htm
Even As We Speak....
APEC November 2000 Summit
At the time of writing, Singapore's former
Prime Minister Kuan Yew signed up a Free Trade Treaty with Australia allowing
labour migration and capital movements between the two countries (Australian Financial
Review, page 3, November 17 2000). Gerard Henderson praises Lee Kuan Yew for his zeal in
signing the "Free Trade Agreement on Labour with John Howard (Sydney Morning Herald,
page 14, 21 Novermber 2000), very predictable.
ASEAN December 2000
EU-ASEAN Summit trade talks with delegates from the blocs held in Laos.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Achieveing the 2020 Vision - The Future of APEC and its Impact on world and Regional Trade. Paper presented to 22nd International Trade Law Conference, Canberra,27-28 October 1995. Outlines the goal of achieving the regional trade bloc by 2020 according to the Bogor Declaration made at Bogor, Indonesia, by way of tariff reduction and ongoing harmonisation of standards and acceptance of common regional passport of business men in the APEC area. http://www.arts.monash.edu.au/ausapec/future.htm
'APEC The Gains and Losses for Australia' Trade liberalisation would not produce the desired goals of increased economic growth, a worsening trade deficit and rising unemployment could come as consequence of the lifting of trade barriers. http://www.arts.monash.edu.au/auspec/iss12.htm 'Austria, Germany and the Anschluss 1931-38' ,pub. Oxford University Press 1963; Jurgen Gehl , Foreword by Alan Bullock; currency integration page 136 ;common tariff pps 20, 34-35,39; common front against bolshevism p. 141. Similar initiatives were taken under European Economic Community such Common Trade Bloc Tariff, Common Agricultural Policy and Common Currency. Similarities are uncannily similar as set out by Rodney Atkinson's Europe's Full Circle. Asia Australia Institute Asia Australia Institute, Draft Calendar 2000, Paul Keating presents his book 'Australia, Asia Engagement' moderated (?!)by Paul Kelly at AAI.http://www.unsw.edu.au/clients/aai/visitor/news.htm Asia, Australian Schools & the Renovation of the Australian Mind; Paul Kell. On the inroads made in the Australian school curriculum to create a change of mind on Australia's future membership of Asia via the introduction of Asian languages http://www.edoz.com.au/educationaustralia/edoz/issues/kell.html, uses the word 'Asianisation' Australia/Asia Citizenship; Centre for Citizenship & Human Rights. Steven FitzGerald on the question of differing values of Australia and Asia, and how they can be reconciled into a coherent civil society of Asia. Too bad the people of Asia have authoritarian governments and like us. for once we could be asked about it? As if people mattered in a democracy..... http://arts.deakin.edu.au/cchr/forum/forum13/Australian.htm Asia Australia Institute "Regional Human Security" the problem of a welfare state in the region, inhibits acceptance of free trade bloc. Suggest this new strategy. http://www.aai.unsw.edu.au/rf/alfconce.htm Asia Australia Institute,Media Releases and Speeches, June 2000, Prof. Stepehn FitzGerald calls for Australia to join ASEAN
Laurie Brereton says -the same in'Australia and Asia:Where Next? ,
'As It Happened'; John Button , former senator Button had a number of meetings with the heads of Japan's business and politics who recommended the formation of a free trade are...APEC, Gareth Evans instead took it upon himself to found APEC.....very much in the Rhodes Scholar. Asia Doctrine, Stephen FitzGerald interviewed by ABC's Asia Pacific Report, broadcast on 1st November 2000, FitzGerald argues for a comprehensive and bipartisan pro-merger policy foreign policy with ASEAN. American Hegemony and the Trilateral Commission; Stephen Gill , 1991. History of the Trilateral Commission, rationale and ideology. Australia's Choice for the Future, CSIS, Christopher Woo,says that Australia must jettison its mainstream Anglo-saxon Culture, become a Republic, accede to land rights demands and have unrestricted immigration to become fully engaged with APEC/ASEAN trade blocs otherwise will present the wrong face to the rest of Asia. Board members of the CSIS are member of the US military, Bankers such as Goldman Sachs and Trilateral Commissioners such as Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzesinski; Malcolm Turnbull and Neville Wran became employed as Goldman Sach associates http://www.csis.org/intern/forum398d.html Australia risks being on the outer in Asia, Paul Kelly,The Australian, December 6,2000, page 15. Paul Kelly says, predictably in the pan-asianist bias, that Australia' must engage in Asia' or else be marginalised economically from ASEAN but not mentioning that trade bloc means political-legislative bloc in the future as with Europe not mentioning the rest of the story...too bad the public has problems in undertanding the rather evasive euphemism. Business Council for the United Nations members and directors, representing USA's Corporate State. 'Comfortable and relaxed, in Asia too'. The Australian newspaper's columninst Richard Robinson seems disappointed with John Howard position on 'engagement with Asia' http://wwwarc.murdoch.edu.au/arc/newspaper/howard.htm l pubd. Friday 20 Septemember 1996, page 11. Ongoing pro-Asia bias of the News Ltd. Empire Beyond the Seas, Richard Silocka, The evolution of the US Imperialism http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1978/3/78.03.07.x.html Guam (Nixon) Doctrine:
http://www-acala1.ria.army.mil/ACALA/samo/nixon.htm The Power Elite, C Wright Mills;on the American Corporate State and its origins. Trilateralism; Holly Sklar Editor and Laurence Shoup & William Minter. The European Union and Post-national Integration on on the machinery of a regional institution-building Intergovernmentalism & Neo-functionalism CONTEMPORARY EUROPE:INTEGRATION AND MODERNISATION; issues and question regarding the EU http://www.pol.mq.edu.au/lect388.html Pan-Nationalisms, Louis Snyder; on the origins of US, European, German and Japanase transnationalist ideologies, very telling. The Power Elite and the State; G William Domhoff. pub 1990. Relates the dominance of the Council on Foreign Relations and its industrial-Military-Governmental complex managing USA's 'democractic government'. The Evolution of Civilizations; Carroll Quigley. The Anglo-American Establishment; Carroll Quigley; Three-Power World Bloc and division of three regions and five regions and integration Britain into Europe pp 165-166. Tragedy and Hope ; Carroll Quigley; the origin of japanese modernisation and rise to empire. The Origins and Evolution of Japanese Direct Investment in East Asia ; accounts on the activities of the zaibatsu trading companies Mitsubishi, Mitsui and Sumitomo groups investment is Asia and eventual liquidation after WWII http://www.ap.harvard.edu/papers/RECOOP/Mason/Mason.html 'In East Asia, contrary to Western thought, Japan is a much-courted trading partner these 50 years later'; KPMG June 2000 http://www.kpmg.net/library/96/march/story2.asp The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere Sentimental Imperialists [1992] http://web.pdx.edu/~levia/eaciv9.html Continuing the Inquiry: The Council on Foreign Relations from 1921 to 1996, Peter Grose ; a chronological study on the origin and activities of the US Power-Elite http://brookings.org/press/books/clientpr/cfr/cfr75.htm The Business Council for the United Nations (BCUN) Corporate domination and support The Corporations behind the Concil on Foreign Relations http://www.cfr.org/public/ar98/corpprog.html#corpmembers Japan Center for International Exchange (JCIE) Trilateral Commission in Japan; papers, chronology of the Japanese members of the Trilateral Commission http://jcie-gw.jcie.or.jp/thinknet/tc/index.html JCIE Board of Trustees, Trilateral Commission members Yotaro Kobayashi, Trilateral Commissioner. http://jcie-gw.jcie.or.jp/jcie/board.html Japan's World Government Institute; neo-imperial ideology for the new economic empire, next step, the political empire. http://www3.justnet.ne.jp/~toshio-suzuki/index.htm Photographs of acitivities of the Japan's World Government agitators http://www3.justnet.ne.jp/~toshio-suzuki/photo.htm Oligarchy ; Robert Michels, formation and stratification of social groups and elite formation. Conservatism also attacks the most radical of groups. Slouching Towards Utopia?:The Economic History of the Twentieth Century -XVIII.Falling into World War II http://econ161.berkely.edu/TCEH/Slouch_Fall18.html Tax Harmonisation, EURO-KNOW.ORG A dictionary of the EU and its history with glossary of EU terminology see (Tax Harmonisation) The Lessons of Seattle: Trade Policy in the 21st Century'. Kanishka Jayasuriya. Mr Jayasuriya comments that the WTO is failing to integrate international labour organisations in the trade talks at WTO. The WTO has not yet adjusted to its 'new status' where it has achieved a new competence over nation-states' traditional regulatory jurisdictions which empower the WTO to regulate the 'global economy'. http://wwwarc.murdoch.edu.au/arc/asiaview/jul00/jaya.html The Commission on Global Governance; Economic Interdependence, The Case for Multilateralism. According to this report, which is endorsed by Nelson Mandela; Regionalism is seen by the UN as a complement to World (global) Governance. http://www.cgg.ch/econtext1.htm The Rise of Economic Rationalism, Fred Argy. Interviewed by Radio Australia. Mr Argy clarifies the Economic Rationalism ideology as Hard Liberalism (known everywhere else a Neo-Liberalism) and gives a description of policy prescriptions citing New Zealand as the most extreme example of the policies implemented, but nevertheless failing to display the success that Neo-Liberalism promised almost 20 years ago. http://www.abc.net.au/money/vault/extras/extra11.htm 'The Search for Order 1877-1920: The Emergence of Foreign Policy', Robert H. Wiebe, New York, Hill and Wang 1967. Relates the business pressures, especially by financiers for a coherent foreign policy in the USA at the turn of the 20th century, and the rise of the complementary ideology and rationalisation of Foreign Affairs in the executive branch of govt, leading to the founding of the Council on Foreign Relations. http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/protected/wiebe.htm Towards An Asian-Pacific Community?, Bilson Kurus;on the proposed Free Trade Area in Asia for the years 2010 and 2020 as a consequence of the Bogor Declaration and draws the parallels with the WWII's Japanese Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. Remarks on the rising influence of Japan. http://www.ids.org.my/HomePage/Publications/ResearchPaper/Articles/review28.htm 'Ungoverning the Economy'; Stephen Bell; pub 1997,well-researched book on the effects of economic rationalism (Neo-Liberalism) on the Australian economy. Refutes the claims made by corporate-funded think-tanks and Labor Party policies. World Federalist Association; pan-nationalist ideologists for transnational corporations and world government ('Global Governance') World Constitution and Parliamentary Association (WCPA);A CONSTITUTION FOR THE FEDERATION OF EARTH http://www.scruz.net/~tgilman/cnfdeart.dir/contents.html The Future of the WCPA (wcpagren.org) http://www.scruz.net/~tgilman/index.html Future of WCPA's fledging global constitution for a world government http://www.scruz.net/~tgilman/future.html World Constitution as set out by the WCPA: A CONSTITUTION FOR THE FEDERATION OF EARTH http://www3.justnet.ne.jp/~toshio-suzuki/wcpa-constitution.htm The World Citizen Foundation World Government Advocacy organizations :http://www.worldgov.org/links/index.htm World Economic Forum, Eastasia and Australia, proceedings of the WEF September 11-13 http://weforum.org/Regional_netw.nsf/Documents/Home+-+Regional+Networks+-+Asia+Pacific Young European Federalists, High profile agitators of pan-european integration |
APPENDIX 1
|
http://www.aai.unsw.edu.au/visitor/about.htm The Asia-Australia Institute is an independent political and foreign policy think-tank based at the University of New South Wales. Since its establishment in 1990, the Institute has become distinguished by its vision for a future political association in East Asia and its programs by their intellectual quality, focus on influential elites, and role in developing an idea for an East Asian or Eastern Hemisphere regional polity. Its programs are developed and delivered in cooperation with a network of institutional partners from the countries of East Asia. The
Asia-Australia Institute is a forcing house for ideas on the long term future of East
Asia. It is a leading Australian player in this region in 'second track' diplomacy -
creative thinking, extra-governmental dialogue, informal and non-binding brokering and
public advocacy - complementing what governments do to advance regional relations. It works with regional partners on the challenge
of how to give central importance to the place of human beings in the planning of the
region's future. The Asia-Australia Institute's
vision is for an East Asian community, comprising the countries of Northeast Asia,
Southeast Asia and Australasia, with the human security of the individual as its guiding
philosophy. The Institute's mission is to contribute, in partnership with other institutions, to the realisation of such a community; to assist Australia to find acceptance in it as an equal, contributing and culturally aware partner; and also, through its work, to advance the mission of the University of New South Wales in the Asian region. |
APPENDIX 2
European Integration: reference site http://www.surrey.ac.uk/LIS/MNP/lie202/notes.html as of 29th November 2000 Definitions of some key explanatory terms FEDERALISM, INTERGOVERNMENTALISM AND NEO-FUNCTIONALISM |
1. Federalism
Possible political meanings:
|
2. Functionalism/Neo-functionalism These concepts are significant for two reasons. On the one hand, they are a possible explanation of the integration that has actually taken place in Europe. On the other hand, they are views of the politics of integration that have powerfully influenced those involved. Even if the ideas fail as explanations, they have affected the politics of integration through the widespread belief in them on the part of EC civil servants etc.
|
3. Intergovernmentalism "Intergovernmentalism" is a political scientists’ expression. Outside of the circle of academic analysts, it is probably not used at all. But it is clear that much of what political actors actually do within the EC/U is motivated governmental motives, i.e. by the priority they give to their own Member States' "national interest". Over the the decades of the EC’s existence, states, acting in their traditional fashion - i.e. as autonomous, unchallengable,"sovereign" decision-makers on behalf their own "national interest" - seem to have obtruded more and more into the political processes of the Community. Arguably this has always been the case; but it seems to have become more noticeable. The idea of intergovernmentalism is disliked by federalists and functionalists, for whom it represents the backward-looking and/or divisive politics of narrow "selfish" national interests. i) Definition: a) "Intergovernmentalism" is the view that the position of Member State (MS) governments has the essential, determining role in the EC/U’s formation and internal workings. b) "Liberal intergovernmentalism" is the view that integration comes about as a result of governments’ following a self-interested, calculative logic through the "collective" decision-making of the EC/U. Each MS government seeks to obtain benefits while minimizing what they have to pay (literally or figuratively) for them. In some instances, of course, the "cheapest" way for a national government to get what it wants is to yield a little of its sovereignty in a joint undertaking with other nation-states. For example, rather than waste resources helping the national steel industry compete for markets, a government can agree with others to carve up the European steel market and share out the costs of any scaling-down: hence, the European Coal and Steel Community comes about. ii) Political implications: a) Since, in Europe, we are talking about pluralist, democratic regimes, the self-interest of governments is crucially tied up with the problem of how to please their publics. Hence, according to liberal intergovernmentalism, the supply of "goods" in the wide sense to the population (at minimum cost) is a major consideration. For example, governments may be prepared to pool sovereignty in order to ensure reliable food supplies and economic security to their rural, farming populations. Hence, the Common Agricultural Policy comes about. b) Since this is politics, the process involves accommodating several sets of interests all at the same time, notably interests groups within the subject populations and the national interests of other Member States. Therefore, intergovernmental policy-formation is said to be a "two-level game": domestic politics and inter-state politics juggled alongside eachother. iii) Appearance and reality: Finally, since this is politics, appearance and reality are not straightforwardly the same! A show of obtaining what your national public wants may be necessary precisely in order to surrender to the pressure from your fellow Member States. Thus it is that all EU governments return from Council meetings to announce that they’ve got everything required for their "national interests". |
APPENDIX 3
Corporate Program Members |
|
From the 1998 Annual Report of the Council on Foreign Relations (http://www.cfr.org/public/ar98/corpprog.html#corpmembers ) Corporate Benefactors |
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ABC, Inc. Acorn Company LLC AGIP Petroleum Company Alleghany Corporation Allen & Company Allen & Overy Alliance Capital Management American
Express Company Citibank/Citicorp E.M. Warburg, Pincus & Co. IBM |
MBIA-AMBAC
International MacAndrews & Forbes Holdings, Inc. Mark Partners Marks & Spencer, Inc. Marriott International, Inc. Marsh & McLennan Companies Marubeni America Corporation Marvin & Palmer Associates, Inc. Mayer, Brown & Platt McKinsey & Company, Inc. Mercedes-Benz of North America Merrill Lynch International Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy Mine Safety Appliances Company Mobil Corporation Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP Multilateral Funding International The Mutual Life Insurance Company of New York NatWest Markets New York Life International, Inc. New York Stock Exchange, Inc. Newsweek Nippon Steel USA, Inc. Nomura Research Institute America NTT America, Inc. Occidental Petroleum Oxford Analytica PaineWebber Incorporated Paribas Peak LLC Pennzoil Company PepsiCo Pfizer Philip Morris Companies, Inc. Phillips-Van Heusen Corporation Pohang Steel America Corporation PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP The Prudential Insurance Company of America Rock Creek Corporation The
Royce Funds The Chase Manhattan Corporation The Walt Disney Company United Technologies |
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APPENDIX 4
TAX HARMONISATION reference url euro-know.org http://www.euro-know.org/dictionary/h.html Harmonisation (referred to in the Treaty of Rome as approximation) is the legal process of standardisation implicit in the creation of the single market. If carried too far harmonisation can also represent levelling down, with the effect of ironing out comparative advantages and so reducing the global competitiveness of EU firms. An interesting test case in 1998 was that of the London art market, which with New York had long ranked as the world's two leading international art trading centres. VAT (introduced in 1995 at the Commission's insistence on works imported from outside the EU) reduced imports to the UK by 40% between 1994 and 1997, driving London's business to New York, Geneva and Hong Kong. The Commission, which had set the VAT rate at an experimentally low level of 2.5%, plans to increase it to 5% in 1999, while at the same time imposing droit de suite (a royalty to artists or their descendants) on modern art. These rules, which apply in many of the unsuccessful art markets of Europe, would indeed harmonise the UK with the rest of the EU, but at the expense of fatally damaging one of London's - and Europe's - more glamorous businesses, together with its many ancillary trades. A less intrusive approach to harmonisation had been made possible by the 1979 Cassis de Dijon case, in which the Court of Justice forbade Germany to ban the marketing of a French liqueur which met French requirements but did not match German standards of alcoholic content. This decision established the principle of mutual recognition, making it unnecessary to enforce detailed legislation to ensure that European products could be sold across borders (before the Cassis de Dijon judgment, the Commission had been obliged to redefine the carrot as a fruit to allow Portuguese carrot jam to be marketed in the Community). With the growing integration of the EU, however, the pendulum has swung back towards a more activist approach, in which new forms of harmonisation are being turned to the service of the federal cause. Some degree of alignment of indirect tax levels has always been accepted within the Community, albeit modified by cultural differences, such as the Greek preference for relying on direct tax and the north European puritanical leaning towards high duties on spirits. But direct tax is the prerogative of the nation state, so that any attempt to insert the EU into this field is sensitive. Nevertheless, prompted by Continental unemployment and mindful of the ability of Ireland, the UK and the Netherlands to create jobs with their low-tax regimes, some in Europe have suggested harmonisation of corporate tax rates. This proposal would, in its authors' eyes, achieve several objectives simultaneously: it would eliminate the unfair advantage of 'fiscal dumping'; it would contribute to a more socially oriented society (for the harmonisation would doubtless be upwards, to a level designed to finance improved welfare); and it would establish the EU's right to occupy another part of the battlefield previously reserved to the member states. Against this it was argued that the proposals were anti-competitive and likely in the long run to destroy jobs, as well as being an infringement of national competence. The 1997 Treaty of Amsterdam broadened the scope of harmonisation into the field of criminal law, proposing a strengthening of Europol to combat Community fraud and foreshadowing the eventual alignment of police and judicial methods of detection, arrest and trial throughout the EU. EMU will also have a harmonising effect. The stability pact will reduce governments' freedom of fiscal manoeuvre, and the single currency will dispose of exchange rate variations. Further standardisation of indirect and direct taxation would leave the management of member states' economies almost entirely in the hands of Brussels. Yet although this macroeconomic process is being conducted largely in the name of completing the single market, there is still much to be done before harmonisation achieves its aims in the world of day-to-day business, where many forms of national protectionism survive. Overall, the verdict on harmonisation must remain ambivalent. Under the control of interventionists it is a powerful weapon for working towards a unitary European state; but under a minimalist system organised on free-market principles, it would be an indispensable tool for raising transparency and eliminating restrictive practices. |
APPENDIX 5
Economic and Report E-B34 Dated 24 July, 1941 (Council on Foreign Relations) Purpose The purpose of this memorandum is to summarize the concept of the Grand Area in terms of its meaning for American policy, its function in the prexsent war, and its possible role in the postwar period. The memorandum is the introduction to a seires concerned with the methods of integrating the Grand Area Economically. The Grand Area and the American Defense The economy of the United States is geared to the export of certain manufactured and agricultureal products, and the import of numerous raw materials and foodstuffs. The success of German arms from the invasion of Poland onwards broughtt most of Europe under Nazi domination and threatened the rest of the world. Faced with these facts, the Economic and Financial Group Sought to determine the area(excluding continental Europe, which for the present was lost) that, from the economic point of view, was best suited to the defence of the United States. Such Area would have to :(1) contain the basic raw materials necessary to the full functioning of American Industry, and (2) have the fewest possible stresses making for its own disintegration, such as unwieldy export surpluses or severe shortatges of consumers' goods. With this end in view, a series of studies was
made to ascertain the "degree of completementarism" in trade of several blocs:
the Western Hemisphere, the British Empire(except Canada), the Far East. [....] . From the
point of view of the United States, the Western Hemisphere is an inadequate are because it
lacks important raw materials which we get from southeastern Asia, and it is burdened with
supluses nornmally exported to Europe, especially the United Kingdom. An extension of the
are in opposite directions to take in these two economically important regions thus
becomes necessary. The extension brings new problems, but it was found that the United
States can best defend itself- - from an economic point of view - in an area comprising
most of the non-German world. This has been called the "Grand The Grand Area, then, is the amound of the world the United States can defend most economically, that is , with the least readjustment of the American economy. To maintain a maximum defence effort, the United States must avoid ecomic readjusmtent caused by constriction of the trading area if the military cost of defending the area is not too great. What such constriction might mean in weakening the defence economy can best be seen by imagining the strain on American supplies of labor, materials, and industrial capacity of the attempt to manufacture substitutes for or to do without rubber, tin, jute, and numerous vegetable oils, instead of importing these products form southeastern Asia. similarly, to the extend that the United States and other countries can continue to export their surpluses, some dangerous stress in the domestic economy are prevented from developing.[...] It is important for the United States to defend the Grand Area and to prevent capture of any of its parts by the Germans. Similarly, the Grand Area must be defended against defection form withing,(1) by making it economically possible for all member countries to live in the area, and (2) by preventing any country - particularly Japan- from destroying the area for its own political reasons. Some stuies of the economic aspects of these problems have been made, others are projected . It is not the roles of the Economic and Financial Group to determine how the are is to be defended nor to assess whether such a defense is feasible, though broad military considerations have of course played some part in determining the area, and it has been assumed that keeping the area intact is not patently impossible from a military viewpoint. Similarly, the methods of political collaboration needed to integrate the area, and the diplomacy required for keeping it intact , do not fall into the Group's sphere, except so insofar as economic weapons and enticements are part of that diplomacy and the institutional structure for solving problems is called political. Economic collaboration within the area , however, is an important field of study for the Group. Such collaboration to secure integration is necessary to transform the economic potential of the are into military power, and is at the same time a part of the defense of the area. By creating a working economic organization for the Grand Area, we make the area more viable and stronger both economically, and presumably, politically (E-B34,1941:2-3).[...] - to achieve these goals of intgration of the Grand Area, two points were made in the report- I. Financial Collaboration
II. Monetary and Exchange problems
Reproduced from page 160-63, The Power Elite and the State, William G Domhoff,pub: Aldine De Gruyter, 1990 |
APPENDIX 6
APEC MEMBER COUNTRIES AS OF 2000 |
APPENDIX 7
ASEAN MEMBER COUNTRIES AS OF 2000 |
APPENDIX 9
The Asia Australia Institute Board Members, Officers and Councillors http://www.aai.unsw.edu.au/visitor/council.htm The Council of The Asia-Australia Institute is the core of a region-wide community of people engaged in dialogue on the future of the East Asian region. The Council participates directly in the strategic orientation and development of the Institute and acts as advocate for the Institute's Vision and Mission. It is also an instrument for the externalisation of ideas produced through its research and forums; in fundraising assistance; and in the extension of the Institute's regional connections. The Council comprises from each country of the region, a government minister or senior government official, a strategic business leader, a strategic education, media, judicial or NGO leader, and an influential research institute or think-tank leader, as well as senior representatives of the Institute's major financial supporters. It meets annually prior to the Institute's flagship program, the Asia Leaders' Forum. The Executive Board of the Institute oversees the strategic direction and management of the Institute. Co-chaired by the Vice-Chancellor and President of the UNSW, Professor John Niland, and the Chairman of the Institute, Professor Stephen FitzGerald, the Executive Board comprises senior representatives of related faculties of UNSW, major financial supporters and other people who can provide strategic guidance to the Institute.
MEMBERS OF THE COUNCIL
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APPENDIX 9
Council on Foreign Relations Members and Directors as of 1998 |
more soon ....
Sydney, Australia
16th December 2000
This is work in progress....
APEC & ASEAN
The fledging regional bureaucracies, see the latest news...
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Work in Progress.....
Draft 8
email at eric_a_blair@altavista.com
