APEC 'turkeys' should focus on Asia, says ex-PM

SYDNEY (AFP) - Former Australian prime minister Paul Keating has said Asia-Pacific leaders should focus on tensions between China and Japan at next month's summit rather than trade.

But he said he doubted they would do so because "they're all turkeys" who would rather avoid taking on the big issues.

Keating, one of the key architects of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, said the movement -- formed in 1989 -- should focus on strategic issues rather than detailed economic discussions.

"If APEC has become a talk shop of debateable output, it is because the leaders who have shaped its agenda in the last decade, that is since its early and optimistic days, have lacked an understanding of what it really is and what it is capable of," Keating said in a speech late Thursday.

"International leaders... are hardly going to have their hearts racing over a discussion about trade facilitation."

Keating said the APEC leaders' meeting, which will take place on September 8-9 in Sydney, should look at rising tensions between China and Japan.

The former Labor Party leader, who advocated strong ties with Asia during his 1991-1996 term in government, said the differences between the two Asian powerhouses had widened in recent years.

"The Japanese very much resent the rising power of China and the Chinese resent the fact that the Japanese are still trying to call their war history like some sort of self-defence thing," he told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. "The game remains nasty."

But Keating said the APEC meeting, which will 21 global leaders including the presidents of China, Russia and the United States, was unlikely to address the issue.

"In the end, they're all turkeys. They won't take the big issues on," he said.

"(They should) get up there and say to the Chinese, 'You will find a place for the Japanese in your scheme of things', and to the Japanese, 'You will atone for the sins of the Second World War and you will make a point of accommodation with China'.

"This is where the real leadership comes in. This is why we've now wasted two US presidencies on these issues."

But Prime Minister John Howard scoffed at his predecessor's remarks.

He said Keating had little success opening the door to China and that the strong ties between Canberra and Beijing was one of the best achievements of his own government.

"I seem to remember Mr Keating and his mob saying the Chinese wouldn't talk to us," Howard said.

"One of the features of my prime ministership has been the close relationship with the US and at the same time the very close relationship with China."