Counterpoint to US unilateralism?

PARIS – As the ASEF-IFRI conference on region building in Paris winds up Friday, I get the sense of what the dialogue might be about. Region building is a complex issue and it would be too difficult and lengthy to report on what the European and Asian speakers were about. To my mind what binds those present is to drive the important point to strengthen a multilateral world with regional groupings like the EU, as a counterpoint to recent unilateralist actions of the United States as the sole superpower in the world. The overarching question in the conference was whether Asia with its divergent cultural values and economic strengths, can in fact be linked together as a region, quickly enough to serve that purpose.

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The last day included the topic on ‘Institutions as drivers for regional building’. But as Zhou Hong of China remarked, the development of institutions can take many years. In her country’s case administrative institutions that have served the country in good stead can be traced back two thousand years. Moreover, as Victor Mallet of the Financial Times recently wrote – "intra-regional trade in services as well as manufactured goods – is rising rapidly, in contrast to the European Union or North America, companies and investors, rather than governments are the driving force. A partner in a Singaporean advisory firm the next trend is outsourcing of services and accounting. That’s why you see a lot more Chinese goods in India, Indian software employees working in Kuala Lumpur or Tokyo. What the conferees were talking about is already happening in Asia – exchanges and flows of people and ideas.

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As the conference ended, the foremost question was how to bring out ideas discussed to a wider public. As a mere observer, I could not give my two cents worth but perhaps the answer is to have an ongoing program to use the media. As the participants emphasized what is the good of discussing regional trade among themselves. Media’s role in pushing such ideas will be crucial but as Mallet has already said, this is happening in Asia even without the active creation of effective regional institutions. Indeed those who spoke remarked on the weaknesses of institutions that should be at the vanguard of hastening an Asian common market for economic and security reasons.

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The President’s speech. It was good I finally got a copy of President Arroyo’s UNESCO speech. She thanked the Paris based UN organization for four recent gestures to promote our country’s cultural heritage: Helping us preserve our Ifugao rice terraces, the designation of the Earthsavers’ Dream Ensemble, composed of persons with disabilities, as one of UNESCO’s artists for peace, the documenting of the events of our 1986 Philippine people power revolution in UNESCO’s memory of the world register for safeguarding of intangible cultural heritage lastly, its assistance to the impact of illegal fishing on the Tubbatha Reef which is the world’s primary site of biodiversity.

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Unfortunately, Laura Bush who came to Paris in symbolic gesture of the US return to UNESCO overshadowed most happenings in this city of conferences. Political analysts viewed the US return as a way of answering criticisms that her husband’s administration as unilateralist. The Bush administration hopes for international support for a new UN resolution that would throw in more international funding and troops for the American occupation of postwar Iraq.

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Philippine contribution to the final Tripoli communiqué. As we left Tripoli, we finally read a summary of the final communiqué of the conference on dialoging among civilizations that we had just attended. The most salient point for Filipinos is the inclusion of a proposal made by Speaker Jose de Venecia. It was among the priorities of the list. It is also significant to mention that the group which gathered in Tripoli will not be one-off gathering. It will see to it that its recommendations become reality. Here are the words on the de Venecia proposal: "The symposium supports the establishment of a permanent council for interreligious dialogue within the United Nations in order to enhance the principles for Taarruf (dialogue to know each other) between peoples and help establish the values of rights and peace in the world."

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