澳大利亚前总理霍克在APEC高峰论坛上的演讲
This year has seen more than its fair share of striking anniversaries, but for us in Asia one of the more important
ones is the 25th anniversary, falling this month, of the first APEC Ministerial meeting in Canberra in
November 1989. At that meeting, ministers from 12 Asia-Pacific economies met together to launch a cooperative
effort to build freer trade and deeper economic integration across the entire region. China itself joined
just two years later in 1991.
Since that first meeting 25 years ago, Asia has seen the most remarkable economic transformation in human history.
It would be claiming far too much to say that APEC deserves all the credit for that, but it is I think fair to say that
APEC has made a significant, and in some ways an essential, contribution to laying the foundations for Asia’s
economic miracle in recent decades.
Let me say in all modesty that I take some personal pride in APEC’s achievement and what it has meant for Asia,
because its establishment resulted from an initiative of mine which led directly to that meeting back in 1989.
I’d like over the next few minutes to reflect on my thinking back then about the challenges and opportunities
that Asia faced, and how I saw the APEC initiative as a way to address them. I’d then like to look forward
and consider what that experience might offer by way of lessons about how to deal with the challenges and
opportunities that we see in Asia today - challenges and opportunities which are in some ways different from,
but no less momentous, than the ones we faced 25 years ago.
My thinking about what would be required to realise Asia’s economic potential began long before 1989.
As early as February 1984, during a visit to Seoul I said in a speech:
For Australia the idea of a more economically integrated Asia-Pacific region is becoming increasingly real. We see
advantage in seeking to maximise the benefits of the economic interdependence between the countries of the region.
There can be little doubt that, looking not too far ahead, the Asia-Pacific region must be accepted as a major catalyst
for stronger world-wide economic performance.
I had by that time already become convinced of several critical facts. The first was Asia’s immense economic
potential. Japan’s achievements were already evident for the world to see, and the ‘second echelon’ of South Korea,
Taiwan and Singapore were showing how effective governments with good policies could liberate and mobilize
the inherent entrepreneurial capacities of their peoples to create strong and sustained growth. It was clear to me
that the same potential existed elsewhere in East Asia, and above all in China, which was then only just beginning
its transformation into an open market economy under the leadership of Deng Xiao Ping. I had begun meeting
Chinese leaders within a few weeks of becoming Prime Minister in March 1983, and I had explored with them
their ambitious plans for China’s economic future. I had every confidence that they could succeed, and it was clear
to me what that could mean for the people of China, for Australia, and for the wider region.
The second critical fact which became clear to me in the years before APEC was launched was that Asia’s
economic full potential could not be realised without closer cooperation on economic issues among the countries
of the region. The region needed a freer international trading environment with lower levels of protection and
a higher degree of regional economic integration. Quite simply, the countries of Asia could achieve so much more
if they could find ways to work more closely together, mutually reinforcing the region’s immense strengths.
The third critical fact was that such closer regional economic integration would not take place without strong
political leadership. The APEC idea has always reached beyond governments to embrace businesses and other
elements of the wider communities of Asia. But creating a stronger, more closely integrated regional economy was
going to take hard political decisions, and those decisions would need to be discussed and committed to
in high-level discussions between governments.
For some years before 1989, prominent people on both sides of the Pacific had floated suggestions for a forum
to discuss and encourage economic cooperation between governments in the Asia-Pacific. But these ideas had
come to nothing. By late 1988 I was convinced that the time had come to act decisively to create a forum in
which Governments could work together to realise Asia’s economic potential. Some discreet diplomatic soundings
were taken, which suggested that this might be an idea whose time had come. On 31 January 1989 I launched
the initiative in Seoul, in a speech in which I set out the central ideas which have, I think, guided both APEC and
the Asian regional economy ever since.
Well, one might say that the rest is history. The idea soon gathered support. President Roh of South Korea
was very enthusiastic, and many other leaders soon came on board. The Ministerial meeting in Canberra in
November under the expert chairmanship of my old friend Gareth Evans set the pattern for many productive
sessions since then, and in 1993 APEC took the natural and inevitable step of moving up to meet annually at
Leaders level, initially under the chairmanship of President Bill Clinton.
I should say here that America’s involvement in APEC was always essential to my conception of it.
America is an Asia-Pacific economy, and a vital engine of economic growth both as a source of capital,
ideas and imports, and as a destination for exports. It never made any sense to imagine an Asia-Pacific
regional economic forum that did not include the region’s largest and most dynamic economy. Moreover,
it made no sense to exclude a country whose political and strategic role in the region had been, and remains,
so important. I’ll return to this theme shortly.
More broadly, I should say that APEC was from the very start based on a concept of open regionalism,
rather than any idea of sealing Asia off from the rest of the world. Indeed one of the key ideas that
drove APEC originally was to enhance regional efforts to ensure the success of the global Uruguay Round
of the GATT, as it then was. The APEC vision of Asia’s economic future was at first, and should always
remain, one that maximises its engagement with the global economy. And we should always remember that,
as valuable as bilateral or regional trade agreements may sometimes be, it is always better to promote
free trade globally if at all possible.
In the last 25 years Asia’s share of global output has expanded while at the same time the region has
becoming increasingly integrated and interdependent economically. Trade barriers have come down,
and flows of all kinds – goods, services, capital, people and ideas – have expanded exponentially.
We have indeed seen the benefits of the economic interdependence between the countries of the region,
and the Asia-Pacific region is now unquestionably the major catalyst for the global economy.
All this, of course, has set the stage for what people everywhere now call the Asian Century. People
throughout Asia now look forward to the next few decades in which the fruits of economic growth and
regional integration deliver the real improvements in ordinary people’s lives which, in the end, is all that
makes the business of politics and government and public policy worthwhile. Across Asia – and especially
here in China – hundreds of millions if not literally billions of people will lead better lives in the real,
concrete ways that matter because of Asia’s economic miracle. Better housing, better health care,
better food and clothing, better jobs and education, more travel and leisure – richer, fuller, longer lives.
It is a wonderful prospect.
But of course we cannot take all this for granted. Many challenges remain to be overcome if Asia is to
fulfil its potential in the Asian Century. Some of those challenges relate directly to the regional economy itself,
for example whether the region’s infrastructure can develop fast enough to realise the region’s
economic potential. Some relate to the environment, especially the vital question of limiting carbon
emissions without strangling growth. Some relate to social questions, such as managing aged care
in ageing societies and dealing with the social consequences of the rapid urbanisation that inevitably
accompanies industrialisation. All of these challenges have a regional dimension and it will require regional
cooperation to address them.
But there is one challenge that I would like to discuss in a little more detail here, because I think it may be
among the most serious, and may prove among the hardest to address. I am referring to the challenge of
adapting the region’s political and strategic order to take account of the immense shift in the distribution of
wealth and power in Asia that we have seen over the past decade or more, and which seems set to continue
into the future.
As a region we have not thought much about such things in recent decades, because we have been fortunate
enough to enjoy a long period of remarkable strategic stability in Asia. We can date that period from
the time of Richard Nixon’s visit to China in 1972, which brought to an end the bitter rivalry between America
and China which had riven Asia for the preceding 23 years. After 1972 American primacy was uncontested
by any major Asian power as the foundation of regional strategic order, and this created the peace and
stability which we are now in danger of taking for granted.
That would be a serious mistake. Inevitably, as China’s wealth and power have grown, its expectations
and aspirations for a bigger regional role have grown too. When President Xi articulates China’s desire
to see ‘a new model of great power relations’ in Asia, he is making it clear that China no longer accepts
US primacy as the foundation of regional order, and seeks something different. That is quite understandable.
It is equally understandable that most Americans would prefer to preserve the status quo and perpetuate
their position of regional leadership. They believe that US leadership has served the region well, and find
it hard to imagine that America could play any other kind of role in Asia. They hope and expect that China
will change its mind and accept US primacy indefinitely.
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