N.Korean allies join test protest

By ACHARA ASHAYAGACHAT AND THANIDA TANSUBHAPOL

China, Russia share Asean's nuke concerns

PHUKET : Russia and China have joined the US in pressuring North Korea to abandon its nuclear ambitions, following Pyongyang's recent ballistic missile tests.

See no evil: Mrs Clinton and North Korean delegate Pak Kun-gwang ignore each other at the Phuket meeting.

Normally counting themselves as Pyongyang's allies, Russia and China expressed concern about the nuclear missile tests at the Asean Regional Forum yesterday.

The North Korean nuclear issue dominated security issues at talks held to wrap up the week-long meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

The ARF urged North Korea to return to the six-party talks to end the regional nuclear threat, but North Korea immediately rejected the call.

The meeting also urged members of the United Nations to implement the UN Security Council's resolution to impose sanctions on North Korea.

The ARF would look at what it could do to promote peace and stability on the Korean peninsula, Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya said after the meeting.

Asean diplomatic sources said even Russia and China shared international concern about the issue.

But in a compromising note, China said it hoped sanctions against Pyongyang would not affect North Korean people, and that the six-nation talks could resume, the sources said.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said North Korea faced strong international opposition over its missile testing programme.

"There is no place to go for North Korea as they have no friends left," Mrs Clinton said.

"There is a convergence of views that we are prepared to work with North Korea, but that North Korea has to change its behaviour," she said.

But Ri Hung-sik, who led the North Korean delegation at the meeting, said Pyongyang would not return to the negotiating table until the US changed its anti-North Korea attitude.

The six-party talks comprise China, North Korea, South Korea, Japan, Russia and the US.

Earlier, North Korea downgraded its representative attending the ARF from ambassador-at-large Pak Kun-gwang to Mr Ri, who is director-general of the International Organisations Department. It was the third time Pyongyang had sent a low-level representative to the ARF since 2000.

North Korea's insistence its position should be reflected in the ARF statement forced participants to delay issuing it for two hours.

The ARF members also called for joint efforts to fight terrorists and said the July 17 hotel bombings in Jakarta were a reminder terrorism was still a threat to the region.

Malaysian Foreign Minister Anifah Aman said in addressing the terrorism problem, people should avoid singling out any country, race, religion or ethnicity.

"If terrorism is associated with religion, it will create animosity," Mr Anifah said.

The meeting also pledged to promote democracy and human rights in Burma, Mr Kasit said.

Burma is under pressure to release National League for Democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other political prisoners to pave the way for national reconciliation before the country holds general elections next year.

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North Korea fears forum criticism over missile tests

By THANIDA TANSUBHAPOL and ACHARA ASHAYAGACHAT

PHUKET (Bangkok Post): North Korea has called on Thailand to protect its delegates from criticism during the Asean Regional Forum.

Pyongyang's ambassador at large Pak Kun-gwang yesterday raised the issue in talks with Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya ahead of tomorrow's security meeting.

Mr Pak requested an urgent meeting with the minister shortly after the five North Korean delegates arrived on the resort island yesterday.

North Korea is worried its recent missile tests would be condemned by countries participating in the forum, said Mr Kasit's secretary Chavanond Intarakomalyasut. (LOL)

As the Asean chair, Thailand will head the Asean-initiated security talks.

Mr Chavanond quoted the minister as saying "we need to make sure the meeting's peace-building objectives are met and that he would not let any ARF members use the forum to attack other members".

"I would also like North Korea to listen to what the United States has to say," he said. "The Barack Obama administration should be given a chance to speak out."

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will attend the forum, as will representatives from the European Union.

It is the first forum at which North Korea will engage with 25 other countries in such talks.

Asean foreign ministers will hold talks today with their dialogue partners from China, Japan and South Korea.

Thailand will push for closer cooperation with the three nations on finance, agriculture and health matters.

It will also urge the acceleration of the Chiang Mai Initiative during the Asean summit in Phuket in October, diplomatic sources said.

Last month, the so-called Asean+3 agreed in Bangkok to strengthen the regional financial mechanism. A regional pooling reserve would be established under the Chiang Mai Initiative with a US$20 billion (700 billion baht) start-up fund by the end of the year.

Director-general of the Asean Affairs Department Vitavas Srivihok said Asean ministers would also discuss measures to fight the A (H1N1) flu outbreak.

Asean secretary-general Surin Pitsuwan has been assigned to liaise with Southeast Asian health ministers on the issue, the official said.

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PM joins condemnation of North Korea

(Bangkok Post) -South Korea and Thailand have criticised North Korea, saying the country's latest nuclear test threatens world peace and stability and harms efforts to prevent atomic proliferation.

The two nations' leaders yesterday discussed Pyongyang's nuclear blast on the sidelines of a summit between South Korea and Southeast Asian countries being held amid heavy security.

The summit was planned months ago, but North Korea's underground nuclear test and a series of short-range missile launches last week threaten to steal the limelight from economic matters, the main focus of the agenda.

South Korean President Lee Myungbak and Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva agreed the test went against international efforts to prevent nuclear proliferation and "undermines peace and stability not only in East Asia but also in the whole world", said Lee Dong-kwan, the South Korean president's chief spokesman.

They also agreed to exert diplomatic pressure to ensure North Korea complies with UN Security Council resolutions and "promptly returns to six-party talks" aimed at ridding it of nuclear weapons.

The summit venue of Seogwipo, on the island of Jeju off the southern coast, is the South Korean city farthest away from the North. Still, the nervous South Korean government is taking no chances, positioning a surface-to-air missile outside the venue aimed towards the North.

About 5,000 police officers, including 200 commandos and special vehicles that can analyse sarin gas and other chemicals, have been deployed nearby, security authorities said. Marines, special forces and air patrols also kept watch on the island.

Leaders of the 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations began arriving for the two-day summit, which officially begins today and commemorates 20 years of relations between South Korea and the bloc. South Korea's president planned to use yesterday for individual meetings with Asean leaders.

But concerns about North Korea's most recent bout of sabre-rattling loomed. South Korean officials said spy satellites had spotted signs the North might be preparing to transport a longrange missile to a launch site.

The North has attacked South Korean targets before, bombing a Korea Air jet in 1987 and trying to kill then-president Chun Doo-hwan in Burma in 1983.

The UN Security Council is still weighing up how to react to the North's belligerent moves that have earned Pyongyang criticism from the US, Europe, Russia and even the North's closest ally, China.

US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said North Korea's progress on nuclear weapons and long-range missiles was "a harbinger of a dark future" and had created an urgent need for more pressure on the reclusive communist government to change its ways.

Mr Gates, speaking at an annual meeting of defence and security officials in Singapore, said Pyongyang's efforts pose the potential for an arms race in Asia that could spread beyond the region.

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Asean-Korea summit to highlight Seoul's soft power

By: THITINAN PONGSUDHIRAK

(Bangkok Post) -The summit between Asean and the Republic of Korea on Jeju Island today and tomorrow is a major national event for South Koreans as much as it is a muted affair for their Thai counterparts.

While Thais hardly know about this summit, South Koreans have been exposed to widespread media coverage. Asean members' flags have been raised all over the island. Jeju's international conference centre has frequently been featured on television news coverage. Academics and diplomats have promoted Track Two policy-related conferences ahead of the top-level powwow.

At issue will be South Korea's growing role as a middle power and the decade-long efforts to construct an East Asia Community. For Thailand, the summit will be the first Asean plus meeting since the aborted summits in Pattaya in April.

To be sure, domestic politics will loom large. Thailand's political turmoil has effectively forced the 16 members of the East Asia Summit - Asean plus China, Japan and South Korea, along with India, Australia and New Zealand - to skip a year for their fourth summit. Previous EAS meetings took place in Kuala Lumpur in December 2005, Cebu in January 2007 and Singapore in November 2007. But the Thailand-hosted fourth EAS, which was postponed from December 2008 to February 2009 in Pattaya has now been rescheduled for Phuket in October. This means that the annual EAS will now take two years to stage its fourth gathering.

Apart from Thailand's domestic political setbacks to the EAS meeting, Burma's latest crisis over the likely extension of Aung San Suu Kyi's confinement will complicate Asean's intramural dealings and its relationship with the broader Plus Three and other EAS members. The Asean-RoK summit will be the first opportunity for Asean to address the problems posed by Burma's military junta on the grouping's standing in the regional neighbourhood and the world at large.

In addition to Thailand and Burma, Malaysia's internal political game also has raised new concerns about the constraining effects of domestic politics on regional cooperation and integration. Burma's ongoing retardation of democratic rule, Thailand's and Malaysia's apparent and potential democratic setbacks, and the lack of democratisation elsewhere in Asean have cast dark clouds over the 10-member regional organisation in view of its much-advertised pro-democracy charter.

South Korea does not suffer the same constraints. Its democratic consolidation is so pronounced as to have claimed the life from apparent suicide of a former leader who was linked to a corruption scandal. Adept at influence-peddling and outright graft, politicians and leaders in Asean have routinely avoided accountability and jail time. Taking their own lives out of shame and guilt has been unthinkable. Such is the testimony of how far South Korea's democratic rule has progressed from years of military authoritarianism.

Increasingly confident of its democratic credentials and strong economy, Seoul as one of two Asian members in the developed-world Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) club, is charting a new course to befit its new-found status at the forefront of East Asia. The Asean-RoK summit that commemorates 20 years of bilateral relations will showcase a brand new Asean-Korea Centre based in Seoul to promote South Korea's trade and investment ties with Asean countries and to highlight the Asean-Korea free trade agreement.

Moreover, South Korea will announce a considerable increase in its official development assistance for developing Asean countries in line with its developed-country status. The development assistance has long been a cornerstone of Japan's soft power in the region. But South Korea is now poised to flex some soft power projection of its own to the benefit of poorer Asian countries and to help reduce the income gaps among Asean members in particular.

As it views itself as a benign and benevolent middle power, South Korea's "green" strategy warrants attention. It transcends immediate security concerns on the Korean peninsula with a forward-looking role for Seoul on the international stage. Its efforts to tackle global warming and other ecological concerns as a national strategy on a long-term basis are unrivalled in the region.

Yet a broader backdrop at the Asean-RoK summit will be the East Asian Community building. The EAC's impetus is rooted among the Asean Plus Three (APT) countries in the aftermath of the Asian economic crisis during 1997-98. The Chiang Mai Initiative that built on bilateral swap agreements has now been expanded to the tune of US$120 billion (4.2 trillion baht) to promote exchange rate stability in the region, with equal contributions from China and Japan. This is East Asia's most tangible financial cooperation to date, and could have the makings of an Asian monetary fund that was earlier denied by the US and IMF.

But the EAC is challenged by the rapid rise of the EAS with its wider geographical scope. If East Asia is to coalesce and integrate, the EAS is a less promising vehicle than the APT. On this dilemma, Seoul has not made up its mind.

Asean, too, is divided over whether to prioritise the APT over the EAS or the other way around. Security concerns in the region favour the EAS whereas trade and investment trends reinforce the APT. Whichever vehicle gains more weight will determine community-building efforts in East Asia.

While Asean and South Korea are the pivots of East Asia, Seoul is in a much stronger position to nudge the region forward. Asean and its current chair should beware other emerging region-building schemes that are not Asean-centred, such as Australia's Asia-Pacific Community. For Asean, failure to put its house in order will risk it being bypassed and loss of its self-entitled "driver's seat".

Thitinan Pongsudhirak is director of the Institute of Security and International Studies, Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University.

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