12 Pacific Rim Nations Back Free Trade : Commerce: A conference marks the first step in a program to improve cooperation. But China, Taiwan and Hong Kong aren’t included.

Leaders of 12 Pacific Rim nations, unanimously proclaiming their support for free trade, agreed Tuesday to take a coordinated approach to the current round of international trade talks and scheduled two more annual ministerial conferences.

At the conclusion of a three-day meeting in the Australian capital, foreign and economic ministers of the 12 nations agreed to meet again next year in Singapore in conjunction with the 25th anniversary of that country’s independence and in 1991 in South Korea. But they put off a decision on establishing a permanent Asia-Pacific structure.

They also deferred a decision on inviting China, Taiwan and Hong Kong--all conspicuously absent from this first government-level attempt to promote Asia-Pacific economic cooperation. Lee Hsien Loong, Singapore’s minister of trade and industry, said invitations to any of the three increasingly influential Chinese economies to next summer’s meeting were “very much in doubt.”

A U.S. official said later that it would be awkward to include China so soon after the suppression of the pro-democracy movement last June, and that Hong Kong and Taiwan could not be invited without China.

The results, although extremely modest, were all that U.S. officials had expected before the conference began. Secretary of State James A. Baker III declared the meeting a success.

“I don’t know whether I would use the term historic yet, but I think this has the potential to qualify for that type of description,” Baker said at a news conference attended by 21 ministers from the 12 countries.

“We made substantial progress, real results. We have agreed upon a process. It is quite clear that we haven’t completed all of the decisions that hopefully we will ultimately take in order to improve economic cooperation in the Pacific. But this is, in my view at least, a very clear and substantial step forward toward the improvement of international economic relations, in general, and it should be welcomed worldwide.”

Referring to a commitment to liberalize trade and fight protectionism that the 12 enunciated in a communique, Baker said the new grouping “can deal with (American) trade imbalances that have existed and continue to exist” with Japan as well as with others in the group.

The 12 also pledged to reduce impediments to trade among themselves.

Gareth Evans, Australia’s foreign minister, said the inaugural session of what is being called APEC (for Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation) had produced “not just rhetorical feathers but lots of meat as well.”

The most specific commitment for cooperation called for trade ministers of the 12 countries to meet in September, 1990, and again in early December to work together to remove any last-minute obstacles to a successful conclusion of the Uruguay Round of multilateral trade negotiations that must be concluded by the end of next year.

These two meetings, along with the annual ministerial meeting next summer of the Assn. of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the Singapore APEC conference, guarantee that top officials of the 12 countries will meet at least four times next year.

ASEAN, composed of the Philippines, Indonesia, Brunei, Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia, holds annual consultations with ministers from the United States, Japan, Canada, Australia and New Zealand following its own regular meeting. Starting next year, South Korea will attend the post-ASEAN consultations.

All 12 of those nations were represented at the Canberra meeting, which Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke called in an effort to set up what might become an Asian equivalent of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

On a lower level, the 12 nations agreed to assign officials to begin work on two technical projects and study a host of proposals for more than a dozen other cooperative ventures. U.S. officials said this process, intended to remove impediments to international business, may be the most important outcome of the meeting.

Throughout the conference, the United States and Japan went out of their way to avoid offending the ASEAN nations, who had feared that their regional cooperation might be swallowed up by a new and bigger grouping. A compromise was struck by refraining from setting up any new fixed organization to carry on APEC projects and, instead, assigning officials from each country to work with the ASEAN secretariat to draw up plans for next summer’s ministerial meeting in Singapore.

A senior U.S. official said Washington came to the meeting with five modest objectives and achieved them all. He said they were to move the “fragile process” forward, to develop a mechanism to plan future meetings, to “lock in” agreement to hold at least two more meetings, to develop a program of specific projects and to “get some specific focus on the Uruguay Round.”

In the communique, the leaders said none of them “believes that Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation should be directed to the formation of a trading bloc” like the European Communities.

Participants said repeatedly that their organization will be open to the rest of the world and will not try to establish any barriers that might give an advantage to members in their dealings with other nations.

In these circumstances, however, it is not clear what reason a nation might have for joining the new grouping. U.S. officials said different countries will have different reasons for participating but that the main incentive will be to help formulate proposals to break down impediments to economic growth.