Pacific Group Plans to Admit ‘3 Chinas’

Leaders of 12 Pacific Rim nations tentatively agreed Monday to open the way for “three Chinas”--the People’s Republic of China, Taiwan and Hong Kong--to join their fledgling international organization within the next few years.

The decision apparently clears the way for China to become the only Communist economy in Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), an organization founded last year to promote trade and economic links among the nations of the Pacific Rim. APEC is modeled upon a similar European institution, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

To join APEC, however, the Chinese regime in Beijing would have to be willing to let Hong Kong and Taiwan enter the organization on some kind of independent basis. It is not clear that China would be willing to do this, although Beijing has already taken part in the Asian Development Bank alongside Taiwan.

Although APEC is a relatively new organization, membership in it could prove extremely important in the future. APEC’s 12 original members account for nearly 50% of total world output of goods and services and about one-third of total world trade. The 12 nations are the United States, Japan, South Korea, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines and Brunei.

At APEC’s first meeting in Australia last November, the 12 Pacific Rim nations postponed any decision on whether China, Taiwan and Hong Kong should be invited to participate.

Just last week, Secretary of State James A. Baker III had hinted that the United States might not be ready to let China into APEC.

“We strongly support broadening APEC to include important market economies in the Pacific region,” Baker said. Although Hong Kong and Taiwan have market economies, China does not.

However, a Japanese Foreign Ministry spokesman said last week that Japan would favor the inclusion of China, Hong Kong and Taiwan in the new Pacific Rim economic grouping.

On Monday, after the 12 APEC nations opened a series of meetings here, a senior State Department official told reporters: “There is a willingness among all 12 nations to explore bringing (to APEC) the People’s Republic of China, Hong Kong and Taiwan . . . as long as they all come in together.”

The U.S. official said there is no timetable yet for the three Chinese jurisdictions to join the organization. Instead, he said, details will be studied between now and APEC’s next annual meeting, which will be held in Seoul.

It remains unclear how Hong Kong and Taiwan would be identified within APEC, since the government in Beijing generally refuses to accept any formula under which either one of them is identified as a nation or government.

Hong Kong, now a British colony, will return to Chinese sovereignty in 1997. However, under the accord signed by China and Britain in 1984, Hong Kong specifically retains the right to continue to be an independent member of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade after that time. It is possible that Hong Kong could be allowed to join APEC in the same fashion.

The State Department official, who briefed reporters on the condition that he not be identified, also suggested that both Taiwan and Hong Kong could be allowed into APEC as “economies” rather than as countries.