Leaders Endorse Removal of Trade Barriers : Summit: APEC ministers promise to cut tariffs on goods ranging from paper to scientific equipment and toys. But they refuse to beef up organization’s structure.

Cabinet-level ministers at the 15-member Pacific Rim summit on Friday endorsed an effort to remove barriers to trade and investment and offered a new package of tariff cuts designed to push some stalemated global trade talks to a successful conclusion.

They also issued what some European observers here saw as an unusually tough call for progress on the global trade talks, known as the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, or GATT.

The multilateral talks are scheduled to end Dec. 15. In what he called an “urgent action” to meet that deadline, U.S. Trade Representative Mickey Kantor said members of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation group had promised to cut tariffs on a range of goods--from paper to scientific equipment and toys. Those industries in APEC countries are collectively worth $250 billion.

But APEC ministers refused to support wide-ranging proposals to beef up the structure of the APEC organization. President Clinton sees the group as the principal vehicle for promoting American exports in the world’s fastest-growing region. And ministers here shied away from setting a date by which they would start to work toward a full-fledged Asia-Pacific free trade region.

Indeed, the only concrete moves approved by the ministers were establishment of a new trade and investment committee as a permanent addition to APEC’s fragile structure and the special tariff offer for spurring GATT.

They refused to endorse extensive recommendations to build APEC’s functions and focus its goals.

The suggestions were compiled by an Eminent Persons Group established at last year’s APEC meeting in Bangkok, Thailand.

The group--headed by C. Fred Bergsten, director of the Institute for International Economics--was asked to spend another year to “refine and amplify” its recommendations, Secretary of State Warren Christopher said.

The group’s recommendations included one that APEC decide by 1996 on a future date by which to achieve free trade in the region.

“We subscribe to free trade globally, not just in APEC,” said Rafidah Aziz, Malaysia’s trade and industry minister. “But when a recommendation suggests radical changes in APEC, it must be studied very carefully.”

Even as the ministers were wrapping up discussions of their agenda--including approving APEC membership now for Mexico and Papua New Guinea and for Chile in 1994--Clinton made three new proposals. He asked for APEC finance ministers to meet next year, establishment of a “round table” of business and government leaders and creation of an Asian-Pacific education foundation to work with young people.

Japanese officials immediately raised their eyebrows at Clinton’s proposal for a finance ministers’ meeting; one official suggested that it is patently absurd that Japan should coordinate its economic policies with Papua New Guinea or that the United States should coordinate monetary policy with China.

Rafidah also expressed concern that Clinton’s proposal for such a session might become “institutionalized,” changing APEC’s original character.

“You cannot take so many nations with different governments and economies and all of a sudden say: ‘Here we are a community.’ ”

Malaysia has been the strongest opponent of strengthening APEC; its prime minister made a point of not attending the meeting here.

In his speech, Clinton offered a vision of APEC that contrasted dramatically with the Japanese go-slow approach. What the President had in mind was made clear in a comparison he offered: Just as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was a critical institution during the Cold War, Clinton said, “future generations may look back and say they can’t imagine how the Asian-Pacific region could have thrived in such a spirit of harmony without the existence of APEC.”

Clinton drew a picture of an Asian-Pacific community where, by the end of the decade, “robust and open competition is a source of jobs and opportunity without becoming a source of hostility and instability, a sense of resentment or unfairness.”

He envisioned a Japan that is not just an “economic colossus” but also pursues policies that will “enable our economic relations to be a source of greater mutual benefit and mutual satisfaction to our peoples.” In China, he saw both a global leader and a freer country.

“We must reach out to the economies of the Pacific,” Clinton concluded. “We must work with them to build a better future for our people and for theirs.”

Clinton did seek to allay fears that America would end up as the overpowering giant setting the agenda for APEC, saying: “This cannot be a United States show; this has got to be an Asian-Pacific combined partnership.”

But his vision of a new Pacific community reflected the great divide that exists between the group’s Western and Asian members. Clinton spoke of diversity as a strength in Asia, just as it is in America. But Asian nations, many of which regard themselves as racially homogeneous, commonly regard America’s ethnic diversity as a source of weakness. Clinton spoke of the emergence of human rights in a region where economic growth and responsible government are considered far more important than individual liberty.

Australian officials remained optimistic about APEC, an organization they initiated in 1989.

“I’m delighted by the progress we have made,” Foreign Affairs Minister Gareth Evans said. “The duck is paddling like crazy under water.”

He said APEC has moved from a group chiefly engaged in exchanging information to one that will begin developing common rules for trade and investment and establishing standards.

“We are moving into some hard-edged areas that we hope will produce significant agreements,” he said.

* BOOST FOR TRADE PACT: Trade negotiators in Geneva see hope for a long-stalled pact on global tariff reductions. A12