Clinton, APEC Summit Leaders Hail ‘New Voice’

Leaders of 14 principal economies of Asia and the Pacific concluded an unprecedented summit Saturday with a declaration pledging closer economic cooperation but taking few concrete steps toward that goal.

The leaders, ending the Seattle summit with an informal session on a Puget Sound island, talked for several hours before issuing a statement proclaiming “a growing sense of community among us” and declaring that their meeting “reflects the emergence of a new voice for the Asia Pacific in world affairs.”

The leaders agreed to convene a similar meeting next year in Indonesia--a step toward institutionalizing the five-year-old Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum. “Like all human relationships, the more we’re together, the more natural it is,” President Clinton said as he left Blake Island to return here. The relationship among the leaders “got better as it went along--like life,” he said.

In a potentially significant step, the 14 leaders also promised renewed efforts to meet a mid-December deadline for concluding a new world trade agreement that has been stalemated for seven years. The Clinton Administration had sought the statement as a way of putting further pressure on European nations, particularly France, that have been dragging their feet on the trade talks.

With negotiations on the overall trade agreement--the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT)--reconvening in Washington on Monday, France “is now completely isolated,” a senior Administration official declared. He predicted that over the next three weeks the European Community will drop enough of its objections to U.S. proposals on agricultural trade to allow an agreement to be reached.

Influencing the world trade talks has been a major subtext of the meetings here.

With an eye on his domestic audience, Clinton and his aides have taken pains to portray last week’s approval of the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico, the Asia-Pacific talks here and the GATT negotiations as a “triple play” that, together, will yield greater economic growth for the United States by boosting exports.

A successful GATT agreement, Clinton argues, could create tens of thousands of jobs in the United States by boosting exports, particularly in agriculture and such services as banking and insurance, and by offering firmer copyright protections to American creative works, from movies to computer software.

At the same time, Clinton advisers hope that the sight of U.S. officials meeting with their counterparts from Asia has sent a clear message to Europe that, if the GATT talks stall, the United States has other places to turn as it seeks to expand its trade. While Administration officials have tried, diplomatically, to avoid any statements that might sound like threats, they have left little doubt about the signal they want Geneva-based GATT negotiators to receive.

“I think our partners in Geneva could not have missed the significance of what happened here,” U.S. Trade Representative Mickey Kantor told a group of reporters Saturday morning.

“The message to Europe,” Clinton said, is that “we want Europe to work with us to get a good GATT agreement.”

Aside from the opportunity to influence world trade negotiations, Clinton had convened the Pacific leaders’ meeting in the hope that the Asia-Pacific forum can evolve into a key institution for developing cross-Pacific trade.

Clinton aides concede that they will not know for months, perhaps years, whether the seeds planted at the session will bear fruit, but the past week’s effort has been a good beginning, they insisted.

“For the first time . . . our region has a means to hold serious policy discussions on such questions as how to remove trade barriers or how to sustain robust growth,” Clinton said at a press conference midway through the Blake Island meeting.

“With today’s meeting, we’re helping the Asian Pacific to become a genuine community, not a formal legal structure, but rather a community of shared interests, shared goals and shared commitment,” he said.

U.S. officials, joined by Australia, have pushed for faster development of APEC into a true institution capable of taking action in economic areas. But the Administration has had to accept a slower timetable in deference to the reluctance of many Asian countries.

Still, Administration officials insist that they got what they really needed. “We’re more than satisfied,” Kantor said.

Winston Lord, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, said several specific initiatives were proposed on Blake Island, beyond the scripted “vision statement” that Clinton outlined.

Among the proposals is that small- and medium-size companies--which are responsible for the bulk of exports in most APEC member economies--be involved in private-sector discussions with APEC officials, along with larger corporations, Lord said.

Kantor predicted improvements in the nagging trade problems between the United States and China, saying that despite uncompromising public statements, he believes Chinese leaders understand that their nation’s current trade policies are “unacceptable.”

After talks with the Chinese about trade problems ranging from textiles to copyrights, “I have some optimism now that we can make great progress,” he said, although he conceded that “that does not imply that any commitments were made” by the Chinese.

In an apparent effort to resolve outstanding differences between the United States and the less developed nations of Southeast Asia, Kantor and Commerce Secretary Ronald H. Brown announced that they had met with the six trade ministers from the Assn. of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and agreed to establish the U.S.-ASEAN Alliance for Mutual Growth.

Neither official elaborated on the new program, but Kantor suggested it would focus on stimulating trade. The United States has a $12-billion trade deficit with ASEAN nations--Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore and Brunei.

Times staff writer Karl Schoenberger contributed to this report.

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Pacific Rim Conference

Pacific Rim leaders chose a woodsy, low-key setting for Saturday’s informal summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum. The meeting at Blake Island, a 473-acre patch of land 40 minutes by ferry from Seattle, was intended to replace the formal trappings of international summitry with a relaxed setting that showed the Pacific Northwest at its wild and scenic best. The dress code for the 14 leaders--the Malaysian delegate did not attemd--was casual. And the setting was a rustic lodge where the walls were decorated with wooden masks representing the carvings of coastal American Indians.

AUSTRALIA: Prime Minister Paul Keating

BRUNEI: Sultan Muda Hassanal Bolkiah

CANADA: Prime Minister Jean Chretien

CHINA: President Jiang Zemin

HONG KONG: Finance Secretary Hamish MacLeod

INDONESIA: President Suharto

JAPAN: Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa

NEW ZEALAND: Prime Minister Jim Bolger

PHILIPPINES: President Fidel V. Ramos

SINGAPORE: Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong

SOUTH KOREA: President Kim Young Sam

TAIWAN: Economics Minister Vincent Siew

THAILAND: Prime Minister Chuan Leekpai

UNITED STATES: President Clinton