The Pacific : Dissidents Press APEC to Take Concrete Steps : Trade: Tariffs, other barriers must be removed or Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation risks losing supporters, they say.

As Asia’s economic leaders prepare their dance cards for November’s annual waltz of regional trade liberalization known as APEC, impatient voices are threatening to drown out the orchestra.

Dissidents from Tokyo to Seattle are warning leaders of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum that they had better do something serious about removing barriers such as discriminatory tariffs and restrictive investment practices at their meeting in Osaka, Japan, or risk banishing APEC to a world of irrelevant global acronyms.

Last month, about 30 of APEC’s next-generation leaders meeting in Seattle called upon their elders to “not let a lack of political resolve be an impediment to progress in APEC.” And in Newport Beach, a group of leading Asia-Pacific business executives urged APEC to move more aggressively or risk losing their support.

They said concrete measures such as streamlined business-visa processing and the standardization of customs procedures are desperately needed. An executive applying for a business visa to one APEC country complained that he was required to produce six documents--including bank statements--and a guarantee that the traveler would return home.

“We want APEC to help us do business better, faster and more effectively,” said Les McCraw, the chairman and chief executive of Irvine-based Fluor Corp. and host of last month’s Pacific Business Forum meeting.

In a region that stretches from East Asia to the west coast of North America, it is not easy to gain a consensus on anything. But a growing number of people seem to be in agreement that it is time for this fledgling regional economic organization to walk the walk as well as it talks the talk.

Even APEC’s most vocal supporters admit that won’t be easy.

“The job they have this year is much tougher than in the past,” said a high-ranking Clinton Administration official.

Japan’s Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama, who is the host of this fall’s APEC meeting, is struggling to hold together a coalition government beset by bad economic news and natural disasters. Conflicts between the United States and three of its largest Asian trading partners--Japan, China and South Korea--have poisoned relations with neighboring countries fearful they will be next on the U.S sanctions hit list.

And nearly everyone agrees that this year’s APEC organizers face a much tougher task than their predecessors, who won praise at last year’s meeting in Indonesia for simply delivering a vague pronouncement on the importance of free trade and agreeing to reduce regional trade barriers by the year 2010 for industrialized countries and 2020 for developing countries.

President Clinton is scheduled to attend a leader’s meeting that will follow this year’s APEC ministerial session in Osaka.

Promoting regional economic integration has become about as controversial as motherhood. But drafting a blueprint that pinpoints which barriers come down, and when, is messy work. It means negotiating a raft of highly sensitive conflicts--between large and small economies, Asians and Westerners, Muslims and non-Muslims, and business executives and bureaucrats.

The division between the “soft push” and “hard shove” camps remains a fundamental conflict within APEC, according to Mike Mullen, director of the Seattle-based National Center for APEC.

The Japanese government’s draft blueprint for the November summit would allow APEC countries to retain tariffs and other protectionist measures indefinitely, taking into consideration the “uniqueness of member countries,” according to Japanese media reports. The United States and others do not want to create any loopholes in the Osaka plan that would allow the most reluctant members to drag their feet.

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One of the hottest issues is agriculture. The United States, Australia, Canada and others have pushed hard to include in the APEC plan all sectors of the economy, even politically sensitive areas such as textiles, agriculture and intellectual property protection.

Joan Spero, undersecretary of state for economic affairs, said the U.S. push for comprehensiveness is the only way of preventing countries from circling the wagons to protect their traditional ways of doing business.

“What everybody recognizes is if somebody tries to take one issue off the table, then the whole thing unravels,” she said.

But some of Asia’s most powerful countries are not on board. Japan, Taiwan, China and South Korea have balked at including agriculture in the APEC plan.

Philippine Finance Minister Roberto de Ocampo said last week that those APEC economies should be willing to buck powerful domestic political interests as proof of their support for the APEC process.

“We would like to have, if nothing else, a better example to follow,” he said during a stopover in Los Angeles on his way to Washington, D.C., for a World Bank meeting.

Business leaders are also expressing impatience. At last month’s meeting, the Pacific Business Forum called on APEC to establish one-stop investment agencies, adopt visa-free business travel and speed the deadline for doing away with the trade barriers agreed to under the global trade treaty overseen by the World Trade Organization.

Nobuo Tatesi, vice chairman of the Omron Corp., a leading Japanese automated components manufacturer, said business leaders throughout Asia share a united vision of APEC because their experiences in the trenches transcend nationality or culture.

“APEC must be driven by the private sector, not government initiatives,” said the outspoken executive. “We are putting pressure on the leaders to do something.”

Tensions also have arisen around the cultural differences represented in this diverse economic organization, whose 18 members include some of the world’s wealthiest and poorest countries.