Word: apec
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TIME economics correspondent Suneel Ratan says the real APEC action may have been Clinton's buttering-up of China, the big engine fueling the Asian economic explosion and arguably APEC's most important partner. The Chinese are "going to be like Japan, but outstrip our Japanese problem by an order of magnitude," Ratan says. The APEC summit, he adds, lays groundwork for serious negotiations with China on what it really wants: entry into the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT) sooner than 2020. Not discussed: China's human rights record, which Clinton separated from renewal of China's Most...
President Clinton, on a two-day jaunt to Indonesia for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, downplayed U.S. concerns over human rights in China in favor of an issue on which the 18 participating nations could agree -- enforcing the U.S. nuclear-freeze accord with North Korea. After one-on-one talks with presidents and prime ministers of several Asian countries -- including key U.S. trading partners China, Japan and South Korea -- Clinton won pledges for continued pressure on Pyongyang to halt and ultimately dismantle its nuclear program. (The group has already endorsed the deal; Clinton aides are now negotiating...
...deadline for completion. Indeed, the timing of the Seattle meeting was calculated in part to send a message to Europe, and especially France, which has balked at concluding the GATT round because it demands heavy cuts in farm subsidies. "If our efforts to secure global trade agreements falter, then APEC still offers us a way to expand markets within this, the fastest-growing region of the globe," Clinton said pointedly...
...more concrete effort to nudge the GATT round along, APEC members of GATT agreed to reduce or eliminate tariffs on a wide range of products, including electronics, nonferrous metals, paper, wood, oilseeds and scientific equipment -- and to make those cuts available to all GATT members. Trade in these goods by APEC members of GATT amounts to some $250 billion a year...
...APEC as a whole shied away from a suggestion that it monitor regional human- rights abuses, along with any notion that it should move toward trade-bloc status. The group even rejected a change in its awkward name -- Australian Foreign Minister Gareth Evans calls it "four adjectives in search of a noun" -- rather than label itself a "community." Reason: the term suggests the kind of integration that Asian nations say they want to avoid. And besides, said Hong Kong Financial Secretary Hamish Macleod, "People are a little wary of possibly being dominated by the U.S. I think the majority view...