KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 14: Australia insisted on Wednesday it was not a junior partner at East Asia’s first summit, after China suggested that it was on a second tier in the grouping which it fought hard to join.

“No, I don’t think so,” Prime Minister John Howard told reporters when asked whether it was a second-class participant at the inaugural 16-nation talks which covered security and trade issues.

“I feel very comfortable with the way in which Australia interacts and relates, and the experience of these meetings and the bilateral exchanges only serve to reinforce the approach that we have taken,” he said.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao insisted earlier that the original 13 members of the East Asia Summit — the 10-nation Southeast Asian bloc plus China, Japan and South Korea — would guide the future of Asian integration.

The other three — Australia, India and New Zealand — were controversially included as a counterweight to Beijing’s influence in the forum where the United States is not represented.

“The East Asia Summit should respect the desires of East Asian countries, and should be led by East Asian countries,” Mr Wen said, while adding that the other three were ‘welcome’ to participate.

Mr Howard said that although it was a historical fact that Australia was ‘not an Asian country’, it belonged in the grouping because of its common interests with the countries of the region.

“We should never see ourselves as being exclusively part of one part of the world,” he added. “I find this frantic search for a precise unanimously accepted definition of who we are is a load of nonsense.”

Mr Howard also weighed in on the subject of Russia’s bid to join the East Asia Summit.

“I talked about the need not to expand the East Asia Summit just for the sake of expansion,” he said.—AFP