SYDNEY: They came, they saw, and they shook a lot of hands, but as Asia-Pacific leaders wrapped up another summit on Sunday, the question was whether their annual get-together produced very much.
Most participants and observers said the answer is, well, a little.
The Sydney summit’s flagship announcement was an agreement to work toward reducing greenhouse gas emissions, which Australian Prime Minister John Howard touted as a “milestone” in efforts to curb global warming.
Leaders of the 21 economies here, which together represent nearly half of world trade and include China and the United States, urged swift action to spur talks on breaking down barriers to global commerce.
They also discussed issues from the safety of food products, intellectual piracy and corruption to the fight against bird flu and terrorism, as well as regional security — even if there was little new.
Roberto Romulo, a former Philippines foreign minister who now sits on a business advisory group to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) forum, said it was normal for a summit to achieve less than what it had aimed at.
“Look at it as 21 people sleeping on the same bed,” he told reporters here.
“Each one of them is dreaming his or her own dream.” Still, analyst Charles Morrison said he had been “pleasantly surprised” by this year’s event.
“I think there’s not much in the way of... a big concrete output, but the spirit was good,” said Morrison, director of the Hawaii-based East-West Center on Asia-Pacific relations.
He said the advantage of a summit was not the nitty-gritty — sorted out at officials’ level — but the chance to chew over concerns privately with other Apec leaders.
“There’s a little bit of competition between the leaders of the big powers, competition for a sense that you are a vigorous world leader,” he said.
Richard Broinowski, a former Australian ambassador, was dismissive though, saying that on the contrary, “very little has been achieved”. He echoed the reaction of environmental activists and others that Howard’s climate deal was empty as it contained no binding commitments and reaffirmed the United Nations as the main forum against global warming.
“This is a sideshow. It’s not a breakthrough at all,” he said.
The summit’s focus on climate change and security was not really what Apec was supposed to be about, he said, while US President George Bush had been so “mesmerised” by the war in Iraq that he had neglected Asia.
Chinese President Hu Jintao oversaw a deal to import liquefied natural gas from Australia and Putin an accord with Howard allowing Moscow to buy uranium produced here, while Bush hailed the Australian leader for his unstinting support in Iraq.
“In diplomacy you cannot be 100 per cent satisfied. Agreements are a product of negotiations,” Indonesian Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda commented after the climate change wrangling.—AFP
