Asia-Europe Meeting closes in Bangkok to back slapping all around

6th March 1995

The inaugural Asia-Europe meeting ended this week with commentators and leaders attesting to a "feel-good" factor if not to substantive progress in Euro-Asian relations. Most European and Asian leaders were represented at the meeting with several gate crashers including Blanchard. Europe, preoccupied with the formation of their European Union internal trading block and the "closer-to-home" Asian political issue of Hong Kong's imminent return to Chinese rule, has generally given second place to relationships with the Asian region as a whole, leaving the running to the US.

This meeting was meant to stimulate talks and, to be fair, the goals have always been modest enough to focus on "relationship building" rather than substantive agreements. By all accounts these modest aims were met with the next meeting venue and time agreed. The French were quick to offer their technology to the building of the Sing/KL/Bangkok railway, with suggestions, being French of course, that the network also be extended to Vietnam. Pre summit concerns that the touchy topic of Human Rights would mar the positive aspects of the meeting proved unfounded. To this correspondent however this was not a surprise. Clinton's significant recent backdown to China on human rights issues may well prove to be a turning point in Western/Eastern relations where (economic and political) "might" again reasserts its historical position over "rights". It is indeed peculiar that the East falls for the West's posturing as the bastion of human rights and reinforces this perception by defensiveness on the issue. To many observers of Western/Eastern culture and philosophy, the present positions on the debate are more influenced by stage of industrial/economic development rather than cultural values.

The US, Australia and NZ were not invited, besides Australia had other things on its mind last weekend, mainly the Gay Mardi Gras in Sydney and the elections, the former gaining a higher television viewer rating.

Alternative views in the most free and maybe not coincidentally high quality papers in the region, namely the Bangkok Post and The Nation (both English language Bangkok newspapers), included the observation by social critic Marissa Chantamas that "a high economic growth rate is not in itself something to aspire to when there is no social justice, particularly fair distribution of the national wealth and resources...". Sulak Sivaraksa saw the summit as "simply a continuation of Western imperialism in Asia - but this time through trade".

Sivaraksa's comments deserve close attention. He states that "..many people accept Western superiority in thinking..". It remains an anachronism that many Asian countries have achieved economic success by adopting and admittedly pragmatically inculcating successful techniques developed in the West (to whit Japan's highly successful adoption of TQM before the West and the "consumer" society which encourages economic activity by holding out the promise of spiralling costly consumer good rewards such as TV's, stereo systems and five star hotels in return for labor.), while talking of upholding :"Asian values". Still, ....more of that later..

To resort to my own cultural perspective, (though I am sure there are similar instances in Eastern philosophy and religion), and to quote Matthew chapter and verse "For what does it benefit a man, should he gain the whole world but lose his very soul.?".