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Published on September 11, 2007

The hullabaloo over the "aspirational goals" contained in the Sydney Declaration on Climate Change served as a good reminder. When the 21 leaders from Asia and Pacific get together once a year, they tend to discuss issues of their own concern. This year, climate change dominated the Apec agenda.

So, the question is whether climate change will continue to feature in future Apec discussions. Nobody here can say for sure. Can one reconcile the need to accelerate economic growth, as desired by developing countries, with the need for developed countries to reduce carbon dioxide emissions? Apparently, everybody wants everybody else to do something. The great challenge is to live up to everybody's expectations.

However, for the time being, the Apec policy makers are happy that the Sydney results will serve as a springboard for more detailed climate change discussions in Bali, Indonesia later this year.

Since the September 11, 2001 attacks, the US's preoccupation with terrorism has prevailed, and has shifted Apec debates from core activities such as trade liberalisation and promotion of investment to security concerns. Issues of the day such as the political situation in East Timor and potential pandemic diseases such as Sars and avian flu have had to jostle for attention at subsequent Apec meetings.

One has to commend Australia, the host of the latest summit, for its painstaking effort to bridge the gap, at least on paper - especially the huge gap in perception between the developed and developing Apec members over climate change and trade liberalisation. These were the main issues taken up by the media. But other topics discussed that would affect Apec's future direction did not receive much media attention.

One of these was the issue of new membership. The Sydney summit would have been historic if the group had taken the initiative to admit India as its 22nd member after the end of a 10-year moratorium this year. But Australia failed to push for India's inclusion due to a lack of consensus among members. The US strongly opposed India's inclusion. Some diplomats here would say this stance was due to uncompromising positions in regard to New Delhi's trade negotiations at the World Trade Organisation. The influence of the US Trade Representative is quite evident here. Others said it was due to India's strong support of Burma's military junta. Asean also wants to include Cambodia, while the Latin American group supports Colombia. No wonder the Apec leaders decided to extend the moratorium for another three years.

For the first time, the Apec leaders agreed to beef up the Apec Secretariat in Singapore. Extra funding from Japan and Australia will increase the secretariat's capacity in research and policy recommendations, especially those related to regional economic integration.

The proposed free-trade area in Asia and the Pacific region remains very much a pipe-dream at the moment, as more research is needed on this.

Domestically, the summit was a boost for Prime Minister John Howard's political standing. An editorial in Monday's The Australian declared the Apec meeting "a resounding success for Australia". Unfortunately it has not been sufficient to shore up his premiership, or so it seems. Latest polls conducted by Herald/Nielsen and published by the Sydney Morning Herald showed that if an election was held today the Labor Party would win with 57 per cent, and 52 per cent of those polled wanted Kevin Rudd as the next prime minister. It is possible Howard will call a new election in early November.

While Howard still retains some popularity at home, Rudd is more popular when it comes to personal charisma and diplomatic finesse. The opposition leader's ability to converse with Chinese president Hu Jintao in fluent Mandarin impressed many people and won him kudos. His visit to a strip club in the US, which was widely reported in the media recently, has not hurt his image at all. On the contrary, the controversy helped to boost his standing and improve on his perceived image as a dull personality. Rudd also performed well with other world leaders who met him.

In contrast, Howard chose to emphasise his relations with US President George W Bush. Somehow this was overplayed, and it backfired. The local media are not kind when they ridicule their leader. The public wants to see a more cosmopolitan leader who is not too pro-American. Rudd might just fit that bill.

If Rudd replaces Howard, it is clear that there will be closer ties with Asia, as in the 1980s, especially with China. There will certainly be a surge of Australians learning the Chinese language in the near future. These days at Sydney's Charles Kingsford Smith International Airport, half of the names of arriving visitors held up at the arrival gates are Chinese.

Kavi Chongkittavorn