Little Achieved At Asia Conference

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31654, 15 April 1968, Page 9

Little Achieved At Asia Conference

(NZ.PA.-Reuter —Copyright; SINGAPORE, April 14. The South-East Asian Ministerial conference for economic development, which ended in Singapore on Thursday, could be remembered for a purely negative achievement; it resisted attempts to freeze its structure in its present form.

Disappointment in the lack of positive achievements, particularly in the political sense, is thus eased by a hope that in 1969 or 1970 the conference will develop into something more than a dole line at which South-East Asian nations seek from a hard-headed Japan. Such an apparently petty issue as the refusal of the conference to give itself a name is an indication of the wish of the majority to retain a degree of fluidity which could yet lead to a broadening of membership and motives.

Observers from India, Pakistan, Ceylon, Australia and New Zealand, who had been invited by Singapore (the host country) despite the protests of Japan, were excluded from the meaningful sessions of

the conference. The conclusion was inevitable that payment of the piper was enabling Japan to call the political tune.

But an unexpected degree of opposition from South-East Asian countries late on Wednesday (the communiquedrafting committee had to sit well into the morning hours) produced a compromise which left Japan less than completely certain that she would be allowed to dominate future conferences.

Observers who had hoped that the 1968 conference would see the beginnings of a New Delhi-Djakarta - Tokyo axis were certainly disappointed. The conference was, too, a disappointing first example for many years of Japan flexing her political muscles. Hopes were dimmed that Japan would see her role as a donor nation, and a force for political stability, in a truly multi-lateral light. But at least hope was not denied for 1969 and 1970.