By Xinhua,
Canberra : Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd called for a debate on the need for a more structured Asia Pacific Community — possibly similar to the European Union — to be in place by 2020.
In a written copy of a speech to the Asia Society Austral Asia Centre on Wednesday, Rudd said, “I believe it is time that we started to think about where we want to be with our regional architecture in 2020.”
“We believe that we need to anticipate the historic changes in our region and seek to shape them, rather than simply reacting to them.”
Asia would be at the center of global economic and strategic affairs this century, and Australia needed to position itself to make a strong contribution to the region.
In order to prepare for the “Asia-Pacific century”, Rudd said it was necessary to foster good economic and security relations within the region.
While organizations like APEC, ASEAN and the East Asia Summit had their own positive role to play, Rudd said none were suitable to handle a broader regional vision.
“That is why the new Australian government argues that we should now begin the regional debate about where we want to be in 2020,” he said.
The Australian prime minister wanted such an institution to span the entire Asia Pacific, including the United States, Japan, China and India.
Rudd said the Asia Pacific could learn lessons from Europe, where many skeptics saw integration as unrealistic in the 1950s.
“The European Union of course does not represent an identikit model of what we would seek to develop in the Asia Pacific,” he said.
Rudd has appointed former foreign affairs secretary and one-time ambassador to Indonesia Richard Woolcott as Australia’s envoy on this “important matter of unfinished regional business.”