ASEAN Secretariat, Jakarta, 15 August 2002

          It gives me great pleasure to welcome you all to the ASEAN Secretariat.  I thank you for joining us in what we consider to be a very important forum.  I wish especially to thank His Excellency Dr. Hassan Wirajuda, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Indonesia, and His Excellency Mr. Hor Namhong, Senior Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Cambodia, for graciously consenting to keynote our gathering.  Minister Hor Namhong came all the way from Phnom Penh and Tokyo.  We deeply appreciate that, as we give special thanks to those of you who have come from overseas to be with us today.

          We are gathered here for the next one and a half days to form partnerships in support of the Initiative for ASEAN Integration.  This is ASEAN’s program for narrowing the development gap between its older and newer members, an endeavor to help the newer members move up closer to the development levels of the older members.

          Viet Nam, Laos, Myanmar and Cambodia joined ASEAN in the period from 1995 to 1999 – that is, 28 to 32 years after ASEAN’s founding in 1967.  At that time, apprehensions were expressed over the danger that a “two-tier” ASEAN would emerge.  ASEAN shared, and continues to share, this concern.  But ASEAN’s approach has been not to exclude certain countries of the region by virtue of their level of development but to bring all of Southeast Asia together under the ASEAN roof and help the newer members integrate themselves into our association.

          I explained this in Melbourne almost two months ago.  At a forum organized by Asialink in that city, I said, “Misgivings were raised about a ‘two-tier’ ASEAN.  However, for ASEAN, Southeast Asian solidarity is a strategic imperative.  Its collateral effects will just have to be dealt with.  The only thing worse than a two-tier ASEAN is a two-tier Southeast Asia – one in ASEAN and the other outside it.  ASEAN’s response to the ‘two-tier’ problem is not to keep out the weaker economies of Southeast Asia but to bring them in, seek to integrate them in ASEAN, and help close the development gap between them and the older members.”

          I added:

          “I believe that this is the only effective way of helping the so-called CLMV countries achieve a better life for their people through regional and international cooperation.  It is the positive way, the constructive way.  I believe that the way of confrontation and isolation is counter-productive.  On the other hand, being part of ASEAN and its culture of economic openness and tight linkages with the rest of the world can lead to the further opening of the CLMV’s economies, the strengthening of the rule of law, and the development of the political structures for bringing these about.  ASEAN has to keep at this, and the CLMV countries themselves will have to respond with the necessary policies.”

          ASEAN’s leaders have launched the Initiative for ASEAN Integration as a program to make sure that a two-tier ASEAN is not perpetuated.  This is based on the logic that closing the development gap, the more rapid development of ASEAN’s newer members, is good for ASEAN as a whole and for its individual members.

          In pursuit of this vision of ASEAN’s leaders, ASEAN, led by the newer members themselves and with Japan’s support, has put together a work plan, which you have in your hands.  This forum is about forming partnerships to carry out the measures and projects that make up the plan.  My colleagues and I will discuss this with you during the day.

          In the meantime, I thank most deeply the ASEAN officials, the multilateral institutions, the consultants, the Japanese Government, and, not least, my colleagues in the ASEAN Secretariat who collaborated on the IAI work plan and organized this forum.

          And I thank once again Ministers Hassan Wirajuda and Hor Namhong for lending the weight of their presence to this forum and sharing their wisdom with us.   We will now hear from them.