Who said anything about an Asia Pacific Union?
June 6th, 2008Author: Dominic Meagher
Within hours of the Prime Minister raising the need of forethought and discussion to deliberately shape the evolution of our regional architecture naysayers had begun to publish straw-man arguments.
Matthew Franklin at the Australian leads with the headline, Kevin Rudd to Drive Asia Pacific Union, and claims:
Kevin Rudd wants to spearhead the creation of an Asia-Pacific Union similar to the European Union by 2020.
Today Mike Steketee, also at the Australian runs the headline, Don’t push EU model say ex-PMs, Bob Hawke and Paul Keating, and refers to Paul Keating as saying “an economic union modelled on the European experience was unachievable and inappropriate for the region.”
Of course Kevin Rudd never suggested creating an Asia-Pacific Union similar to the European Union. In his entire speech the word union was only uttered once:
The European Union of course does not represent an identikit model of what we would seek to develop in the Asia Pacific.
By falsely claiming that the PM has called for an Asia Pacific Union Matthew Franklin and Mike Steketee are constructing a straw-man, vulnerable to the argument that such a plan is unachievable.
If Matthew Franklin and Mike Steketee think the Prime Minister has articulated a bad idea, they should provide some careful arguments about why they think so. Instead, they have constructed a false description of the Prime Minister’s ideas. Peter Drysdale gives a fuller and more accurate account of the PM’s speech here. But just to dwell on a couple of key lines:
We need to have a vision for an Asia Pacific Community.
The purpose is to encourage the development of a genuine and comprehensive sense of community whose habitual operating principle is cooperation.
The danger in not acting is that we run the risk of succumbing to the perception that future conflict within our region may somehow be inevitable.
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Update:
As for Robyn Lim’s ill-formed rant, you can judge that for yourself.
Related articles:
- Kevin Rudd’s multi-layered Asia Pacific Community initiative
- Realizing the Asia Pacific Community: geographic, institutional and leadership challenges
- Rudd in Singapore on the Asia Pacific Community idea
- The Asia Pacific Community: objectives, not institutions
- South Korea’s ‘Bulldozer’ seeks a partner in Rudd
- Clinton’s visit to Indonesia
- Japan: Party A vs. Party B
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