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BURMA RELATED NEWS - April 15,
2002.
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HEADLINES
----------------------------------------------------------------- AFP - ASEAN-China cooperation face formidable
challenges: experts
Asia Pulse - Vietnam Firm Exports Mineral Water
Abroad
Reuters - Singapore says ASEAN needs link with China
for growth
AP - India reopens case of Thai Airways hijacking by
Myanmar activists
BBC - Burmese activist on trial in India
NSTP - Fear over Myanmar opium crop
meeting Afghan shortfall
----------------------------------------------------------------- Monday April 15, 3:38 PM
ASEAN-China cooperation face formidable challenges: experts SINGAPORE, April 15 (AFP) -
Economic disparity and unresolved regional issues such as the overlapping claims
to the Spratly islands are some of the key challenges to the full blooming of
ASEAN-China cooperation, experts said Monday.
Despite rising competition from the awakened Asian dragon, there is still
room for economic cooperation and complementarity between China and the
Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), they said.
Trade issues aside, the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States
has also led to an expansion of cooperation in counter-terrorism and measures to
address poverty.
Leaders of ASEAN and China last year agreed to work out a free trade
agreement within the next 10 years to create a market of nearly two billion
people, but the analysts said the scheme faced formidable political and economic
hurdles.
Among these is the wide gap in the levels of economic development within
the 10-member ASEAN as well as within China itself, the political analysts said
at a forum on the challenges facing ASEAN-China cooperation.
Jusuf Wanandi, a political analyst with the Jakarta-based Centre for
Strategic and International Studies, said ASEAN has yet to fully recover from
the 1997-1998 financial crisis, while China had grown "tremendously" during that
period.
"These problems are huge because the discrepancy is there," he said at the
forum organised by the Singapore Institute of International Affairs.
"The crisis in the ASEAN countries is not yet over," he said, adding the
growing competition with China was just what the group needed in order to "shape
up."
Singapore Environment Minister Lim Swee Say in a keynote address pushed for
a unified Southeast Asian economy, warning China's rise on the world stage
carried "deep implications" for the region.
He said ASEAN must "promptly adjust in order to rebalance China's effects
on the region".
Wanandi however also noted there is also a wide disparity between China's
interior provinces and its more developed coastal areas which needed to be
bridged.
On the regional level, festering regional issues like conflicting claims to
the Spratly islands and, on a broader East Asian context, the tensions on the
Korean Peninsula and the Taiwan Straits cannot be swept under the rug of
economic cooperation, the experts said.
"There are other permanent issues in this part of the world that are still
with us despite what happened on September 11," Wanandi said.
He cited the dispute over the Spratly islands in the South China Sea
claimed in whole or in part by China, Taiwan and four ASEAN states -- Brunei,
Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam.
The other ASEAN members are Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar, Singapore
and Thailand.
China-Japan ties, burdened by historical baggage resulting from World War
II, and relations between China and Taiwan are also crucial to the broader East
Asian region, Wanandi said.
The evolvement of the ASEAN plus three framework involving ASEAN as well as
China, Japan and South Korea also hinges on Beijing's ties with Tokyo, he
added.
"There problems definitely are existing, have to be recognised and
ultimately taken care of so that it will not get out of hand," he said.
Lu Zhongwei, president of the China Institute of Contemporary International
Relations, acknowledged that China and ASEAN "still do not see eye to eye on
every strategic issue, which becomes a hurdle to a further development of the
relations."
Beijing is aware of the perception of China being a threat and has taken
steps to assure its smaller neighbours that it was also in China's interest to
cooperate with ASEAN, he said.
China could be a market for consumer goods produced from Southeast Asia and
a "stabiliser" for regional finance, Lu said.
----------------------------------------------------------------- Monday April 15, 11:32 AM
Vietnam Firm Exports Mineral Water Abroad HANOI, April 15 Asia Pulse -
Vinh Hao Mineral Water Joint Stock Company has dispatched the first of three
shipments to the US, Australia and Canada, becoming the country's first mineral
water exporter.
The consignment comprised of 12 containers of carbonated mineral spring
water bottles, worth VND500 million (over US$33,300).
The remaining two shipments, of four containers each, will take place later
this month.
According to the company's general director Dang Ngoc Can, it began
applying ISO 9002 quality systems in 1998 to ensure product quality and hygiene,
besides environmental protection and optimum working conditions.
The firm expects to receive orders from France next month, he said, adding
that the company has already received one from Singapore for mineral water
enriched with vitamin C.
This Binh Thuan Province-based company has been picked by consumers since
1997 as making high quality products.
Vinh Hao was established in 1928 by a French company and its products were
then sold to Laos, Myanmar, Cambodia and France.
In 1995, it became a joint stock firm, with a legal capital of VND30
billion, with the Sai Gon Finance Company (SFC) and the Binh Thuan People's
Committee as its two major shareholders.
The company, which has a 240-agent network in the south, is now promoting
its presence in the north, initially in seven major cities and provinces.
----------------------------------------------------------------- Monday April 15, 6:13 PM
Singapore says ASEAN needs link with China for growth SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Southeast
Asian nations must reduce political risk to attract investors to the region and
enhance ties with emergent China for economic growth, Singapore's Environment
Minister Lim Swee Say said on Monday.
"ASEAN countries need to get their own houses in order before we can create
an impact collectively," Lim said in a speech to a seminar called the
ASEAN-China Bilateral Dialogue.
"Clean governance and political stability are fundamental prerequisites
when companies ponder on their investment decisions," he said, adding trade
barriers needed to be lowered.
China is sucking up about 50 percent of foreign direct investment in Asia
excluding Japan while ASEAN attracts 20 percent, inspiring worries about the
marginalisation of Southeast Asia, he said.
But China, which joined the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in December, and
the 10-member Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) agreed last
November to work towards a free trade area within 10 years.
ASEAN groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the
Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
Southeast Asian leaders have expressed concerns that the region needs to
work more closely together to combat terrorism and dispel its image as a risky
place to do business.
Foreign investment to ASEAN has declined in recent years, with investors
worried about higher risk in a region riven by religious and political tensions.
Ethnic and separatist strife in Indonesia, and kidnappings and insurrection by
Muslim rebels in the Philippines, have tarred the whole region.
Lim said ASEAN stood to reap rewards of trading with China if the region
was competitive and stable.
"China presents a vast market for ASEAN products," he said. "In Singapore,
we believe that China will be both a factory of the world as well as a market
for the world."
Chinese tourists were already Southeast Asia's second largest group of
visitors after Japan in 2000 before its WTO entry, he added.
The ASEAN-China free trade agreement would be the largest in the world,
covering a population of 1.7 billion people, he said.
A study by academics estimated ASEAN's exports to China would grow by 48
percent and China's to ASEAN by 55 percent as a result of the agreement.
The agreement would boost ASEAN's gross domestic product by 0.9 percent and
China's by 0.3 percent a year after it started, he said.
Not all Southeast Asian nations would benefit equally from trade with
China, with commodity-rich countries likely to enjoy a bigger Chinese market, he
said.
----------------------------------------------------------------- India reopens case of Thai Airways
hijacking by Myanmar activists
Sun Apr 14,11:11 PM ET CALCUTTA, India (AP) - An
Indian court on Sunday reopened a criminal case against a Myanmar pro-democracy
dissident on charges of hijacking a Thai Airways plane 11 1/2 years ago.
Soe Myint, who was arrested in New Delhi on Wednesday, was produced before
a magistrate in the eastern city of Calcutta, who set the next hearing on April
17 to hear charges against him.
Magistrate Utpal Mishra rejected Soe Myint's bail application and ordered
him held by police.
Soe Myint and another Myanmar dissident, Htin Kyaw, are accused of
diverting a Thai Airways Bangkok-Yangon flight to Calcutta by threatening the
crew with a bar of soap disguised as a bomb on Nov. 10, 1990.
They vacated the aircraft in the night holding up a poster, which said they
diverted the aircraft to draw world attention to the pro-democracy movement of
Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi in Myanmar.
Soe Myint and Htin Kyaw received much sympathy in India, whose government
supported Suu Kyi, and were given bail. Their case languished in the court for
12 hours, and Soe Myint went to live in the Indian capital, New Delhi, where he
opened an information service on Myanmar.
However, the charges were never dropped and Sunday's hearing picked up
where the case was left 12 years ago.
Soe Myint's lawyer, Nandita Haksar, told The Associated Press that the
police arrested her client claiming that he had jumped bail granted 12 years ago
and ignored summons. But Soe Myint has never received any summons she
said.
It was not clear why Soe Myint's case has been revived now.
But Soe Myint's wife, Thin Thin, said her husband's arrest is the result of
the renewed friendship between the Indian government and the military junta of
Myanmar.
The junta, which has been in power since 1988, is widely accused of
suppressing democracy and jailing hundreds of Suu Kyi's supporters. Suu Kyi
herself is under virtual house arrest.
There is no information on the whereabouts of Htin Kyaw.
----------------------------------------------------------------- Monday, 15 April, 2002, 05:22 GMT 06:22 UK
Burmese activist on trial in India A Burmese pro-democracy activist, who was arrested in India on Wednesday,
has appeared in court in connection with the hijacking of an aircraft in 1990.
The activist, Soe Myint, had been reported missing after police failed to
produce him in court - his lawyers had voiced concern for his safety.
Under Indian law Soe Myint should have appeared in court within seventy two
hours of his arrest.
A hearing is due to take place next week to hear charges against him.
Soe Myint is accused of hijacking a Thai Airways flight to Calcutta to draw
attention to alleged atrocities committed by the military in Burma.
From the newsroom of the BBC World Service
----------------------------------------------------------------- The New Straits Times Press
Fear over Myanmar opium crop meeting
Afghan shortfall
YANGON, April 14. ? As Myanmar's opium poppy crop bursts into bloom this
season, drug experts are anxiously watching for signs production could be
dramatically increased to meet the shortfall from war-ravaged Afghanistan.
Global narcotics authorities declared in February that after having trailed
Afghanistan for a decade, Myanmar again became the world's largest producer of
opium in 2001, accounting for as much as 60 per cent of global supply.
The military-run state overtook Afghanistan after the Taliban militia's
ruthlessly enforced ban on opium poppies, which yield the raw ingredient for
heroin, slashed Afghan production by 90 per cent.
Due to vast stocks built up in Afghanistan from two bumper crops, and
complicated criminal distribution networks to its main markets in Europe, opium
grown in Myanmar's Shan state was not diverted to fill the breech.
But warning bells rang earlier this year when the Thai military, on the
other edge of the notorious Golden Triangle region, reported that Myanmar
druglords had told peasants to plant as much poppy as they could this
season.
"We've had reports that there will be increased production," said the US
Drug Enforcement Agency's regional director for East Asia Bill Snipes.
"There are messages being passed to the growers to increase production, and
there are new areas being cleared for poppy-growing ... as people look to take
advantage of the situation," he said.
However, crop surveys conducted over the past few months have shown that
fears of a massive increase in opium production, which would have flooded the
global market and potentially destabilised Myanmar, may be unfounded.
"In the areas where we were active we know for sure there was 30 per cent
opium reduction," said Jean-Luc Lemahieu, Yangon-based representative for the UN
Drug Control Programme (UNDCP).
But Lemahieu said that while catastrophe might have been averted this year,
poor funding for anti-narcotics programmes and the parlous state of the Myanmar
eco-nomy meant that the drug situation remained a ticking timebomb.
"The accident has to happen. We are very happy it didn't happen this year,"
he said. "The crisis is already here, we don't need Afghanistan to call this a
crisis. But Afghanistan will accelerate it even more." The international
community's heavy sanctions against Myanmar's military government, which is
accused of widespread human rights violation, means it receives little help in
combatting narcotics production.
Lemahieu said even neighbouring Laos, the communist country on the other
edge of the Golden Triangle, receives far more funding.
"It's ridiculous, Laos has total production which is lower than what we
reduce in Myanmar on an annual basis.
"But Laos gets 20 times more assistance than Myanmar gets. It's not fair,
it's not rational, it doesn't make sense." ?? AFP Substantial decreases in the
crop since 1996, thanks to crop-substitution work and government cooperation as
well as poor weather, could not be maintained, he said.
"We have to see, if not this year then next year, an increase in opium
production. Because of Afghanistan, but also because of the economic situation
in this country, and the overall setting in which this country works." In
post-Taliban Afghanistan, concerted efforts are being made to prevent the opium
crop from leaping back to their bumper pre-2001 levels.
But this well-funded international campaign could backlash on Myanmar by
rising pressure for it to meet the shortfall.
"If Afghanistan were to be halted, it does not automatically mean that
Myanmar can jump in. Because the Shan opium goes mostly to the China market
through a totally different group of organisations," said Lemahieu.
"But the risk is there if Afganistan drops out of the game, they will look
for new production areas and the criminal connections would be made. So we have
to be very vigilant."
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