EM: Why is Thailand promoting regional cooperation in Asia? What are the goals behind regional cooperation?
KS:We are convinced that it is high time that Asian countries come together to build upon one another's strengths and to recreate the Asian success story.
The establishment of Asia Cooperation Dialogue or ACD, the initiative of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, is a concrete transformation of Thailand's belief into practice. ACD was historic because it was the first time ever that key Asian nations agreed to have a high-level policy-makers' forum to exchange views in order to enhance regional capability.
In the long run, Thailand envisions ACD as a platform for the establishment of an Asian community. To realize the full potential of Asia, the process of integration must go beyond economics. The Asian community must be people-centred.
Asian countries must work together with the goal of fostering a sense of community among our people, which would underpin regional integration in Asia. It is ultimately the people of Asia who will sow the seeds for peaceful co-existence and mutual prosperity.
EM: In the past three years, security concerns have dominated the agenda of
many multilateral meetings in Asia. How has that affected the work on other issues, such as economic cooperation and development?
KS: It is our collective responsibility to consolidate our efforts for taking counter-terrorism measures, especially capacity-building and sharing information and intelligence.
The global war on terror unfortunately comes with a high price. The international community needs to pool its resources, time and energy to formulate together most effective counter-terrorism measures and act accordingly. While fighting the scourge of international terrorism, it is our duty to address other dimensions of human security and maintain our cooperation on promoting economic prosperity and sustainable development. The international community needs to strike the right balance between the two important tasks.
EM: To combat terrorism, it is necessary to address its causes. Which global
issues do you think are most important to solve in this respect?
KS: The global fight against terrorism should be built upon a comprehensive approach, including measures directed at suppressing factors that provide fertile breeding ground for terrorist acts. These factors encompass poverty reduction, the promotion of the rules of law, effective law enforcement, institution building, human rights protection, inter-cultural and inter-religious exchanges of views.
Our cooperation also needs to be extended to include measures against other related transnational crimes such as drugs and human trafficking, arms smuggling, money-laundering, document forgery, cyber crimes and piracy.
EM: How do the rise of India and China affect Thailand's strategic priorities in the region?
KS: First and foremost, Thailand believes that a stable and cooperative relationship among the major powers, namely China, Japan, the US, Russia and India, continues to constitute the backbone of the security framework in Asia. Throughout the Asia-Pacific, the major powers have continued to exert their positive and stabilizing influences over the region.
Thailand views China and India as significant strategic partners and major contributors to the peace, stability and prosperity of Asia.
The establishment of an Asean-China free trade area will be the world's largest, with a population of nearly 2 billion people and a combined GDP of approximately US$ 2 trillion.
On our part, Thailand aims for the establishment of a comprehensive Thailand-China FTA to build on our strong political, economic and people-to-people ties with Beijing.
India is becoming more open and is moving closer to Asia-Pacific. This is a very positive trend. Thailand is in the process of FTA bilateral talks with India. The two sides recently started the early harvest scheme, which covered the elimination of tariffs on 82 items, including jewellery, fruits and canned food.
EM: What do you understand by the term 'south-south cooperation'? How can developing countries work together to achieve their goals?
KS: South-south cooperation is a significant element of international cooperation for development. It is an essential basis for national and collective self-reliance and a means to promote the integration of developing countries into the world economy.
In general, south-south cooperation aims to facilitate and coordinate the sharing of skills, knowledge and expertise in different areas. Countries can learn from each other and benefit from sharing experiences, best practices and synergies.
South-south cooperation can be extended to learning from each other in areas such as trade as well; it can then create strategic advantages in trade negotiations with more powerful countries.
Geographical proximity is a major determinant of south-south cooperation and is an important reason for intra-regional cooperation. Thailand and its neighbours, with assistance from development partners from the North, have been working to develop a network of roads and direct flights to link countries, which will contribute tremendously to sub-regional economic integration.
Thailand has continuously worked with neighbouring countries to promote sub-regional and regional cooperation through ACMECS, GMS, Asean and ACD. All the said cooperation frameworks share common objectives to alleviate poverty, such as increasing the competitiveness of member countries and generating growth along borders. Facilitating the relocation of agricultural and manufacturing industries to areas with comparative advantages and reducing income disparity among member countries are also measures of good neighbourliness.
Biography:
Before becoming Thailand's foreign minister, Dr Kanthati was Thai trade representative. He has been a member of the Thai parliament since 1995. In 1996, he was adviser on foreign affairs to the prime minister of Thailand. Between 1988 and 1992, he represented Thailand as a diplomat at the United Nations in New York.
Dr Kanthati holds a PhD in International Relations from the University of Southern California. He is executive director and founding member of the Rak Thai Party.