Include India, China In Global Diplomacy: European Union's Javier Solana.
European Union's foreign policy chief Javier Solana has called for the inclusion of countries like China and India at the high table of global diplomacy. "It is not for me to advocate precise modalities of how we integrate new players at the top table of global diplomacy. But I am certain that we must.""We should bear in mind that how China, India or Brazil will behave in future depends on how we treat them on the way up," Solana said in a speech to the Arthur Burns Dinner in New York. The press in Brussels was given a copy of his speech.
"For us in the West, it also means making space at top tables. At the UN Security Council of course. But also in terms of IMF votes. And why not, G-8 membership?" he asked.
Solana said the future global system would in some ways be a system of continents and continent-wide regimes. "Take the European Union, the African Union and ASEAN Plus. The integration in Latin America."
He also stressed that trust is vital in international relations. "Trust is the basis of everything. Its absence cripples the international society and may lead to serious, sometimes tragic misunderstandings."
Solana said he sees a deficit of trust in several areas: between the West and the Muslim world, between the nuclear haves and have-nots, between energy consumers and suppliers, and between the developed and developing world on how to tackle climate change. (The Times Of India)
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posted by The Malaysian. at 2/17/2007 03:30:00 PM
1 Comments:
ASEAN –
A UNION BEING SET UP
AROUND A CURRENCY SYSTEM
It is interesting that Solana is proposing to attribute IMF votes to ASEAN.
As Professor [of Corporate Strategy and International Business] Linda Lim, Director of the Centre for Southeast Asian Studies at the University of Michigan, puts it in her Foreword to
Philip Kotler, Hermawan Kartajaya, and Hooi Den Huan,
“Think ASEAN - Rethinking toward ASEAN Community 2015”,
McGrawHill, 2007,
private actions can and should initiate a process of market-led regional integration that is likely to be not just quicker, but also more efficient [than a government-initiated process], as a result.
After attending the ASEAN Business and Investment Seminar (BIS) in Cebu - Philippines in December 2006 and reading the book I just quoted,
I wonder whether the ASEAN market is not primarily a market which is going to be “exploited” not by SMEs (Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises), but only by big businesses (Multi-National Corporations - MNCs) which are already operating internationally.
Let me first say this: I am a firm believer in Freedom (and Truth) and thus in the freedom of contract. Nobody can thus be prevented from concluding a contract whereby the partners set up a corporation which eventually becomes a MNC.
I have no problems with private corporations where the partners’ liability does not disappear.
The problem is however that whereas I cannot give legal personality to my dog or my car, the granting of the privilege of legal personality to the PUBLIC corporation at present results in the partners that make up the corporation not being fully liable for the actions of their corporate tool
(Professor Frank van Dun, “The Modern Business Corporation versus the Free Market?”, http://users.ugent.be/~frvandun/Texts/Articles/Corporation versus Market.pdf )
When I see that the quoted book refers several times to a corporation with such ASEAN roots as McDonald’s Hamburger Restaurant, I have my deepest doubts as to the real intentions of some of the promoters of ASEAN.
ASEAN wants to integrate the economies of its member states and wants to maintain ASEAN in the centre stage, making the ASEAN concept real in the minds of people, said His Excellency Ong Keng Yong, Secretary-General of ASEAN, in His Excellency’s December 09, 2006 address to the ASEAN BIS Seminar in Cebu - Philippines.
Will giving MNCs more leeway to “exploit” the ASEAN market make the ASEAN concept real in the minds of people? Will that maintain ASEAN in the centre stage? I don’t think so.
It is humbly submitted that having an ASEAN currency in one’s wallet would really make the ASEAN concept real in the minds of people and would maintain ASEAN in the centre stage.
I therefore wonder whether, as I said in the paper “A Currency for the ASEAN market – Freegold”, which I made available to the participants at the ASEAN BIS seminar in Cebu – Philippines in December 2006, it would not be time to realise that these objectives can only be achieved if ASEAN does not tolerate currencies' exchange rates dominating trade but adopts the opposite policy of allowing ASEAN to consolidate (store) its produced wealth in Freegold.
Do we cling to the dollar-IFMS (International Financial and Monetary System) or do we opt for ASEAN Freegold, for the ASEAN gold-euro?
Nothing prevents ASEAN from copying what the European System of Central Banks (ESCB) is doing and keep gold (the Mona Lisa) in the strong rooms (the Louvres) of its central banks and marking it to market price on a quarterly basis. Every individual in an ASEAN nation would then be free to copy the concept of Freegold. By the same token, the ASEAN concept will have been made real in the minds of people and ASEAN will have been maintained in the centre stage. How else could ASEAN possibly integrate the economies of its member states?
This, Freegold, is the total opposite of the absurd IMF virtual SDR-situation
Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) is a potential claim on the freely usable currencies of International Monetary Fund members.
It is neither a currency, nor a claim on the IMF.
SDRs are defined in terms of a basket of major currencies used in international trade and finance.
At present, the currencies in the basket are the euro, the pound sterling, the Japanese yen and the United States dollar.
The amounts of each currency making up one SDR are chosen in accordance with the relative importance of the currency in international trade and finance.
The determination of the currencies in the SDR basket and their amounts is made by the IMF Executive Board every five years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Drawing_Rights
This seems to indicate that SDRs constitute the reserve of the inexistant IMF-currency.
Article IV, Section 2, of the IMF Articles of Agreement says that exchange arrangements may include inter alia (under (b) (ii)) cooperative arrangements by which members maintain the value of their currencies in relation to the value of the currency or currencies of other members.
Freegold is the opposite of this absurd (virtual) situation.
The IMF wants its members to use/take the SDRs as reserve.
We, the ASEAN People in the know of the fact that the dollar-International Financial and Monetary System (IFMS) cannot be expected to start making the CONCEPT OF GOLD-WEALTH-RESERVE public,
want Freegold as reserve.
In this situation, the IMF has no more role (to fulfill) except that of bailing out the US of A.
In this situation, Freegold in the European (and ASEAN) Systems of Central Banks (EASCB) have the same role to fulfil as the Mona Lisa in the Louvre.
A wealth reserve in the strong room (the Louvre) of a Monetary Union with a currency, the euro.
Every individual, not ASEAN, is now free to copy the concept of Freegold (Freely priced gold no longer “fixedly” priced gold) as wealth reserve (no backing or redeemability).
Just like anybody can come to ASEAN and determine for herself what is the nature of the ASEAN economy and can then appreciate and/or copy it.
ASEAN is a UNION which is in the process of being set up around a currency system-in-the-make on euro lines.
ASEAN knows that Free Trade is not possible without Free Migration. That’s why for the moment, ASEAN is working to facilitate intra-ASEAN migration for tourists, and, as if by afterthought, for skilled labour.
The ASEAN euro-like currency (yuan and/or rupee) will start before the end of the year after the Greater Depression will have started in the US of A.
Freedom and truth will determine the possible future decision of you, me, and ASEAN to break with the dollar-IMFS and to join the Freegold-euro/yuan/rupee-concept
Ivo Cerckel de Siquijor
philmigrator@yahoo.com
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