THE PACIFIC SUMMIT : Buzzwords : Talkin’ Pacific Rim: Guide to the Groups and Lingo

Having trouble distinguishing between the Pacific Rim, the Pacific Basin and the Asia-Pacific region? Confounded by the opaque vocabulary of acronyms that muddle conversations about trade and economic development in Asia?

No ordinary mortal should feel shame at being bewildered by Pacific Rim jargon. The fundamental idea behind the regional concept is somewhat amorphous to begin with, and many participants in the Pacific Rim dialogue seemingly wish to keep it that way.

Yet any aspiring aficionado of the nations (or economies) in and around the Pacific Ocean must cut through a formidable lexicon of buzzwordology and learn to swim in an alphabet sea.

As East meets West at the Seattle summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) organization this weekend, with President Clinton acting as host, this obscure language can be expected to gain unprecedented exposure.

Here is a Pac Rim primer to serve as a guide for the so-called Pacific Century, starting with some fundamentals:

The Ground Rules

Common interests: The Pacific Rim, aka the Pacific Basin or, in official Washington parlance, the Asia-Pacific Region, is an idea predicated on the proposition that all nations on both sides of the Pacific Ocean have something intangible in common, if not obvious geographical proximity.

Natural economic bonds of cross-investment and trade can only grow in the future, the theory goes, and so the countries must learn to cooperate and trust each other. That’s the essential cause to which a veritable stable of acronymical groups--PECC, PBEC, PAFTAD, ASEAN, EAEC, as well as APEC--is devoted. The cornerstone of this strategic economic interdependence is the relationship between the United States and Japan.

In an expanded vision, Pacific trade winds also purportedly link far-flung places like Fiji and Papua New Guinea with British Columbia, for example, and place Chile and the Russian Far East into an unwitting alliance.

Booming economies: The region, no matter where the lines are drawn, is widely regarded as incredibly important in economic terms, destined to drive the global economy in the 21st Century.

Dynamic economic growth rates have characterized countries throughout East Asia in the past decade, mirroring Japan’s postwar economic miracle. South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan were the next in line to industrialize rapidly, acquiring the sobriquet Asian Tigers. Then came Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia, the Little Dragons, which are industrializing with one foot still firmly planted in the Third World.

China’s coastal provinces have been the latest to boom. And now a lot of bets are being placed on dynamic growth in Vietnam, once the U.S. trade embargo is lifted.

Political blinders: Pacific Rim purists tend to discount messy political complications in Asia such as corruption, authoritarianism, environmental problems, labor abuses and human rights violations. The focus has tended to be through a rosy prism of free-market economics, emphasizing the region’s robust growth and sometimes oversimplifying a more complex underlying reality of post-Cold War security tensions. In the upbeat Pacific Rim dialogue, politics is taboo.

Exportable jobs: Japan is the dominant player here, leading the United States in strategic investment and development aid. A die-hard exporting nation, Japan has been hobbled since the late 1980s by an appreciating yen, which makes its products more expensive and less competitive abroad. To cope, it quickly relocated much of its labor-intensive production to less developed countries with lower wage costs, igniting economic growth in Southeast Asia and China in the process.

The international division of labor is constantly changing, and Taiwan and South Korea, for instance, have followed the path of Japan and the United States in “hollowing,” or moving production to less-developed economies.

That explains why Mexico, with or without the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), is of particular interest to Asian nations--both as a threatening competitor for capital and as a potentially auspicious site for investment and offshore production. Mexico, in turn, is jumping on the Pacific Rim bandwagon and applying for APEC membership.

Culture clash: Despite all the Pac Rim rhetoric about shared values and the principle of free-market economics, a subtle dichotomy in economic ideology divides the Pacific region. The United States has offered generally open markets to the workshops of Asia in the post-World War II period, partly in the interests of its consumers and partly with the geopolitical aim of strengthening anti-communist allies in Asia. Japan and its Asian proteges have risen, meanwhile, on a form of capitalism that emphasizes rational programs for growth and development through government planning and intervention.

Complaints by U.S. officials and exporters about the lack of a “level playing field” in Asia, for example, typically result from ignorance of--or intolerance for--the Asian model of capitalism, which tends to shield strategic industries through non-tariff barriers and allows practices that would be considered anti-competitive or unfair in the U.S. system.

Asian countries, meanwhile, recall a relatively recent history of exploitation at the hands of Western colonizers and are wary of domination by the advanced industrial powers in the region. Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammed is the glib spokesman of this view--that Western countries want to impose their value systems and interfere with the rights of Asian nations to develop as they see fit.

Not-so-free trade: Free trade encounters barriers in the Pacific Rim that don’t really differ much from trade barriers in the rest of the world. If one accepts the premise that politics and economics are universally intertwined, the region begins to look very familiar. Powerful interest groups--industrial associations in Japan, military and presidential cronies in Indonesia, corrupt party officials in China--continue to frustrate the cause of unrestricted trade flows. But in the big picture, the impediments are little different from, say, French farmers who are doing their best to torpedo protracted negotiations on a global trade pact.

The Lexicon

APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation): A government-to-government association of 15 Asia-Pacific nations and “economies” (Taiwan and Hong Kong). Founded in 1989, its 15 members are Australia, Brunei, Canada, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, United States.

ASEAN (Assn. of Southeast Asian Nations): Established as Southeast Asia’s non-communist bloc in 1967, ASEAN originally was charged with reducing regional tensions and promoting cooperation in economic development. It has evolved into an influential diplomatic group that is talking about regional security issues. Its six members are Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Brunei.

Asian Tigers: South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore. (See NICS, or NIES.)

AFTA (ASEAN Free Trade Area): ASEAN members agreed in 1991 to gradually phase out tariffs for trade among its members over a 15-year period, creating this free trade area.

EAEC (East Asia Economic Caucus): The brainchild of Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammed, this group was conceived in 1990 as a foil to exclusive “trade blocs” purportedly emerging in Europe and North America. It would exclude the United States and other “non-Asian” countries in the Pacific. Presently, it exists only in rhetorical form.

GEACPS (Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere): Imperial Japan’s economic justification for military conquest during World War II. The term is sometimes alluded to, usually in a cynical context, when describing present-day Japanese involvement in Asian economies.

Little Dragons: Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia. (See NICS, or NIES.)

NICS (Newly Industrialized Countries): This term generally refers to the nations of East Asia that are rapidly industrializing at the same time more mature economies like the United States and Japan are rapidly “hollowing” their industrial home bases to exploit comparative advantages of low-wage offshore production. Just about every major country in East Asia fits the description, except the Philippines. The hottest new Pac Rim NIC is Mexico.

NIES (Newly Industrialized Economies): This is the “PC” (Pacifically correct) way of referring to NICS, at the insistence of the Beijing government, which maintains that Hong Kong and Taiwan are not technically nations but rather a colony and a renegade province respectively.

Pacific Century: The 21st Century. The term implies that America’s future prosperity is inextricably linked to economic growth in East Asia and that Pacific trade is destined to be the driving force in the global economy.

PAFTAD (Pacific Trade and Development Conference): An informal, private academic conference originally convened in 1968 to discuss the potential for a “Pacific Free Trade Area.”

PBEC (Pacific Basin Economic Council): An international organization of corporations doing business in the Pacific Basin region, which it defines as including North and South America, Asia and the Southwest Pacific. Founded in 1967.

PECC (Pacific Economic Cooperation Conference): A “tripartite” organization of government officials, business leaders and academics from 20 Pacific Rim nations and economies, including Russia. Founded in 1980, PECC is closely allied with APEC, and membership of the working groups of the two organizations sometimes overlaps.