While leaders from China and 10 ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) countries gathered late October in Nanning, capital city of south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, to commemorate the 15th anniversary of the initiation of their bilateral dialogue, Rodolfo C. Severino, Former Secretary General of ASEAN and Senior Research Fellow of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore, shared his views on the region's further development of bilateral ties and free trade with Beijing Review in New York.

Beijing Review: You began serving as secretary general of ASEAN in 1998 when Asia was suffering a painful financial crisis. What did ASEAN members do collectively to ride out that financial storm and what did they learn from it? How do you see today's economic development of the region?

Rodolfo Severino: The financial crisis had three dimensions-domestic, international and regional. Domestically, the ASEAN countries, each in its own way, undertook reforms of their national economies, including their financial sectors. Some of these reforms entailed political upheavals. Internationally, ASEAN worked with the international financial institutions and submitted ideas and proposals for the reform of the international financial structure. Regionally, ASEAN advanced the deadlines for the reduction of tariffs on intra-ASEAN trade so as to hasten the integration of the regional economy. Together with China, Japan and South Korea, ASEAN set up a network of bilateral currency swap and repurchase agreements, called the Chiang Mai Initiative, enabling and committing each party to support the currency of another party that may be under speculative attack and, therefore, discourage such speculation. The Chiang Mai Initiative also provided for the collective surveillance of the regional economy. Today, all Southeast Asian countries can be said to have recovered from the financial crisis and to have been strengthened economically by their responses to it.

What are your comments on the relations between China and ASEAN since the two sides initiated bilateral dialogues to further bilateral ties in 1991? And how do you expect such relations to develop in the future?

As Premier Wen Jiabao and President Arroyo declared at the commemorative China-ASEAN summit, ASEAN-China relations have never been better. They can develop further if both sides build confidence, dissipate mutual suspicions, are more open to each other in terms of strategic outlook, including on the energy question, remove obstacles to trade and investment between them, and together persuade their people about the benefits to them of a strengthened ASEAN-China relationship.

In the recent China-ASEAN Business and Investment Summit opened in Nanning, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao has vowed to further open markets and increase imports from ASEAN despite the current trade deficit. How do you see China's efforts in promoting trade relations with ASEAN?

The expansion of trade will depend on measures to remove obstacles to that trade, particularly the technical and other non-tariff barriers to trade. It will depend also on how well and how rapidly business people on each side get familiar with the business opportunities and conditions on the other side. The governments and business people on both sides should cooperate with each other on this.

The China-ASEAN Free Trade Area is planned to be in place by 2010, which is four years from now. Do you think that this target will be fulfilled by then? What will such a free trade area imply for ASEAN members, for China and for the entire world trade system?

The process of freeing up trade in goods between ASEAN and China has already started and there is no reason why the aim of removing all tariffs on ASEAN-China trade, at least between China and the ASEAN-6 [Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand], cannot be achieved by 2010. The liberalization of trade in services and of the flow of investments is being currently negotiated. However, these are government measures that are meant to free up the conditions for trade and investments. It is up to the business people, the traders and the investors to take advantage of the opportunities thus opened. If they do, the ASEAN-China Free Trade Area will be the largest free-trade zone in the world and should be a major contribution to the world trading system.

What do you think still needs to be done to establish such a free trade zone?

To free up trade between ASEAN and China, it is not enough to cut and remove tariffs. More important are the technical and other non-tariff barriers to trade that need to be removed. Important also are trade in services, the harmonization of product standards, the streamlining of customs procedures and smooth transport and telecommunications systems.

The establishment of China-ASEAN Free Trade Area will accelerate the regional integration in Asia. How does regional integration help countries involved deal with their own developing problems? And what do you think of regional integration in the globalization context?

Regional integration would be a great help to development. A large regional market would attract investments into the region. For example, without trade barriers between China and Viet Nam, investors could invest in Viet Nam in order to sell their products to the Chinese market and thus produce jobs in Viet Nam. Provided the region remains open to the rest of the world, regional integration would generate trade and investments in general and thus promote the purposes of globalization.

What kind of role, in your opinion, is China playing in Southeast Asia?

Like other great regional powers, China is seeking good relations with its immediate neighbors in Southeast Asia and stability in that region. It also wants to make sure that threats to its security do not come from Southeast Asia or from the use of Southeast Asia. It, therefore, considers stronger relations with Southeast Asia to be in its national interest.