The Stubborn Holdout
	Despite U.S. opposition, Malaysia's Mahathir is still crusading for an Asians-only regional grouping
	By Sandra Burton | Kuala Lumpur

Originally published November 22, 1993
Mahathir Mohamad, Malaysia's prickly Prime Minister, is well known in Asia for his sometimes stinging anti-Western rhetoric. Unless last-minute efforts give him a face-saving way to accept his invitation to Seattle, the assembled APEC leaders will be spared his tart tongue—and, at least for now, his plan to create a for-Asians-only economic bloc in the Pacific.

For the past three years Mahathir has been promoting a 12-member, exclusively East Asian trade grouping that would provide a counterweight to the European Community and an economically consolidated North America in the event global free-trade talks self-destruct and the world contracts into protectionist groupings. It would exclude the U.S., Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Washington has opposed the idea since Mahathir first broached it in 1990, yet the Prime Minister has persisted in his crusade and vowed to boycott the APEC leaders' meeting unless the Clinton Administration gives at least a qualified endorsement to a mild version of his plan.

Mahathir initially floated his concept at a state dinner in Kuala Lumpur only hours after the breakdown of GATT talks in Brussels over the issue of farm subsidies. Mahathir warned that economic blocs were forming in Europe and North America and urged East Asian countries to do likewise. But since he failed to consult the region's senior leader, Indonesian President Suharto, in advance of delivery, his idea won no backing in Jakarta. Meantime, Mahathir's use of the term bloc triggered Washington's opposition. Mahathir and his Cabinet ministers spent the next two years watering down the concept with the aim of gaining the support of neighbors in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations as well as the essential participation of Asia's economic giants: Japan, South Korea and China. The latter were emotionally attracted to Mahathir's vision of "ensuring that the history of East Asia will be made in East Asia, for East Asia and by East Asians," but South Korea and Japan were loath to antagonize a major power like the U.S. Japan also knew that because of its World War II efforts to integrate Asia by force, it would be more open to charges of bullying its neighbors if Washington were not also a group member. At one point, when Japan and South Korea appeared to waver, a Mahathir insider recounts bitterly, "then-Secretary of State James Baker regained control by telling the Koreans not to forget 'who shed blood to defend you.' "

Last July ASEAN endorsed a diluted version of Mahathir's proposal, now known as the East Asian Economic Caucus. Under its terms, the members will exist as a "loose consultative forum" within the framework of APEC. The Malaysian government hopes Washington will find that approach acceptable. "I appreciate the stand of the Clinton Administration, which is not belligerent toward the idea of EAEC like the Bush Administration was," Malaysian Foreign Minister Abdullah Badawi told TIME. But Badawi added that the White House had "not come forward to give its O.K."; that would be enough, he suggested, for Mahathir to book a flight to Seattle.

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