The First Standing Committee Meeting

The First Standing Committee Meeting of the 3rd ICAPP was convened on the night of September 2, co-chaired by Mr. Zhang Zhijun, Vice Minister of the International Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, and Hon. Jose de Venecia, President of the Lakas-National Union of Christian Muslim Democrats of the Philippines. H.E. Dr. Surakiart Sathirathai, Deputy Leader of the Thai Rak Thai Party of Thailand, H.R.H. Samdech Krom Preah Norodom Ranariddh, President of Funcinpec Party of Cambodia, and H.E. Madhav Kumar Nepal, General Secretary of the Communist Party of Nepal (UML) also attended the meeting.

The meeting had three items on its agenda:

(1) Briefing on the program of the 3rd ICAPP;

(2) Explanation of the guideline for the groupings of participants in the three workshops;

(3) Nomination of Chairman and members of the new Standing Committee of the current conference.

After thorough discussions, the Standing Committee adopted the program for the 3rd ICAPP, reached consensus over the principles concerning the groupings of the workshop, and decided that Hon. Jose de Venecia would continue to be the Chairman of the Standing Committee. It also readjusted the distribution of Standing Committee membership as follows: three members from Northeast Asia (China, Japan and ROK), six members from Southeast Asia (the Philippines, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Indonesia and Malaysia), four members from South Asia (Pakistan, India, Nepal and Bangladesh), one member from West Asia (Iran) and one member from Central Asia (Kazakhstan). It was decided that Hon. Jose de Venecia would read out the name list of the new Standing Committee members for approval by acclamation at the closing ceremony of the conference.

In addition, the Standing Committee paid great attention to the drafting of the Beijing Declaration, hoping that the common wishes of the participating parties would be fully embodied in the document. Hon. Jose de Venecia suggested that the declaration should incorporate the following points: 1). to battle with poverty. China has scored tremendous and world known achievements in poverty alleviation that are worth learning by other Asian countries. All governments should formulate their own strategies and adopt measures for poverty eradication; 2). to turn areas of disputes in Asia into areas of cooperation; 3). to intensify efforts against terrorist and extremist forces; 4). to respect the cultural diversity of Asia and promote dialogues among different civilizations and cultures in Asia. H.E. Dr. Surakiart Sathirathai proposed that it was imperative to strengthen Asian Cooperation Dialogue (ACD), substantiate cooperation in the South China Sea and to establish an effective mechanism of conflict resolution.

The Standing Committee also discussed the question concerning the host of the next ICAPP conference, and decided to allow consultation among relevant parties before decision is made at the Second Standing Committee Meeting due to be held on the night of September 4.

Members of the Standing Committee present at the meeting also expressed their high opinion of the efforts made by the Communist Party of China in organizing the conference.

The Second Standing Committee Meeting

The Second Standing Committee Meeting of the 3rd ICAPP was convened on the night of September 4, co-chaired by Mr. Zhang Zhijun, Vice Minister of the International Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, and Hon. Jose de Venecia, President of the Lakas-National Union of Christian Muslim Democrats of the Philippines. All of the 15 members of the readjusted Standing Committee of ICAPP or their representatives attended the meeting.

The agenda of the meeting had two items: first, to discuss future development of ICAPP; second, to examine and approve the draft of the Beijing Declaration.

On the question of future development of ICAPP, Hon. Jose de Venecia pointed out that the readjustment and expansion of the Standing Committee from 14 to 15 members reflected a better-balanced regional representation, while ensuring consistency of the Standing Committee. He suggested that before the next ICAPP conference (2006), the Standing Committee could meet again in 2005 to discuss relevant affairs. He also proposed for the establishment of an ICAPP website in a bid to facilitate contacts among Asian political parties. H.E. Dr. Surakiart Sathirathai expressed his full confidence in the future development of ICAPP. He said that the increasing number of political parties who were applying to host the next ICAPP conference indicated that the influence of ICAPP was growing bigger and bigger and that Asian countries were setting increasingly high value on this mechanism.

While discussing the Beijing Declaration, Mr. Zhang Zhijun briefed the Standing Committee the principles, considerations and process of how the CPC had drafted and redrafted the declaration. He stated that repeated revisions had been done to the draft text by giving full consideration to the suggestions from all participating parties. The Standing Committee fully endorsed the draft declaration and consented that the content of the document embodied the consensus of all participating parties and that the process of its drafting and amendment had been a democratic one. Therefore, it was decided that the declaration be adopted by acclamation at the closing ceremony by all participants to the conference.

Seeing that quite a number of political parties respectively from ROK, Iran, India, Pakistan, Turkey and Kazakhstan had expressed their willingness to host the next ICAPP conference, the Standing Committee decided, after initial consultation, that the next host of ICAPP would be determined later on through friendly consultations.

It was the consensus of the Standing Committee that this conference had enlarged the influence of ICAPP and had scored a complete success.