However, we are also facing many challenges particularly in security, economic and political issues. Our future will lie in the extent to which Asian political parties respond promptly and suitably to these challenges.

As we are all well aware that Asia is facing both prior traditional security threats within the region and also the new challenging non-traditional security threats similar to different places around the world. If we agree to visualize the peaceful and stable Asia, it will require a full spectrum of partnership ranging from the international organization mainly the United Nations, the super power country, the regional community and the neighbouring countries. We hope to see the combination of multi-level approaches in order to realize a “pluralistic security community”.

Asia has various security issues of quite dissimilar causes, and special sets of measures are required to resolve each particular issue. Please allow me to express the Democrat Party’s concerns on two important issues. The Democrat Party has been supportiong “One China” policy continually for thirty years, since our second leader, M.R.Senee Pramoj. Both China’s mainland and Taiwan are key driving forces of a full recovery of Asian economy as well as the Asian economic integration; hence we will continue our full support on the peaceful means of the resolution. Another recent upcoming threat in North East Asia is the acquisition of weapons of mass destruction in North Korea. As a friend, we hope that North Korea will demonstrate the transparency regarding its weapon development including possible nuclear capability. We also wish to see the success of the collaboration and dialogue among six-party in the Korea peninsula.

The new challenge of the unconventional warfare of the terrorist attack was a never before experience and the situation will never be the same again. These transnational crimes are more flexible, borderless, and cause direct daily problems to the citizens in our countries. Conventional wisdom within state territories is no longer applied which provokes us to rethinking of the regional security system. We have learned from the September 11 and many incidents including the issue in the southern part of Thailand that the traditional intelligence services can no longer handle these new threats. The support of multilateral parties mainly in neighbouring countries and the regional community becomes more crucial particularly in the cooperation in intelligence gathering as well as the collaboration in the accusation of terrorism. To tackle the issue, intelligence and information gathering must be more accurate and timely, together with the participation from various groups, public and private, and various sources. We also learned that the use of force cannot effectively be as a tool to prevent further violence. It is now a time for us to call for more comprehensive, greater commitment, and better management based on the acceptance of pluralistic culture, human liberty, freedom of all citizens, and civil society.

We are witnessing the emergence of several initiatives in order to realize regional economic cooperation and trade agreement within Asia, namely ASEAN+3, ACD, BIMST-EC and bilateral free trade agreements such as ASEAN-China, ASEAN-Japan and much more.

In another dimension, it deems necessary to ensure that the adoption of free trade policy is indeed leading us to the success of economic development which is not only growth but distribution of income. The acceptance of free trade agreement without the restructuring process both within the firms and within the industry will certainly benefit export industries that are already strong but hinder the development of import competing industries that are generally weak.

Transnational role in economic development, stability, and social progress is not only the sole duty of any administrative government but also the role of political parties. As an institution, a political party must take an initiative in cooperation both domestically and internationally. In the context of vast differences of Asian’s cultural diversity, Asian political parties must work together to harmonize the differences within the region. We must endorse cooperation and together discover wisdom through people-to-people exchange as well as party-to-party exchange. We should also be well aware that it is an obligation for all of us to continuously modernize and transform the structure of the party to truly represent the diversification of changing society. As we leave this Third Meeting of Asian Political Parties, I hope we will go forth with a sense of high purpose of cooperation in a much more deepening, flexible and transnational way. Together with our Asian belief, our goal of Asian to sustain political stability, harmony, and prosperity will be perceived in the near future.