Australian Media about APEC Summit in Vladivostok 2012

The Australian Press analysis reveals that APEC Summit in Vladivostok 2012 has not caused the big agiotage. Leading Australian media masses such as the ABC, Sydney Morning Herald, Canberra Times, Melbourn Star, The Australian, The Age on the eve of the Summit gave very little material, and if they were given, they were mostly of the nature of news. Thus the information received on channels of the Russian news agencies of ITAR-TASS, an Interfax, as well as placed on special the Internet portal on APEC 2012. One could hardly find any information about “APEC Summit 2012” on Internet sites of some editions.

The situation changed somewhat with the start of the Summit. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s ABC, referring to the Moscow correspondent of the BBC stated that “increased economic presence in the key for global development Asia-Pacific region is the most important task of Russia, but its implementation is encountering serious inherent difficulties.” Reffering to Boris Shmelev from the Institute of Economics ABC points out that ‘the main difficulty creates demographics. The most share of the population and, therefore, Russia’s economic potential is concentrated in the European part. The problem is that the Far Eastern regions were depopulated”. Furthermore ABC quoted Wiley Gelbras  Professor of the Institute of Asian and African Studies of Moscow State University that the reorientation of Russia to the East –is just the talks ‘, ‘ the Russian elite is tightly tied to the West. The majority of the population and economic potential is concentrated in the European part of the country and too oriented to the West.” How you can change all that? ‘ asked the scientist. This gloomy picture is added by the extracts from newspaper Kommersant-Vlast. The ‘ Position ‘ of the European powers in Asia ‘, overlooking the countries like China and India in terms of ‘ big brother ‘, rooted during Soviet times and is now nothing more than self-deception. To turn to a raw material adjunct of Asians – rather weak dream for great people with great history, Maybe so. Only if we learn to earn in Asia on selling raw materials, the Russian presence there soon may be a part of this great history ‘. One corporation Samsung has more international patents, than the whole of the Russian Federation. Investment in innovative production in China far exceeds Russia in 40 times. The level of imports supply from Russia to Chinese decreased from 16.5% in 1995 and to 3.4% in 2011. Each of the four largest banks PRC has assets, exceeding the annual GDP of Russian Federation. Hopes to transform Siberia ‘traffic bridge’ between Europe and Asia also still look unreasonable. The Trans-Siberian railway and Baikal-Amur mainline capacity is about 80 million tons per year, five million tons fall on the Northern sea route, at eighty per cent are busy transporting Russian goods. ‘For lack of a better Russia can offer its partners only ‘national idea’ of its ruling class – luxury ‘- writes Kommersant-Vlast’.

In this connection, almost all of the media in Australia do not forget to mention that the Vladivostok APEC summit is the most expensive in history. Last year’s Summit in Honolulu cost 28 million dollars, Summit Yokohama in 2010 year-at 277 million, Summit in Singapore in 2009 year-in 71.8 million, Russian-21.5 billion dollars (699.1 billion rubles).

Many Australian edition quoted interview of the channel Russia Today with Putin. ‘APEC was originally conceived as a forum to discuss economic issues. And it is what we as host country, as the host party, too, intend to focus on economic issues – namely of a socio-economic nature.. We intend to focus on the issues of liberalization of the world economy, on transport, on the food security of mankind”.

Arrival of Australian delegation in Vladivostok was overshadowed by the news that father of the head of the Prime Minister delegation Julia Gillard’s  has died, and she was forced to flee Russia and return home to Adelaide to be with the family at the funeral. All Australian MEDIA debating this topic and pointed to words of condolence, expressed by President Vladimir Putin. Vladimir Putin on behalf of the Summit participants expressed condolences Saturday to the Prime Minister of Australia, and then contacted the Gillard by phone, once again expressed its deep condolences and invited her to visit Moscow at a convenient time. The Australian delegation was headed by the country’s Trade Minister Craig Emerson.

On the opening day of the Summit, the largest Australian newspaper The Age released a special application, completely dedicated to the 2012 Summit. It was reprinted in many other publications, notably the Sydney Morning Herald. In the editorial ‘New horizons are expanding to the East,’ they say on the reorientation of Russia’s trade with the West to the East and the prospects of Russia in the Asia Pacific region. Relations between Russia and Australia are in positive tones. The long article devoted to the Trans-Siberian Railway. Many articles in the issue devoted to the theme of culture and sports. Here you can see the materials on the tennis player Maria Sharapova and the Russian national rugby. In the culture contained several articles on Russian fashion. Emphasizes that widespread in the world of Australian footwear “uggs” has much in common with Russian Valenoks. There are articles on contemporary Russian literature, in particular the fantastic works of Sergei Lukjanenko and Anne Starobinec books, writing in the style of “horror”.

Results of the APEC summit in 2012 were announced by the Australian delegation head Craig Emerson, in an interview with Australian broadcaster ABC, BBC, which has been replicated by many other media outlets in Australia. In his point of view, Vladivostok Summit of the Asia and the Asia-pacific economic cooperation has been successful for the participants, including Australia. Among the main achievements of the Summit, the Minister highlighted the adoption of a list of so-called ‘ green ‘ products (products, which leads to the prevention and elimination of environmental damage, as well as the technology of recycling of industrial waste). Summit participants agreed that by the year 2015 trade duties on such goods will not exceed 5 percent of their value. ” This agreement means that we get an opportunity to develop free trade flow of goods and technologies, through which you can prevent environmental pollution and to respond more effectively to the challenges associated with global climate change, – Emerson stressed – Vladivostok summit was the first of very many years an international forum in which participants were able to agree on the actual reduction of trade tariffs. The Australian Minister also praised the agreement reached in Vladivostok about promotion of innovative development of APEC countries, including scientific and student exchanges. ‘Education is now the third export item of the economy of our country, even surpassing the volume of liquefied gas – said Emerson. However, it is not just about dollars and cents, but also on cultural understandingof the opportunities for young people to study at universities in other countries and get to know this country. Young people will remember this training forever ‘.