Foremost among these necessary conditions is preserving the rules-based multilateral system for managing international trade, based on the and the of these cope with the increasing scope of international economic transactions This multilateral system, founded in the 1940s on the guiding principle of avoiding discrimination among trading partners, has been vital for the suc to of Japan, followed by others in North East, then some in South East Asia, achieve improvements in their prosperity through an export oriented economic strategy. other trading regime which sanctioned selective discrlmination against trading partners would have made it impossible for these new exportIng economies to capture markets from others in trade their way out of deep poverty and investment continue to be Non-discriminatory rules for global trade essential Indonesia and, later, India and others to ernulatethe success of other East Asian economies. Massive structural changes will be required to respond to new competition and to take advantage of the enormous new trade created by the emergence of these and investment opportunities which will be in anything less than a new economic giants. They cannot be accommodated global economic regime. integration is to continue to A second precondition for promoting regional international transactions dismantle the many remaining impediments to among Asia Pacific economies. Recognizing the inevitable difficulty of dismantling many of these impediments globally, the Asia Pacific region needs to find ways of accelerating the process within the region, without cutting across the overriding interest in a rules-based multilateral trading system. This is the intent of the Bogor Declaration, which endorsed the goal of free and open trade and Investment in the region while reaffirming APEC's guiding principle of open regionalism; to facilitate international economic transactions in the region without seeking to divert trade or investment from the rest the world. A third precondition is the continued the USA. Its military strength and influence are to be essential in order to avoid security or destabilizng arms build-ups in the rest of the region, US commitment is also needed to defend an open international economic the the leadership USA has proved vital in preserving a largely non-discriminatory trading But now longer ability same ype of leadership, n the much greater relative economic strength of Europe and increasingly, Asia. Europe's preoccupation with its structures and difficulty in coping with developments in the former communist is constructive leadership of the wider multilateral system in the next decade or rnore. None of the East Asia economies can do so indi despite their growing importan WTO meet te man natu challenges it will require new champions with East