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SYDNEY: Growing competition for resources could threaten peace and security in Asia, whose economies and militaries are set to become the world's biggest, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd warned Friday.
Rudd, a strong advocate of greater Asia-Pacific cooperation, said economic and strategic power was shifting to the region, which was expected to account for 75 per cent of global growth in 2010.
But the centre-left leader warned population growth would create a scramble for dwindling resources that could trigger conflict between the region's rapidly increasing military forces.
"History should caution us not to assume that peace, harmony and concord are somehow predetermined and therefore inevitable for our region," Rudd told the opening of the Asia-Pacific Community Conference, a meeting of regional political, academic and business figures.
The Asia-Pacific region brings together the interests of five major powers - the United States, China, India, Russia and Japan - with unresolved border disputes crossing "fields of substantial natural resources," Rudd said.
Oil, gas, water and food would become increasingly scarce and the spread of weapons of mass destruction was a "substantial challenge," he warned, adding that several states had nuclear weapons.
Failure to act on climate change would also have devastating "economic, environmental, human security and ultimately strategic" consequences, the prime minister said, repeating his call for a powerful new regional grouping.
Rudd, a Mandarin-speaking former diplomat in Beijing, has argued that APEC is "just a gathering of economies," and the East Asian Summit, built around the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), excludes the United States.
He said Asia-Pacific nations are home to 60 per cent of the world's population and drive international growth, representing more than half of global production and close to half of its trade.
"Our region is rapidly becoming the centre of global economic and strategic weight, driven by a rising China, a rising India, and long-standing powerhouses such as Japan and the continuing superpower that it is the United States," he said.
- AFP/yb
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