Southeast Asia chews over internal mechanics

CEBU, Philippines, Jan 12 (Reuters) Southeast Asian leaders will chew over proposals today to shake up their diplomatic relations for the first time in 40 years as the question of how to deal with Myanmar again vexes the region.

Presidents and prime ministers from the 10-member Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) will gather in the central Philippines amid apparent differences over how to respond to a U.S.

attempt to escalate pressure on the former Burma at the United Nations.

In line with a rule of non-interference in members' domestic affairs, ASEAN has not taken a stand on the US move but, amid embarrassment over Myanmar's notoriety, leaders will consider junking that rule in talks about drafting a charter for the group later this year.

Security, trade and energy will dominate discussions when the ASEAN chiefs and the leaders of China, Japan, South Korea, India, Australia and New Zealand meet for a second East Asia Summit on January 13-15 on the resort island of Cebu.

Efforts to push through the next round of six-country talks on North Korea's nuclear programme are likely to top the agenda when China, Japan and South Korea hold their first trilateral meeting since Shinzo Abe took over as Japan's prime minister.

Sino-Japanese relations have improved since last year's East Asia summit, when Junichiro Koizumi, Abe's predecessor, was still in power and had upset Beijing with repeated visits to the Yasukuni war shrine, seen as a symbol of Japan's militarism.

Abe has worked hard to repair ties with his larger neighbour and is charting a bolder diplomatic role for Japan, which has traditionally kept a low security profile since World War Two.

The foreign ministers of South Korea and China and the deputy foreign minister of Japan, Katsuhito Asano, standing in for his boss, will meet later on Friday ahead of their leaders' arrival.

Japan's foreign minister, Taro Aso, was unable to attend the rescheduled summit, which was postponed last month ostensibly due to a typhoon but after bomb warnings from Western governments.

Security was tight in Cebu, the Philippines' second city, after a trio of bombings on Wednesday night, hundreds of miles to the south of the venue, killed eight people and wounded dozens.

The police have said there is no terrorist threat to the summit but Western governments, including Australia and Canada, have maintained their warnings of bombings.

Around 100 protesters gathered at Cebu port to demonstrate against the meeting and hundreds of unsolved political killings in the Philippines, which holds the ASEAN chairmanship. The turnout was a fraction of the thousands expected in December.

Counter-terrorism is likely to take centre stage tomorrow when ASEAN leaders are scheduled to sign a declaration clamping down on the unregulated movement of militants and arms across Southeast Asia's porous borders.

Internal questions, however, will dominate the meeting today when leaders consider recommendations for turning ASEAN, an informal grouping that has prided itself on consensus, into a more formal, rules-based organisation.

Proposals, endorsed by foreign ministers, for drafting a charter later this year call for sanctions for serious breaches of commitments -- such as Myanmar's ''roadmap'' to democracy -- but analysts doubt whether ASEAN is yet ready for such a bold leap.

ASEAN groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam -- countries that span the economic and political spectrum.

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