Asian leaders to wind up summit with energy pact

CEBU, Philippines, Jan 15 (Reuters) Asian nations will sign an energy security pact today calling for investments in renewable energy and reduced greenhouse gas emissions, ending a summit marked by warming ties between Japan and China.

Leaders of the 10-member Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), along with China, Japan, South Korea, India, Australia and New Zealand will also discuss liberalising trade in financial services, documents made available to Reuters show.

Natural disasters and pandemics are also on the agenda, and the leaders are expected to endorse a birdflu prevention ''road map'' sharing best practices.

The leaders will unite in support of enforcing UN sanctions imposed on North Korea after its nuclear and missile tests last year, and of the six-party talks aimed at inducing North Korea to give up its nuclear weapon ambitions.

A draft of an energy security agreement, approved by foreign ministers last week, offers no regional targets for emissions, but calls for investments in ethanol and biodiesel plants.

The East Asia summit, an annual meeting that began last year, follows the yearly ASEAN gathering, part of a process of creating trade and security ties among countries that account for half the world's population and a fifth of global trade.

MAKING A DATE China and Japan took a big step towards mending ties on Sunday when it was announced that Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao would visit Japan in April.

In their first trilateral meeting in two years, China, Japan and South Korea agreed to build on their thawing relations, saying they would further promote trade and energy security and regularly consult on key issues.

Japan's relations with its neighbours hit a low because Abe's predecessor, Junichiro Koizumi, repeatedly visited Tokyo's Yasukuni war shrine, seen by critics as glorifying Japan's World War II militarism.

A Japanese government official said Wen and Abe made no mention of the shrine at their talks on the central resort island of Cebu.

Wen invited Abe to visit China in the second half of the year. The last time a Chinese leader visited Japan was former Premier Zhu Rongji in October 2000.

Both nations were competing for influence with ASEAN, which brought forward its target date for economic integration to 2015 and agreed to write a charter creating a rules-based bloc with bite, bold action for a group often derided as a talking shop.

The Philippines, which holds ASEAN's rotating chairmanship, raised the spectre of a regional nuclear arms race in talks on Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions, which have led Tokyo to start a debate on whether to drop its own ban on developing atomic arms.

''It may be tempting for Japan to consider becoming a nuclear weapon state, particularly after the nuclear test by DPRK (North Korea) last 9 October,'' Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo told Abe.

''But the possession of nuclear weapons by more countries in our region will only lead to greater risks, not less. North Korea's nuclear weapons programme therefore cannot be allowed to stand.'' Abe, fresh from a tour of Europe where he pitched a more assertive diplomatic stance, highlighted Tokyo's desire to play a more prominent security role in the region by agreeing to support Southeast Asian maritime security.

Wen sealed a trade pact with ASEAN and said both sides would continue to advance their ''strategic partnership'' this year with talks on a possible code of conduct for the South China Sea, a regional flashpoint because of competing territorial claims.

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

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