Australian PM wants Asia-Pacific union

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said yesterday that he wants to see an Asia-Pacific Community by 2020 structured similar to the European Union.

Rudd said there was a "brittleness" in bilateral ties, and that while regional bodies like ASEAN and APEC had achieved much, there was a need for a region-wide architecture to tackle the growing challenges of the Asia-Pacific century.

"Terrorism in Southeast Asia will remain a continuing challenge. Across wider continental Asia, the rise of India and China represent great economic, environmental, energy policy and security reverberations for the future," Rudd said in a speech to the Asia Society Australiasia in Sydney.