They’re not the same. You can be speaking native English without a purely American accent, British accent, Australian accent, Kiwi accent, Canadian accent, Irish accent, Scottish accent or South African accent. It can be a mix of all these accents. Your English could borrow different attributes or characteristics from each one of the accents above and still be at a native level. I think the term “native English” is flawed when used in reference to someone’s oral and more specifically pronunciation competence. What most people possibly mean by “native English” is “Native American”, or “Native British”, or “Native Australian” etc (it’s subjective).
Achieving that sort of “nativeness” in speech would not only be unrealistic for most learners, but also for native speakers themselves, for example for Americans who want to speak like Australians and vice versa. Unless the learner has exceptional motivation, unwavering commitment and passion for the language, and has a great ear for languages, he or she is very unlikely to achieve that “nativeness” in a particular accent. To sound native in English, all you have to do is:
1-eliminate the effect of your mother tongue on English (so that your accent is no longer traceable),
2-understand and apply the features of natural speech to your speech effortlessly (see the 7 keys to native English),
3-build an enormous body of vocabulary (including a great number of phrasal verbs as well as general slang and idiomatic expressions), and
4-have a strong foundation of grammar that they can use easily and accurately
Native English is quite achievable (provided that learners have the will and motivation for it). Many adult second language learners have in fact succeeded in eradicating the influence of their mother tongue utterly and completely and have often been mistaken for being native speakers of English by native speakers. What usually happens though is that, in the US for example, those learners could sound British, Australian etc while in Britain, they might sound American, Canadian or Australian. If your English pronunciation is good enough to fool a native speaker of English into believing that you are also a native speaker of English, well then, as far as I’m concerned, you speak English like a native.
Now, one thing I hear from many ESL teachers really gets on my nerves, that “don’t worry about your pronunciation, I can understand you and that’s good enough”. In my opinion, intelligibility, alone, in today’s world, doesn’t cut it. It’s not good enough to be understood. Impact and effective communication should be the aim. Effective communication has nothing to do with “native English”, as there are many native speakers of English with very poor communication skills. As for intelligibility, yes it is definitely something that all teachers and learners should aim for, but it would be a big mistake to look at it or somehow talk the learner into looking at it as the ultimate attainment in pronunciation.
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