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PORT MORESBY (Reuters) – C in APEC stands for Cooperation. But when the two biggest members fight in a trade war and use the forum to attack their respective policies, it has always been difficult to reach a result.
The weekend summit on Asia-Pacific economic cooperation in Port Moresby was marked by open disagreement, dominated by US-China trade and security disputes. and on the best partner for investment in the region.
As APEC approaches its 30th anniversary, the inability to agree on a release for the first time questions its relevance in a crowded summit calendar and that the US government is not in a position to press ahead. Trump Administration has clearly confessed its aversion to multilateralism.
"It's the death of the founding business vision of APEC," Euan Graham, Executive Director of La Trobe Asia at Australian University La Trobe, told Twitter on Twitter, adding that APEC was "the more useful regional summits.
Rather than cooperation, the theme seemed to be conflict and containment, with Beijing and Washington directly criticizing their respective policies and claiming that they were the security and investment partner that the Pacific had to choose.
"This is not even supposed to be binding, it is APEC," said a diplomat involved in the negotiations for the release, surprised that members can not agree on what is usually a summary trivial issues discussed.
"China and the United States have diverted the spirit of APEC, I suppose."
The United States has even preferred to use its own Indo-Pacific terminology, which they define as "the western shores of Latin America to the confines of the Indian Ocean," with Pence mentioning APEC and Indo-Pacific five times. 41 times. APEC Speech Saturday.
"Not a big deal"
Founded in 1989 with the goal of strengthening commercial and economic ties around the Pacific Ocean, it operated at the ministerial level until 1993, when US President Bill Clinton set up the annual meeting leaders. Each meeting had resulted in a joint statement until Sunday.
"This is very worrying from a systemic point of view. The WTO faces similar challenges, "said Charles Finny, Wellington-based trade consultant and former New Zealand government trade negotiator.
In an editorial, the Chinese tabloid Global Times said the lack of a statement was "not a big deal" and gave more importance to the upcoming meeting between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
The two leaders are expected to meet at the G20 summit, which will begin in Argentina next week.
"We hope that Washington will seriously prepare for the summit and not put its hopes on pressure," said the tabloid, known for its nationalist position.
The statement nevertheless seems to raise some concerns among the Chinese. Officials were delayed on Saturday when they tried to meet with PNG Foreign Minister Rimbink Pato on the subject.
Pato confirmed to Reuters that the Chinese authorities wanted to see him, but said he did not make the "necessary arrangements".
As an APEC host, the role of Papua New Guinea (PNG) was to produce a communiqué. But hostility and conflicting visions showed that few people blamed the poorest country in the group for being caught between two superpowers in conflict.
"In these times, presiding over a rally like the leaders we have had in recent days is not an easy task," said Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, adding that Papua New Guinean Prime Minister Peter O Neill had shown great integrity and leadership.
RETURN ON THE MAP
Indeed, a big change has been that the long-forgotten Pacific nations have found themselves aggressively courted by the two big spending superpowers competing for influence in an ocean of strategic importance.
Pence said that the United States would join Australia to help Papua New Guinea build a naval base on the Isle of Manus, an American base of World War II, after the China emerged as a developer of the deep-water port.
Analysts said that a Chinese presence on Manus could have affected the West's ability to navigate the Pacific while offering China a site close to the US Guam bases.
And the United States, Japan, Australia and New Zealand unveiled a $ 1.7 billion plan to feed much of the electricity and the Internet into PNG, a collective counterattack against the Beijing flagship program Belt and Road.
"Whatever the concepts evoked by the United States, China or Australia, this does not necessarily mean that it is the same concepts for Papua New Guinea," he said. said by phone to Reuters Wera Mori, PNG Minister of Commerce and Industry.
"We have our own situations and our own priorities to focus on."
Other reports by Philip Wen and Jonathan Barrett; Written by John Mair; Edited by Shri Navaratnam
