AS STARTS go, this was a rocky one. The word 'consensus' has reverberated around this year's Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) meeting but when the delegates got their first chance to demonstrate that 18 divergent nations with 18 divergent agendas could be unified, success appeared illusory.
Initial discussions by senior officials from the APEC member nations on broad guidelines to free up regional trade and investment were scuppered by United States' objections to three of the 12 items under consideration.
As such, the first day was a wash-out. Instead of demonstrating APEC's strengths, senior officials opened wounds that went to the heart of the APEC vision. Instead of concord, there was controversy; vision was replaced by vested interest.
But this was not the way it was supposed to be. The initial meetings were conducted by senior officials from the member nations. It was their job to refine certain APEC discussion areas and prepare briefing papers for their ministers.
Failure to reach agreement on trade and investment would leave ministers to thrash out the details. If they failed to reach an accord, it would be left up to economic leaders to reach a compromise.
The meeting was APEC's first hurdle, and while it did not fall, it rattled badly. The US delegation urged members to adopt more radical guidelines for the freeing up of trade and investment, and argued that the conclusions were non-binding and could be modified at a later date. Other delegates were willing to sign on the dotted line but were forced to return again and again to the debating table in search of an elusive unanimous consensus.