THE four-year old Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC), like all the best economy-focused ideas, has been turned into a political football.
The early days of this week's conference in Bali were marked by calls for the grouping to be given more muscle, institutionalised and transformed into a community-status forum.
But towards the end the cracks were starting to show: clawing diplomats and academics exposed a counter-movement that could see APEC-the-giant split into parochial factions.
The desire, voiced most strongly by Malaysia, to put down stronger roots in the sub-groupings prompted warnings from delegates that the bigger APEC could be subsumed.
Donald Emmerson, professor of political science at Wisconsin-Madison University in the US, warned that a caucus of the sort proposed by Malaysia and operating on the basis of majority voting could in principle dictate all the outcomes of the bigger body.
He said: ''In traditional United Nations terms - one country, one vote - the EAEC [East Asian Economic Caucus] has the power to render APEC meaningless.
''With nearly three fourths of APEC members inside it, perhaps the EAEC should be renamed the EAOM: East Asian Overwhelming Majority.