Apec’s date with Papua New Guinea: who are you calling irrelevant?
- It’s been 30 years and the bloc seems no nearer to its goal of forging a tariff-free Pacific Rim area
- Instead, its reason-for-being seems to have escaped even those world leaders willing to make the trek to ramshackle Port Moresby
Leaders of the 21 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) economies will have lots to take in when they meet on Sunday in the single gleaming new structure in ramshackle Port Moresby – the purpose-built Apec Haus.
For starters, many of them will be visiting the Papua New Guinean capital, one of Asia’s poorest and most crime ridden cities, for the first time.
The leaders – who range from 93-year-old Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad to New Zealand’s 38-year-old Jacinda Ardern – are likely to admire how the Pacific nation, long plagued by governance and corruption troubles, has somehow managed to host a full year of Apec events leading up to this event.
At the same time, some among the observers and delegates gathered in Port Moresby have told the South China Morning Post that leaders may hear a little voice in their heads asking: “what exactly am I doing here?”
That question has more to do with the relevance of Apec itself rather than Papua New Guinea.
Entering its 30th year in 2019, Apec has faced questions about its place in the diplomatic world from the day it was conceptualised as a body that would one day forge a tariff-free Pacific Rim area.