The APEC Leaders’ Week kicked off in Gyeongju on Monday with the Concluding Senior Officials’ Meeting (CSOM). It will be followed by the APEC Ministerial Meeting (AMM) and the APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting scheduled for October 31 to November 1.
Key meetings
This year’s APEC Leaders’ Week is the first summit of leaders from 21 member economies since President Donald Trump returned to office for a second term and introduced tariff policies that have shaken the global trade order. It will be the first face-to-face meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and President Trump since Trump’s return to the White House. Japan’s new Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi will meet with the leaders of several major economic partners of Japan, including China and the Republic of Korea.
With a mandate to establish standards for economies across the Asia-Pacific region, APEC has played a key role over the past two decades in laying the foundation for free trade agreements like the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP).
APEC has become an important platform for high-level dialogues between countries experiencing tensions in bilateral ties. This role is especially crucial amid the current global trade uncertainties when the world awaits a trade deal, or at least a consensus, between the US and China which is expected to ease the current global trade tension.
Stephen Nagy, Professor of Politics and International Studies at International Christian University in Japan, said: “The APEC members would be very happy if President Xi and President Trump were able to have a bilateral meeting. Whether they talk about trade or not, that's a different story, but they would like this relation to stabilize, they would like the US and China to talk much more and find ways to return to the strategic security and economic dialogue that characterized relations before the first Trump administration stopped them.”
Besides the US-China meeting, several other bilateral talks are drawing attention from the international community. South Korean President Lee Jae Myung is expected to meet with President Trump to complete a US-Korea trade agreement. The South Korean President will also meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping, who is visiting South Korea for the first time in 11 years, and with Japan’s new Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi.
President Trump has said he would welcome a meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, similar to the one in 2019, but analysts say the likelihood of that is low.
Revitalizing APEC’s role
High on the agenda of the APEC Leaders’ Week will also be the APEC Ministerial Meeting (AMM) on October 29 and 30, during which Foreign and Trade Ministers from 21 APEC members will discuss regional challenges, ways to promote shared prosperity through digital cooperation, and measures to strengthen supply chains and expand trade.
The APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting is expected to adopt the “Gyeongju Declaration,” amid growing challenges to free trade and multilateralism.
John Delury, an expert on US-China relations and Korean Peninsula affairs at the US’s Asia Society Institute, says APEC is at one of the most critical turning points since its establishment in 1989, as a result of the US’s recent turn away from multilateralism.
Since returning to the White House earlier this year, President Trump has withdrawn the US from several UN agencies, international organizations and multilateral mechanisms, focusing more on bilateral diplomacy of a transactional nature. Trump’s participation in this year’s APEC Summit presents an opportunity for APEC to renew its role.
Mr. John Delury said: "Because there is such a siege really going on from the Trump administration in terms of withdrawing from multilateral forums like APEC, this has really heightened the importance of this effort to bring together leaders from around the Asia-Pacific and to focus on kind of the old agenda of economic globalization, of free trade. This is the classic APEC agenda.”
Another highlight of the week will be the APEC CEO Summit on Wednesday and Thursday, bringing together the world’s top business leaders, including Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang.