By Dae-Han Song
If you look at the news, the media treats the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) forum more like a gala than a policy forum about regional economic policies.
Despite high level meetings having occurred between the government and business interests (ie the Apec Business Advisory Council), despite two senior official meetings having taken place, the media has done a negligible job of bringing the agenda and discussions in these meetings to public consciousness or debate.
Instead, it has mostly focused on who will be there – K-pop megastar G-Dragon was named Apec ambassador — or whether the accommodation and infrastructure are adequate.
Little is mentioned about the specifics of the mostly closed-door discussions and decisions in the meetings and gatherings that will continue to take place between government ministers, experts and companies all the way up to the leaders’ summit on 30 October to 1 November in Gyeongju.
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Yet, as an economic forum liberalising the centre of gravity of the world’s economy, Apec gatherings are significant. They establish common expectations, norms and values around corporate-driven growth.
Apec 2025, in particular, is happening at a pivotal global moment mired in Trump’s tariff extortion amidst the new cold war and the seismic shifts towards a multipolar world. All this is happening within the backdrop of climate change that is rapidly coming into the forefront of global affairs.
And while Apec will discuss and grapple with all these issues, the public has little say in or access to these discussions.
As a response, civil society in South Korea is preparing an international task force to respond to Apec. As a convener of such a body, the International Strategy Center is researching the background, dynamics and actors within Apec.
To educate ourselves and the public, we are starting an article series exploring the emergence of Apec, our current global context, and people-centred alternatives to APEC’s corporate-centred approach.
Apec in a nutshell
Apec involves 21 economies from the Asia-Pacific region. Its members are referred to as economies, as a compromise with the People’s Republic of China for including Hong Kong and Taiwan.
In contrast to the closed regionalism of the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) or the EU that gives preferential tariff treatment to its members, Apec promotes an open regionalism compatible and in concert with larger globalisation efforts.
Apec’s measures are unilateral (economies decide when and how to carry them out), voluntarist (economies can choose not to) and arrived at through consensus.
Despite lacking an enforcement mechanism, Apec is significant as a body because of the great scope of its long-term vision, which is to establish free trade at the centre of the global economy. Apec contains 37% of the global population; 61% of its gross domestic product (GDP); 50% of global exports in goods; and 50% of global imports in goods.
Apec’s measures facilitate trade and global value chains for multinational companies. Such policies involve deregulation, which contravene society’s ability for democratic governance of the economy. This is reflected in Apec’s closed-door discussions and negotiations, with the APEC Business Advisory Council playing a central role representing corporate interests.
In contrast, civil society groups representing the broader public such as peasants, workers, consumers and environmentalists have no such body or access.
Origins
Often, understanding the context and actors involved in the creation and trajectory of an institution reveals much about its function and nature. This is also the case with Apec’s origins in the 1960s from multinational companies’ engagement with governments in the region.
While Australia was often the figurehead, in reality, much of this regional integration was led by Japan working behind the scenes, given the regional enmity towards its previous imperialist domination.
That Japan was the regional leader is a natural consequence of its emergence as Asia’s largest and the world’s second largest economy in the 1960s. This was in concert with US plans to turn Japan into the regional economic leader and bulwark against communism.
Japan’s initial impetus came from the close regionalism emerging in the 1950s and 60s with the European Economic Community and the US-Canada free trade agreement that would expand into Nafta. This would intensify after the 1985 Plaza Accord, leading to the creation of Apec.
Japan promoted this regional economic integration through its ‘flying geese’ theory of development: as the leading goose, when Japan matured out of an industry (eg textiles), it would pass it on to the next geese (eg South Korea and Taiwan), which would, in time, do the same to the next geese (eg Malaysia and Indonesia). In effect, it was creating a global value chain in the region centred around Japan.
Trajectory
These discussions for regional integration between multinational companies, experts and governments began ad hoc in 1968, when Japan proposed a Free Trade Area of Asia Pacific (FTAAP). In 1980, they evolved into the Pacific Economic Cooperation Council’s annual informal meetings.
The drive for regional integration intensified with Japan’s need for regional cheap labour (as a result of the 1985 Plaza Accord’s appreciation of the Japanese yen). Japan’s foreign direct investment between 1986 and 1989 equalled all the previous post-World War Two foreign direct investment.
In 1989, the informal government participation at the Pacific Economic Cooperation Council was formalised with the establishment of the Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) forum. Today, the PECC remains a second track diplomatic channel.
The APEC forum was further elevated in 1993 by then-US President Bill Clinton, who proposed an annual leaders’ summit in an attempt to propel the process towards the FTAAP.
The following year, the Bogor Goals set the goal of establishing a Free Trade Area of Asia Pacific, eliminating tariffs for industrialised economies by 2010 and for industrialising economies by 2020.
The 1995 Osaka Plan of Action, shaped by a wary Asean and a Japan anxious about protecting its agriculture, institutionalised the voluntarist and consensus- driven approach to realising the FTAAP.
Having failed to achieve an FTAAP, in 2020, the Putrajaya vision once again set its sights for an FTAAP by 2040.
Today
Despite Japan’s importance as a steward of Apec, the US has always exerted a greater influence in Apec’s trajectory.
Now, with China’s rise, China now also exerts great influence.
For the US, its vision of a free trade area of Asia Pacific evolved from the US-centred legalistic approach as embodied in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement with Apec members, which President Donald Trump pulled out of in 2017, to Joe Biden’s Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, and now to Trump’s tariff extortionism today.
True to its role as Apec steward, Japan salvaged the TPP agreement and facilitated the creation of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership.
In contrast, the China-centred Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, reflecting China’s own economy, allows greater state economic intervention.
The approaches of both the US and China shape and guide Apec’s move towards its goal of achieving a free trade area for the Asia-Pacific region.
Yet, neither approach provides a path forward in resolving the climate change and war crises facing the world today. Apec 2025’s slogan – ‘Building a Sustainable Tomorrow: Connect, Innovate, Prosper’ – contains all of the right buzzwords.
Yet, with the planet and people’s welfare at stake, Apec’s closed-door, opaque meetings centred on multinational companies are unacceptable.
After all, the “economic” in Apec is not simply made up of companies. Workers, farmers, consumers, all people make up the economy. Thus, the public must be a part of these conversations.
That is why we are creating the Global Civil Society Task Force on Apec. And the first step of this process is learning exactly what Apec is, how we got here, and where we must go. – Globetrotter/International Strategy Centre (Seoul, South Korea).
Dae-Han Song is a part of the International Strategy Center and the No Cold War collective and is an associate at the Korea Policy Institute.
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