Apec after Shanghai

It is usually assumed that the signing of bilateral free trade agreements (BFTAs) will undermine the trade liberalization agenda and internal operations of multilateral organizations (call it the ”undermining hypothesis”). Using the results of content analyses on massive volumes of archive data from the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), this paper aims to verify the above ”undermining hypothesis.” Contrary to the common expectations, I find that APEC leaders and senior officials, perhaps due to various BFTAs activities, are less likely to emphasize the core agenda of APEC on trade and investment liberalization and facilitation (TILF), but more likely to stress another core agenda on economic and technology cooperation (ECOTECH). However, there is no tradeoff effect between their emphasis on TILF and that on the ECOTECH agenda. Moreover, in the implementation record of APEC projects, I find that in any given year, if a pair of countries (APEC economies themselves, or non-members) register BFTAs in the World Trade Organization(WTO), then the number of their APEC projects implemented is reduced However, in any given year, the greater the accumulated number of BFTAs for a pair of countries, the greater the number of APEC projects they implement This latter finding is not entirely compatible with the ”undermining hypothesis,” as it seems to suggest that the greater the accumulated number of BFTAs is signed, the greater the need to implement APEC projects. indeed, many APEC projects are considered by member economies as preconditions, facilitators, or side payments for them to push forward the trade liberalization agenda Therefore, it is likely that when the accumulated number of BFTAs increases, APEC members may feel it necessary to do more APEC projects, and hence the number of APEC project implemented increases. This finding revises the conventional wisdom derived from the ”undermining hypothesis.”

The challenge APEC now faces is to create a dynamic process for continued progress. In recent months, the term has become a code word among APEC officials for some tactical aspects of progress on APEC's liberalization agenda. This article explores ways of operationalizing the aggregate comparability and detailed comparability concepts in order to encourage productive co-operation in APEC. argue that the advantages of APEC's repeated game structure can be exploited by defining the contributions APEC expects from its members and by recognizing (positively or if necessary negatively) the efforts of individual economies. One conclusion is that a well-designed loop of information collection, dissemination and feedback could be helpful in stimulating substantive progress. With its Subic Bay summit in 1996, the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum has entered the operational phase of its ambitious agenda of building a regional community and abolishing regional trade and barriers. The Manila Action Plan for APEC (MAPA) unveils plans by each of APEC's 18 members for achieving free and open trade and investment by 2010 (developed countries) or 2020 (developing countries). A complex, 1,500-page document, MAPA represents a major step forward in the transparency of APEC and a beginning towards its substantive goals. But the hardest work lies ahead; most of the Individual Action Plans (IAPs) are vague on overall goals and short on specifics. Implementation, of course, is only in its very earliest stages. The challenge APEC now faces is to create a dynamic process for continued progress. This progress will have to involve new initiatives in trade and facilitation and in economic and technical co-operation. It will also require new approaches in the liberalization area, the focus of this article.1 Progress in liberalization could come, on one hand, through sectoral or other thematic agreements, such as the Information Technology Agreement (approved by APEC and subsequently the World Trade Organization [WTO] at their 1996 summits), that promote a common range of policy measures in all or most member economies. It could also come through incremental improvements in and the gradual implementation of the IAPs. In either case, it will be important to track progress towards the goals of the Bogor Declaration, since that vision offers a uniquely powerful rationale for regional co-operation. In recent months, the term has become a code word among APEC officials for some tactical aspects of progress on APEC's liberalization agenda. The term was first introduced by U.S. representatives in the days leading up to APEC's 1995 Osaka meetings. In U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher's words, We do not have to take identical steps, but the steps we take should produce comparable results. Each of us can take difficult steps if all of us are taking difficult steps.2 In this context, the term refers to the aggregate comparability of the contributions of APEC economies. The process behind MAPA identified further issues. Early on, it became clear that, despite the Osaka guidelines, APEC lacked a concrete framework for setting goals or measuring progress. Several senior officials meetings (SOMs), for example, dealt with streamlining the IAP submissions through the adoption of common indicators, such as templates for reporting average tariff rates. Despite these efforts, the final submissions are difficult to interpret or compare across economies. Thus, there is also need for what might be called detailed comparability, or a disaggregated framework for describing each economy's starting position and commitments. This article explores ways of operationalizing both concepts of comparability in order to encourage productive co-operation in APEC. APEC is novel among international trade fora in that its negotiations are ongoing; it has a repeated game structure. …

Global economic prosperity and security are vital public goods. They demand co-operation among nation-states for their achievement and maintenance. This fact has been acknowledged in the selection of ‘A World of Differences: Partnerships for the Future’ as the central theme for the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) forum in 2003. The incoming Executive Director of the APEC Secretariat, Piamsak Milintachinda, has affirmed the need for co-operation ‘in pursuit of APEC’s twin goals of enhancing security against terrorist threats while continuing to promote trade growth and economic development within the APEC region’ (APEC 2002: 1). Despite the strength of this rhetorical commitment to regional economic and security co-operation, given the context of a faltering global economy, the October 12 terrorist bombing of Bali and in the light of North Korea’s apparent intention to resume its nuclear programme, the reality of Asia-Pacific regionalism has fallen far short of politicians’ rhetoric. For example, in the field of economic co-operation through regional trade agreements (RTAs), the World Trade Organization (WTO) has noted that the Asia Pacific is ‘the region with the smallest number of RTAs currently in force’ (WTO 2000: 22). Furthermore, while a number of states have been actively considering moving from their established policy of Most Favoured Nation-only trade liberalization towards regional co-operation, the WTO has warned that the ‘open regionalism’ favoured by the APEC may be ‘counteracted by a drive towards preferential trade initiatives’.

Against the backdrop of the theory of economic cooperation and integration, this paper examines and analyses the mechanics and dynamics of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum . Available evidence indicates that the APEC has emerged as a building block of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and can offer solutions to a wide array of problems in international business. Possibly the greatest potential of this forum lies in its strength to bring several economically diverse and geographically dispersed countries together to address the oft-quoted issues and problems in international business in the Asia-Pacific region. However, it is argued that APEC is not the only policy track that is going to be used by the member-states to protect and promote their business interests. For instance, the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA) and the North American Free Trade Area (NAFTA) do provide legal frameworks for some of the APEC members to iron out tariffs and other invisible barriers to international trade. The idea to promote “open regionalism” in the Asia-Pacific region is also subject to scrutiny in this paper. We argue that this emphatically articulated idea by APEC is in line with the WTO charter. One may, however, consider the bilateral and multilateral actions within the APEC with regard to “open regionalism” before trying to develop a theory of open regional groupings. These actions will significantly determine how APEC can actually function in an environment characterised by discriminatory regional groupings and anti-free trade lobbies manifested in recent violent protests in USA, Switzerland and Thailand. Finally, we examine various scenarios for policy following the 1999 APEC Summit in New Zealand.

The rise of new institutions in response to systemic vulnerabilities, strategic power shifts in the world economy and the slow pace of reform of existing institutions generated heated discussions over the proliferation of institutions and the subsequent fragmentation of global governance. However, this fragmentation does not mean there has been a decline in demand for global governance or reduced efficiency. On the contrary, it can be beneficial, positive and creative [Acharya, 2016].Though essentially different in their missions and collective identities, the Group of 20 (G20), the BRICS grouping of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum each has an important role to play in promoting the inclusiveness, legitimacy and efficiency of global governance. The distinctive features of these institutions are the nature of their summitry, the character of their volunteerism and their recognition of the role of major developing countries in world economic growth and global and regional governance. They are deeply embedded within the system of international institutions and are intensely engaged with international organizations (IOs).This engagement does not directly address the concerns over fragmentation. However, it does stimulate a division of labour which mitigates the risks of fragmentation and competition, facilitating coordination, coherence, accountability and effectiveness in global governance.This paper examines G20/BRICS/APEC engagement with international organizations in fulfillment of their global governance functions of deliberation, direction-setting, decision-making, delivery and global/regional governance development.The study is carried out within the paradigm of rational choice institutionalism. It draws on quantitative and qualitative analysis of documents adopted by the G20, BRICS and APEC to trace dynamics and identify their preferred models of engagement with multilateral organizations.The article begins with a brief outline of the roles of the G20, BRICS and APEC in the system of global governance. Then it presents the analytical paradigm and methodology of the study. Applying the described methodology, it tests the key assumption that summit institutions can resort to a combination of “catalyst,” “core group” and “parallel treatment modes” in their engagement with IOs and that their preferred choice reflects their mission and role in the system of international institutions which may change over time. Reviewing the findings, this article concludes that the G20, BRICS and APEC consistently engage with IOs even while the range of organizations, the intensity, the dynamics and models of engagement differ substantially.The G20, a premier forum for consensus-based economic cooperation, seeks to fulfill the promise of facilitating greater coherence in the system across institutions [Narlikar, Kumar, 2012, p. 389] to forge a new form of institutional collectivism. The G20 exceeds the BRICS and APEC in terms of the number of references to IOs, intensity and scope. It employs all three modes, engaging its key partners - the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Financial Stability Board (FSB), the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the World Bank (WB), the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the International Labour Organization (ILO) - mostly as a core group across the full range of global governance functions from deliberation to delivery. The BRICS, representing a new force in global governance, strives to build a better world order for humanity through a constructive contribution to defining the rules of the game [Duggan, 2015, p. 11]. The BRICS consistently acts as a catalyst stimulating, endorsing, compelling and supporting change of the United Nations (UN), the IMF, the WB and the WTO and building a BRICS-centred institutional system. APEC as a regional premier economic forum and a vehicle of Asia-Pacific engagement in global issues [Morrison, 2014, p. 2] advances inclusive growth regionally and globally. This duality is explicit in APEC’s choice of partners, where the top ten positions are split between global and regional IOs. APEC expedites integration of regional and global agendas, facilitates coordination between regional and multilateral institutions and reinforces their mutual influence.Jointly the G20, BRICS and APEC contribute to more effective global policy coordination. Though there is definitely room for improvement, this is indeed good news, raising hopes for the future of global governance.

This article examines the two-decade evolution of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and the future prospects for Asian regionalism. It argues that while APEC retains advantages over competing regional structures, it should undergo reforms to accelerate the Bogor Goals and ensure its complementarity with the World Trade Organization (WTO). The article first analyzes the impact of stake-holding countries' trade policies on APEC's structure and development. By assessing APEC's soft-law mechanism, it explores APEC's WTO-plus contributions that reinvigorated the International Technology Agreement negotiations and improved supply chain facilitation. APEC's goal of creating a Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP) can overcome structural limitations and serve as an effective 'Plan B' for the Doha Round impasse. Nonetheless, caution should be given to legal challenges to the pathways to an FTAAP such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Finally, the article calls for reforms that will enhance APEC's institution-building and monitoring system. Such reforms will strengthen APEC's role under the multilateral trading system and reenergize the public--private partnership for trans-Pacific integration. The Author 2013. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved., Oxford University Press.

This article examines the two-decade evolution of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and the future prospects for Asian regionalism. It argues that while APEC retains advantages over competing regional structures, it should undergo reforms to accelerate the Bogor Goals and ensure its complementarity with the World Trade Organization (WTO). The article first analyzes the impact of stake-holding countries’ trade policies on APEC’s structure and development. By assessing APEC’s soft-law mechanism, it explores APEC’s WTO-plus contributions that reinvigorated the International Technology Agreement negotiations and improved supply chain facilitation. APEC’s goal of creating a Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP) can overcome structural limitations and serve as an effective “Plan B” for the Doha Round impasse. Nonetheless, caution should be given to legal challenges to the pathways to an FTAAP such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Finally, the article calls for reforms that will enhance APEC’s institution-building and monitoring system. Such reforms will strengthen APEC’s role under the multilateral trading system and reenergize the public-private partnership for trans-Pacific integration.

In November 1996 the Philippine government hosted the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum of eighteen countries in Asia and the Pacific Rim (comprised of 2 billion people, where 56 percent of the world’s gross domestic product and 46 percent of the total world exports are produced), geared to establishing a regional commercial bloc with regulatory powers like the World Trade Organization (WTO). APEC is modeled after other free-trade blocs like the European Union and the North American Free Trade Area (NAFTA) designed to speed up WTO trade and investments liberalization timetable. It is also intended to counter the wave of domestic protectionism that accompanied the rise of the Asian “tigers” or NIEs (Newly Industrialized Economies) and the threat of China’s full-blown “market socialism.” APEC’S chief objective is clear: to ensure and facilitate the regional implementation of the provisions of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which benefits the advanced industrial North. Under the aegis of “open regionalism,” it aims to abolish international barriers to trade and eliminate restrictions against foreign investments, two steps that will surely devastate the economy, culture, and environment of the poor countries (KMU 1996). APEC is also being used by the United States, as policeman and enforcer of “common market rules” in the Asia-Pacific region (carried out through structural adjustment programs of the World Bank/International Monetary Fund), to regain economic preeminence over Japan (neutralizing U.S. trade deficits), check China’s competitive influence, and consolidate U.S. geopolitical hegemony.

The year 1996 is an important year in trade policy history as it marks the beginnings of two key institutions which will lead us on the road towards an open and rules-based trading system. In November 1996, cynics and optimists alike await the announcement of the action plans for trade liberalization and facilitation by economies from the Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) group. The action plans will provide the first glimpse of the track towards the long-term goals set out by APEC’s Bogor Declaration in 1994: to achieve free and open trade and investment in the region no later than 2010 for industrialized economies, and 2020 for developing economies. Meanwhile, at the end of the year, ministers from members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) meet for the first time since it was set up in early 1995. The agenda calls for evaluation of the implementation of Uruguay Round commitments, and discussion of unfinished business such as negotiation on services.

NAFTA and the Legalization of World Politics: A Case Study

This study examines the impacts of longer-term structural changes on the labour markets of Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) member economies, as well as the short-run labour market consequences of the Asian financial crisis. All APEC economies have experienced significant structural change in the process of development. A major factor in this structural change has been increased trade intensity (increase in exports and imports as a share of GDP) that has occurred over the last 20 years. Because these structural changes have been extensively induced by trade liberalisation, this study provides insights into the likely consequences of the implementation of APEC's agenda on trade and investment liberalisation and facilitation. The impact of structural change is examined using a range of data, such as disaggregated changes in output and employment by industry and occupation over the period 1980 to 1997, and data on changes in trade intensity for each of the APEC nations. Other data, such as changes in rates of urbanization, are also used to indicate the other important concomitant effects of economic transformation. For several Asian economies, the linear path of growth and structural change was severely disrupted by the Asian financial crisis. This article examines the impact of this crisis on Asian labour markets, in general, and those most affected by the crisis, in particular. In many countries within the region, a failure of education and training systems to respond to often rapid shifts in the skill composition of labour demand is leading to industry and occupation specific labour shortages. International labour migration within the APEC region is viewed as a product of these structural changes and a mechanism that assists in filling gaps in the labour markets of the region's economies.

Little is known about cooperation between nations engaged in a regional economic association. This study investigates cooperation and closure between Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) member economies engaged in negotiating five bilateral free trade agreements (FTA), including the Australia-Singapore FTA 2003, United States-Singapore FTA 2003, Chile-United States FTA 2003, Australia-United States FTA 2004, and Korea-Australia FTA 2014. This study found that a number of factors bring about or interfere with cooperation at the closure stage. Negotiation closure occurs within FTAs when discussions shift from trade diplomats focused on technical matters to senior national leaders focused on political decisions. Creditable deadline, party stability and instability, and linkage dynamics were also found to support or interfere with cooperation at the closure stage in FTA negotiations. Often FTA negotiations are concluded on the sidelines of meetings sponsored by international organizations including APEC Leaders' Summit and Ministerial meetings.

With total international trade three and a half times that of its gross domestic product (GDP), Singapore has been a natural and ardent advocate and supporter of free trade. For the trade-dependent city-state, it would be ideal if multilateral forums, notably the World Trade Organization (WTO) and Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting, could lay down the framework for international trade liberalization. However, as noted by many, multilateral negotiations and processes had failed to make much progress by the late 1990s. Singapore has thus been contemplating alternative strategies to boost trade, or for that matter, investments, in its perennial quest for trade liberalization. The country’s main strategy as adopted in the new millennium has been to actively pursue Free Trade Agreements (FTAs), especially bilateral ones, with an extensive network of trading partners.

Marc G. Doucet (*) Since leadership out of this mess does not seem to be coming from the traditional places anymore--not from politicians, political parties, the church, or academia--it is up to us--working people, the unemployed, young people, old people, people of color, first-nations people--to take up the mantle. We are going to have to form the citizen movements in our countries and across borders to take back democracy in their absence. Maude Barlow, opening the 1997 People's Summit on APEC Deconstruction is something which happens and which happens inside: there is a deconstruction at work within Plato's work, for instance.... I would say the same for although the concept of democracy is a Greek heritage. This heritage is the heritage of a model, not simply a model, but a model that self-deconstructs, that deconstructs itself, so as to uproot, to become independent of its own grounds. Jacques Derrida The increasing frequency and scope of organized popular opposition to components of governance,, (1) has raised new and profound questions about the meaning of and the democratic imaginary in an era of If we are willing to accept that forcing globalization's difference into traditional 'spatial' categories creates remainders and resistances that for political theory prompt renewed investigation of the concepts and scope of democracy, (2) then we need to address recent political events surrounding opposition to global governance with alternative theoretical vantage points. Such vantage points may provide us with a better understanding of what is made to work, and what is made possible, by the opposition to globalization and the state-sponsored international organizations that sustain it. In order to help develop such a theoretical space, this article will examine the opposition to one such state-sponsored component of global governance: Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC). (3) For the better part of the 1990s, the APEC annual leaders' meeting was the site of opposition organized by nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). One can perhaps draw from the history of organized opposition to APEC in order to better understand the possibilities that are opened in our political imaginary by other, similar, global social movements of contestation that have occurred in Quebec City, Davos, Prague, Melbourne, Washington, D.C., Seattle, and elsewhere. In the case of opposition to APEC, NGOs were concerned with such issues as economic globalization, human rights, gender, labor rights, migrant rights, sustainable development, and the environment. For most of the 1990s in whichever member country of APEC the heads of state met, NGOs organized parallel forums, or summits. (4) Why would APEC provoke such political opposition on such a broad range of issues? In answering this question, this article will argue that APEC, as a component of global governance, is not merely an interstate economic forum; rather, I argue, if we wish to understand the reason for the opposition we must view APEC as a political site where a particular discourse on the social is deployed. This discourse on the social contains particular resolutions of identity! difference that are, like all such resolutions, antagonistic. NGO opposition in the form of people's summits is in effect responding to this antagonism. This article will further argue that, in responding to this antagonism, the NGO discourse of contestation opens the possibility for a deterritorialization of democracy. This possibility is opened through the discursive articulation of the opposition that one can find in aspects of the final declarations or statements issued at the end of the NGO forums. Although these openings are generally few and cannot be exaggerated, they are of interest if we are looking for genuinely new ways of imagining politics and democracy in a world marked by globalization. …

Trade facilitation was tabled at the WTO's First Ministerial Meeting in 1996 as a “new” issue, with the intent that exploratory and analytical work on the simplification of trade procedures be carried out in order to assess the scope for WTO rules in this area. Five years later at Doha, the trade ministers agreed that negotiations would take place after the next session of the Ministerial Conference on the basis of a decision to be taken at that session on the modalities of negotiations. This chapter reviews the work done on trade facilitation in the WTO between 1996 and 2001 and assesses the prospects for further work, including formal negotiations, in the context of the Doha declaration. Who's doing what in trade facilitation: a brief overview There is no single definition of “trade facilitation.” The term generally refers to the simplification of procedural and administrative impediments to trade. Different organizations place emphasis on different sets of procedural and administrative impediments. In the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, trade facilitation is used interchangeably with “business facilitation” and encompasses a broad range of issues such as customs procedures, standards and conformance, mobility of business, and electronic commerce (Woo and Wilson 2000). The OECD also employs a broad understanding, including procedures and regulations relating to customs, valuation, classification, transport, banking, insurance, and business practices, as well as issues related to telecoms, dissemination of information, information technology, and training.