Apec: Successes, Weaknesses, and Future Prospects

Abstract

It is now more than a decade since the first meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) forum was held in Canberra, in 1989. Since then, opinions about APEC, its achievements, and future role have ranged from the wildly optimistic to the utterly dismissive. Yet APEC survives, and the relative success of the recent APEC Leaders' Meeting in Shanghai demonstrates that the organization can still play a very useful role in regional affairs. Indeed, in a region of staggering diversity and complexity, APEC is really the only forum for the exchange of opinions and the development of co-operative efforts to meet common problems. It has also shown itself to be quite adaptive and flexible, revising its priorities and programmes to meet new situations. However, it is also clear that the organization has a number of serious weaknesses, and faces some daunting challenges. One of the problems in trying to present an assessment of APEC's achievements over the last twelve years or so, and to give some ideas on possible future directions, is that APEC is so many different things to different people. The wide range of its interests, the lack of clarity in many of its goals, and the looseness of its organizational structure and decision-making systems can. be seen as either strengths or weaknesses, depending on one's perspective. No attempt is made here to summarize the very large literature that by now has been generated on this topic.1 Rather, I will present a very personal and general view, that is critical and hopefully realistic, but is broadly supportive of what APEC has been trying to achieve. APEC's ability to adapt to new needs is certainly necessary, given that there have been massive changes at both the global and regional levels. We live in a world characterized as post-Cold War, post-Asian crisis, and now post-11 September, but it is far from clear just what these new conditions signify. This is especially true for Asia. Given the continued tensions on the Korean Peninsula and across the Straits of Taiwan, it is far from clear that the end of the Cold War is such an unambiguous reality in Asia. Similarly, the financial crisis of 1997/98 and the more recent terrorist attacks in the United States have left complex legacies in the region that are still working their way