US-China rivalry takes centre stage at APEC summit
Date November 17, 2015 - 1:30PM
Andrew Hammond
Global trade is the headline topic at the APEC summit but the heart of the matter is the growing competition between superpowers.
The Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) CEO Summit gets under way in Manila on November 16. With seven months left in office, Philippine President Benigno Aquino is taking measures to strengthen his infrastructure legacy and boost the resilience of one of Asia's fastest-growing economies. Photographer:
SeongJoon Cho/Bloomberg Photo: SeongJoon Cho
As political leaders from across the Asia-Pacific region and the Americas gather in Manila this week at the first APEC leadership summit since the agreement of the Trans-Pacific Partnership in early October, discussions could prove as interesting for what is not officially on the agenda as what is. For instance, India's application to join APEC will not be formally discussed, nor potentially will China's territorial disputes in the South China Sea, through which some $US5 trillion of ship-borne trade passes each year. This year's host, Philippines President Benigno Aquino III, has agreed not to raise this, despite his vocal disagreement with Beijing on the issue, but United States President Barack Obama may yet choose to do so, according to the US State Department.
This would infuriate China, which has proclaimed territorial sovereignty over a significant portion of the sea, while the United States is pushing for freedom of navigation. Other countries exercising claims in the sea include Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam, but the Philippines has been the boldest of those states in challenging China, including through international legal action.
Security is tight in Manila as police confine a group of protesters along a street after attempting to march towards the venue for this week's APEC summit. Photo: AP
China will be centre stage in the meeting, given its attempts to push a TPP alternative, and the possibility that geopolitical disputes over its territorial claims could emerge on the agenda.
Following the Paris terrorist attacks, security in the Philippines will be enormously tight. Presidents and prime ministers will be in attendance from the US, China, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Taiwan, Brunei, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, Mexico, Papua New Guinea, Chile, Peru, Russia, and Vietnam; Indonesia will send its vice-president. Collectively these states account for more than half of global GDP and nearly half of world trade.
The most important economic issues under discussion will be the TPP, and China's alternative vision for a Free Trade Area of Asia Pacific (FTAAP). In the final communique of last year's APEC leadership meeting in Beijing, countries agreed to investigate the feasibility of such an arrangement, which was welcomed by Chinese President Xi Jinping as an "historic" decision.
Beijing will reportedly announce initial findings of the research at the summit. The intent, as Vice-Finance Minister Wang Shouwen says, is then to "complete the joint strategic study next year and to present operable suggestions and recommendations to the leaders at next year's summit".
The FTAAP project has been under debate since at least 2004, but assumed new importance for Beijing since Washington began to champion the TPP. According to President Xi, it would provide a greater economic boost than TPP, and he has encouraged APEC to "vigorously promote [it], setting the goal, direction and roadmap, and turn the vision into reality as soon as possible".
China's leaders say their plan does not "go against existing free trade arrangements", but at the heart of the debate within APEC are contrasting US and Chinese visions to shape the regional order and cement their influence in it. Beijing's push thus provides an alternative model for future regional economic integration to that proposed by Washington.
China believes the FTAAP would be much more conducive to its national interests (not least because it would be part of the new economic agreement, unlike TPP) by creating an integrated Asia-Pacific free trade area, with it potentially at the centre. Beijing also hopes this economic community could evolve into a broader regional co-operation blueprint in areas such as transportation from air traffic to highways and rail.
Beijing also aspires to burnish its regional leadership credentials. This is important, given that some countries in the region remain wary of its future ambitions as a nascent superpower, as indicated by the territorial spats over the South China Sea.
However, the FTAAP initiative faces multiple challenges. It is a long-term project that may not reach a conclusion for at least a decade, while the TPP states (the US, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Canada, Brunei, Chile, Peru, Vietnam, Malaysia and Mexico) have already committed, subject to legislative ratification in 2016, to achieving a similar ambition on the basis of the alternative US-led TPP framework.
Nevertheless, given the uncertainty over TPP ratification, not least in the US Congress, Beijing may sense an immediate window of opportunity to advance the FTAAP. Hence, one of the key reasons why US President Barack Obama has intensified his push for TPP passage in Washington by enlisting a bipartisan team of advocates.
A key ambition for Obama with TPP, a quarter of a century after Washington helped create APEC, is to embed international institutional frameworks to extend and enhance US influence. TPP is thus only the latest manifestation of a global institutional building project that began after World War II to encourage the growth of democracy and open global markets.
Taken overall, competition between Beijing and Washington for the regional economic integration agenda will be at the heart of the APEC summit. Both countries see a key role for their favoured institutional framework in extending their national influence. Much will now depend on whether TPP can be ratified in 2016, especially in the US Congress, in the face of formidable presidential and legislative election year pressures.
Andrew Hammond is an associate at LSE IDEAS (the Centre for International Affairs, Diplomacy and Strategy) at the London School of Economics.
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