COMMENTARY
Peru's APEC meetings: A vision for Isles in 2011?
By Charles E. Morrison
As a participant in last week's annual APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) meetings in Lima, Peru, I was privileged to witness the biggest event to take place in that city in the almost five centuries since it was founded. Heads of government came from 19 Asia-Pacific countries, including China, Japan and the United States, along with foreign and trade ministers, senior officials, CEOs of the region's major companies, and many other officials, spouses, journalists and security personnel — in all about 20,000 visitors over an eight-day stretch.
It was exciting to think that the same set of meetings could take place in Honolulu in 2011, the year that U.S. hosts APEC. The Obama administration will make the final call, but a number of cities and resort destinations are being invited to submit bids, including Honolulu.
Honolulu has many assets in its favor, including our rich host culture, extensive accommodations and ability to provide security. Moreover, no competitor could claim to be the birthplace of the host nation's president.
Even so, a number of other U.S. cities with strong business and other Asia-Pacific ties are sure to be contenders for APEC 2011, certainly in California and possibly the Midwest or the East Coast.
If the leaders' meeting does end up being held in Hawai'i, it would exceed in scale and international visibility any meeting ever held here before, or that Hawai'i could likely host in the next quarter-century.
As for last week's meetings, one might have thought that with the United States in a governmental transition, APEC would be diminished in international stature, and little attention given the outgoing American leader. Neither was true.
In fact, the global economic crisis gave the meeting greater importance than ever, as did its timing following the G-20 economic summit the week before in Washington. And of all the visitors, Peruvian media coverage focused most on the American first family. One paper showed a close-up of President Bush drinking the local "Pisco sour," and another showed Laura Bush at an archaeological site featured in the spouse program.
Attending both policy and business-oriented events, I was struck by the contrast between the bureaucratic and business outlooks on the crisis. Government officials tended to cling to the pre-existing APEC agendas, as if the crisis were an inconvenient and temporary circumstance. Business leaders, on the other hand, were totally focused on how APEC should respond.
Fortunately, the top political leaders were inclined toward the latter perspective. About half of them spoke at the annual CEO summit, including Hu Jintao of China, Kevin Rudd of Australia, Lee Myung-bak of Korea, and Bush. Although each leader appeared separately, their themes were similar, emphasizing the international consensus-building value of organizations such as the G-20 and APEC.
These themes included that:
Hu came to Peru early for a state visit, and was warmly received. His session at the CEO summit was fully attended by a curious audience that listened passively as he read a speech in Chinese. In contrast, Bush was interrupted most frequently by applause. Canada's Stephen Harper got the most laughs when he described his recent re-election as like winning a trip to the Caribbean during hurricane season.
Indonesia's Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono participated in a panel, but Mexico's articulate Filipe Calderón was the only head of state to interact with the audience. Asked about renegotiating NAFTA, he replied bluntly that this was a bad idea that would increase Mexican emigration to the United States. He also criticized pegged currency exchange rates, such as China's, noting that they distort trade and artificially increase surpluses, and thus helped enable the current crisis.
Much of the corridor talk was about the likely personnel and policies of the incoming Obama administration. Tim Geithner's appointment at Treasury was widely applauded, while future U.S. trade policy was a big concern. When Obama goes to the next big APEC meeting in Singapore, he will fit well in terms of age and education — if not in every case philosophy — with a younger group of leaders like Rudd, Harper and Calderón, as well as New Zealand's newly elected John Key.
Local residents welcomed the attention and extra business. Many had a two-day holiday to relieve possible traffic congestion. Security was heavy, but there seemed to be little obvious disruption, and hotels, shops, restaurants and street vendors were clearly enjoying the strong bump in the visitor industry.
Let's hope that Hawai'i may gain similar benefits with APEC 2011.
Charles E. Morrison is president of the East-West Center and chairman of the Pacific Economic Cooperation Council. He wrote this commentary for The Advertiser.
