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Asia.view
APEC—a pretty empty chatter

Sep 12th 2007
From Economist.com
Four adjectives in search of a conclusion

OLD jokes are best. If they are remembered it is because they are funny, and if they are funny, it is probably because they are at least partly true. So it was when Gareth Evans, a former Australian foreign minister, called APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation) “four adjectives in search of a noun”.

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Diplomats will tut-tut: how the press trivialises these important international gatherings! But the opposite criticism is more valid: the press took the summit too seriously. It earnestly relayed the leaders’ call for a rapid conclusion of the stalled Doha round of trade talks; and it dutifully recorded their “aspirational goal” (ie, meaningless wishful thinking) to limit greenhouse-gas emissions,...

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It is not just that APEC has no obvious function. It is worse than that: it actually has a pernicious effect. Its very existence creates the illusion that something is being done and so weakens other efforts to reach meaningful agreements on, for example, climate change and trade. This joke has gone on long enough.