From left, Australia's Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Brunei's Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, and Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau gather with other APEC leaders for a family photograph at the APEC Summit in Lima, Peru on Nov. 16.Manuel Balce Ceneta/The Associated Press
After two days of meetings in Lima, Peru, that rarely ventured beyond platitudes in discussing the strategies of the region’s major economies, the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation forum wrapped up on Saturday with a spirit of détente that many fear the summit may not see again for four years.
The 21 leaders from economies bordering the Pacific, including U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping, had descended on Peru for the annual gathering at a time when the U.S. president-elect, Donald Trump, has vowed to withdraw the United States from its leadership of a global free-trade agenda.
Few could help pointing out that Mr. Biden’s late entrance on Saturday for the traditional APEC family photo lent itself to political metaphor, as the rest of the leaders prepared to pose onstage before looking around to find Mr. Biden missing.
They tittered for five awkward minutes before a seemingly dazed Mr. Biden emerged and took his place in the far back corner, standing between Thailand’s 38-year-old Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra and Vietnam President Luong Cuong. Mr. Biden briefly reached for Ms. Shinawatra’s hand to steady himself.
China’s Mr. Xi scored the best spot in the house, front and centre beside the host, Peruvian President Dina Boluarte.
Mr. Xi had draped himself in the banner of globalization this week, inaugurating a massive US$1.3-billion ($1.8-billion) megaport in Peru that promises to become South America’s biggest shipping hub and using his speeches to reject protectionism.
In Mr. Xi’s summit address, delivered by one of his ministers, the Chinese leader urged APEC members to “tear down the walls impeding the flow of trade,” and criticized tariffs – which Mr. Trump threatens to levy on Chinese imports – as “going back in history.”
For the annual photo-op, leaders all wore bark-hued wool scarves from Peru – in the APEC tradition of posing in some garb representative of the host country. While conference organizers typically position leaders in alphabetical order for the family photo, arrangements have varied over the years.
Reporters shouted questions as Mr. Biden left the stage Friday, asking how he felt about this being his last APEC summit – and one of his last major global events as president.
Mr. Biden had hoped that APEC – along with the Group of 20 summit in Rio de Janeiro, where he heads Sunday – would have capped his decades-long political career with a flurry of productive diplomacy and swaggering proclamations of the United States’ force on the world stage.
But with his party’s stinging defeat in the U.S. election and the future of the U.S.-China rivalry uncertain, there was little he could accomplish in Lima.
Mr. Biden sought to cement alliances that could be upended by a Trump administration. He expressed concern to the leaders of South Korea and Japan about what he called “dangerous and destabilizing co-operation” between North Korea and Russia.
After nearly four years of record stability in the Japan-U.S. alliance – a partnership crucial for regional security – Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba is now struggling to arrange a high-stakes meeting with Mr. Trump.
He told reporters in Lima on Saturday that his hoped-for meeting with Mr. Trump on his way home from next week’s G20 summit in Brazil would not happen – explaining that Mr. Trump’s team had invoked U.S. legal restrictions to refuse his requests.
“We are considering holding a meeting as soon as possible at a time that is most convenient for both sides,” Mr. Ishiba said.
For the first time in a year, Mr. Biden and Mr. Xi sat down later Saturday for their highly anticipated third and final meeting of Mr. Biden’s presidency.
Mr. Xi told Mr. Biden that his country was “ready to work with a new administration to maintain communication.”
Mr. Biden also struck a conciliatory tone, saying that such in-person talks helped “ensure that competition between our two countries will not veer into conflict.”