ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the factors that have shaped these struggles, and the implications for Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation's (APEC's) future role in East Asia. When APEC was launched in Canberra in November 1989, the principles agreed for the new institution closely followed the OPTAD blueprint and the main themes that had emerged from three decades of debate over Pacific regional collaboration. Government preferences on trade liberalisation in APEC reflect a complex interplay of ideas, economic structures, domestic political structures, and personalities. Washington led the charge for trade liberalisation within APEC after the Seattle Leaders' Meeting, part of its insistence that APEC should achieve 'concrete results' rather than be a talk shop. APEC's inability to take decisive action to bolster the economies of members severely affected by the financial crises of 1997-98 was widely viewed as symbolic of the institution's ineffectiveness. The chapter considers the implications of this reversion for APEC's future.
