ABSTRACT
From the time of its participation in 1991 until the end of 2001, China used the APEC forum as a vehicle to build support among member economies for its attainment of membership to first the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and then the World Trade Organization (WTO), while at the same time, clearly limiting its trade liberalization commitments in APEC to avoid conceding more in negotiations over WTO accession. These contradictory impulses, and hesitant involvement on the part of China and several Asian countries, led to competing visions or designs of trans-Pacific economic cooperation with mainly non-Asian countries, and rival attempts to unify, or retain, the differences that have evolved in the organization and objectives of APEC, which encompasses half of world trade and investment. This analysis also demonstrates the challenges faced by groups of countries with very different political-economy structures and values as they attempt to constitute an arrangement to gain trade and other advantages.
