Reaf­firm­ing unity, mul­ti­lat­er­al­ism

Suzhou meet­ing of APEC trade min­is­ters provides plat­form to show sup­port for WTO rules

Source: China Daily

Update: May 29th, 2026

The 32nd Asia-Pacific Eco­nomic Cooper­a­tion trade min­is­ters’ meet­ing in Suzhou, Jiangsu province, con­vened at a crit­ical time, when many busi­nesses and organ­iz­a­tions fear that the rules gov­ern­ing the global trad­ing envir­on­ment are fray­ing. The fears have been com­poun­ded by the unrest in the Strait of Hor­muz, which has exposed the fra­gil­ity of inter­na­tional rules and the vul­ner­ab­il­ity of global sup­ply chains.

Focus­ing on major eco­nomic and trade issues in the Asia-Pacific, the meet­ing in Suzhou on May 22 and 23 formed an import­ant part of this year’s APEC cooper­a­tion pro­cess and provided a plat­form for determ­ined action to sup­port the mul­ti­lat­eral trad­ing sys­tem based on the World Trade Organ­iz­a­tion rules.

The meet­ing aligned with the theme of the APEC “China Year”, “Build­ing an Asia-Pacific Com­munity to Prosper Together”, which emphas­izes open­ness, innov­a­tion, and cooper­a­tion.

Accord­ing to China’s Min­istry of Com­merce, the major focus of the APEC trade min­is­ters’ meet­ing in Suzhou was on strength­en­ing regional cooper­a­tion amid slow­ing global growth and increas­ing trade uncer­tainty. Such regional cooper­a­tion can provide a coun­ter­bal­ance to the dis­rup­tions in the trade envir­on­ment.

The Suzhou meet­ing allowed the APEC middle powers and smal­ler eco­nom­ies in the Global South to focus on sup­port­ing the basis of inter­na­tional trade. Reaf­firm­a­tion of a com­mon unity and determ­ined sup­port for mul­ti­lat­eral solu­tions over uni­lat­eral action will send a mes­sage to the forces dis­rupt­ing global trade. The pro­pos­als from the Suzhou meet­ing will help set the agenda for the future of trade rela­tions within the APEC region.

The cata­lyst for dis­trac­tion is the secur­ity of oil and product sup­ply chains from the Middle East. Although the media focus is on oil sup­plies, the impact of obstruc­tions in the Strait of Hor­muz is far more diverse, includ­ing dis­rup­tions to the sup­ply of agri­cul­tural fer­til­izer, feed­stocks for plastic pro­duc­tion, and the spe­cial­ist gases required for semi­con­duct­ors and other indus­tries.

These are import­ant sup­plies whose dis­rup­tion has the poten­tial to trig­ger social dis­lo­ca­tion, but it is import­ant that they do not detract from the stra­tegic issues that the APEC meet­ing in Suzhou also needs to con­sider. These include a cluster of trade devel­op­ment issues and the broader ques­tion of sup­port for the inter­na­tional trade envir­on­ment.

Li Cheng­gang, China’s inter­na­tional trade rep­res­ent­at­ive with the Min­istry of Com­merce and vice­com­merce min­is­ter, high­lighted this stra­tegic task when he noted that China will work with all APEC mem­bers to pro­mote con­sensus on build­ing an open and pre­dict­able regional and mul­ti­lat­eral eco­nomic and trade order.

The emphasis on an “open, pre­dict­able and mul­ti­lat­eral eco­nomic and trade order” provided the basic logic for the Suzhou meet­ing. Reach­ing con­sensus on this object­ive would fur­ther enhance APEC’s status.

Con­sensus would sig­nal a com­mit­ment to sup­port­ing mul­ti­lat­eral solu­tions and reject­ing uni­lat­eral diktat. Such con­sensus would expli­citly deny arbit­rary orders or set­tle­ments imposed by a super­ior author­ity, which are typ­ic­ally without nego­ti­ation or con­sent.

It is this mul­ti­lat­eral frame­work that will enable and empower the trade min­is­ters’ dis­cus­sions on deep­en­ing cooper­a­tion in emer­ging sec­tors, includ­ing the digital eco­nomy, green devel­op­ment, and sup­ply-chain resi­li­ence. These object­ives are only achiev­able by cre­at­ing a more open, stable, and pre­dict­able trade envir­on­ment.

Sup­port for these object­ives is con­sist­ent with China’s long-term sup­port for the United Nations, as demon­strated by the four global ini­ti­at­ives China has put for­ward.

These ini­ti­at­ives are designed to help reform the inter­na­tional gov­ernance sys­tems and pro­mote a com­munity with a shared future. They address global chal­lenges through cooper­a­tion, devel­op­ment, and enhanced mul­ti­lat­er­al­ism with the UN at the cen­ter.

APEC is con­sist­ent with these pro­pos­als because it strengthens regional eco­nomic and trade cooper­a­tion amid slow­ing global growth and increas­ing trade uncer­tainty.

Moreover, one of APEC’s most import­ant gath­er­ings of the year can prove decis­ive by reach­ing a key con­sensus to observe mul­ti­lat­eral unity and reject the path of balkan­iz­a­tion and frag­men­ted selfin­terest.

As a mem­ber eco­nomy of APEC, Aus­tralia places great import­ance on stable and pos­it­ive trade per­form­ance with other APEC eco­nom­ies. In 2024, bilat­eral trade in goods between China and Aus­tralia reached $211.27 bil­lion, mark­ing an 85.6 per­cent increase from 2015, and account­ing for 24 per­cent of Aus­tralia’s total for­eign trade.

Accord­ing to the “China Busi­ness Envir­on­ment Brief” released by the China-Aus­tralia Cham­ber of Com­merce, 70 per­cent of Aus­tralian com­pan­ies view China as their top invest­ment des­tin­a­tion, with half plan­ning to expand their pres­ence there. China’s vast mar­ket of 1.4 bil­lion people, with a grow­ing middle-income group, has a strong demand for high-qual­ity Aus­tralian food, health products, and ser­vices. This is a “big pond” that no for­ward-think­ing busi­ness can afford to over­look.

The APEC trade min­is­ters’ meet­ing in Suzhou presen­ted a fresh oppor­tun­ity for China-Aus­tralia cooper­a­tion. In the future, there can be deeper col­lab­or­a­tion to optim­ize trade struc­tures and pro­mote trade diver­si­fic­a­tion, fully lever­aging the APEC cooper­a­tion mech­an­ism to inject last­ing vital­ity into the eco­nomic prosper­ity and sta­bil­ity of the Asia-Pacific region.

The author is an inter­na­tional fin­an­cial tech­nical ana­lysis expert and a former national board mem­ber at the Aus­tralia China Busi­ness Coun­cil. The author con­trib­uted this art­icle to China Watch, a think tank powered by China Daily. The views do not neces­sar­ily reflect those of China Daily.