Leaders from 21 Asia-Pacific economies were to meet yesterday to chart ways to boost trade despite turmoil in the global economy, as aspiring powers China and Russia bid farewell to US President George W. Bush.
A week after a 20-nation summit in Washington urged action to repair the crippled financial system itself, the Asia-Pacific summit was expected to focus on defending free trade as a way to kickstart slowing economies.
“There is a substantially advanced boutique industry called ‘gloom and doom' that is all about people saying how bad it is,” Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said.
“You can either be part and parcel of that process or you can take up the mantle of leadership and do something about it,” he said.
Ministers from the APEC forum set the stage for the summit with a joint call against protectionism, with some airing concerns that Bush's successor Barack Obama would be less supportive of free markets.
The tightly guarded summit in the Pacific coast city was the last scheduled foreign trip for Bush, who leaves office on Jan. 20 with his approval ratings hovering at all-time lows.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev was scheduled to hold a potentially confrontational final summit with Bush yesterday. Medvedev will tour four countries in Latin America, traditionally Washington's sphere of influence, with arms deals on the cards.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov insisted that Moscow was only selling defensive weapons to Latin America — a swipe at the Bush administration, which infuriated Russia with plans for a missile defense shield in former Soviet bloc countries.
Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) also sought a greater role in Latin America, but both sides described his final meeting with Bush on Friday as friendly and even sentimental.
Hu told Bush he appreciated the “advances in ties achieved in the past few years” and invited him to visit China after leaving office, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao (劉建超) told reporters.
“He also expressed hope that the next US administration can recognize the importance of China-US ties,” Liu said in reference to Obama.
Bush allowed that he was “a little nostalgic” at his last meeting with Hu as head of state and highlighted stable relations with a rising China as a key achievement of his term.
However, Bush repeated his call for China to continue dialogue with representatives of Tibet's exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama.
He also pressed for further action on ending North Korea's nuclear program, a key area where Bush has hoped to achieve progress before he hands the keys of the White House to Obama.
North Korea was expected to take center-stage when Bush holds a three-way summit in Lima with Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso and South Korean President Lee Myung-bak.
Japan has tense relations with North Korea in part because of the communist state's past kidnappings of Japanese civilians. Aso on Friday lobbied Vietnamese President Nguyen Minh Triet to join international efforts to isolate Pyongyang.
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