For a city gearing up to host the 10th annual meeting of the leaders of the APEC forum, Auck-land was surprisingly quiet yesterday. A tiff between Japan and China over who would get to stay in the Sheraton Hotel's only top-class suite ended up grabbing most of the attention.
At first, it appeared that Chinese President Jiang Zemin (江澤民) had won, as he pocketed the keys to the one and only presidential suite in the five-star hotel. But face dictated that matters be put to rights for Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi, who suggested that both leaders be placed on the same floor and have the same level of luxury. The Sheraton gave in, according to local media reports, pouring a reported NZ$90,000 into last-minute refurbishing efforts. In the end, Jiang was given a "Royal Suite" and Obuchi an "Imperial Suite," reports said.
The funds, which were spent ostensibly due to the protocol tug-of-war between Japan and China, reportedly came from the pockets of local residents, as the Auckland city government footed the bill.
While hotels have been told to keep quiet by organizers about where APEC leaders will stay, the locations of most have been leaked to the local press.
The delegations from Taiwan and Papua New Guinea, which are staying in the same hotel, had less of a problem -- regardless of their already strained relations over on-again-off-again diplomatic relations -- as their hotel has two penthouse suites.
Hotel fees were also allowed to be raised on average by nearly NZ$100 (about NT$1,650) per room for the duration of the forum meetings.
New Zealand officials are certainly taking the meetings seriously from a security point of view, as streets will be blocked off for security reasons and children will have a day off from school today.
Such measures, and even attempts declare a work holiday as well, have met with protests from local residents, said a foreign representative who asked not to be named.
"People here are more interested in the upcoming America's Cup than they are in APEC," the representative said.
A sandwich shop owner, Maria Singh, said that she had her doubts that the meetings would help stimulate sales. "They say things are going to pick up, but, we'll just see," Singh said.
Regardless, the government is still showing that it is eager to please. To beef up security, it has brought in roughly one-third of the national police force to help prevent any possible incidents of protest from getting out of hand.
There was a small-scale protest yesterday, but it was quickly defused.
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