The annual summit of leaders from the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, held last week in Manila, was a contentious gathering. While there were obvious and compelling grounds for agreement, much discussion instead focused on equally significant differences among the 21 member governments. Fortunately, these differences can be overcome, but success in that effort requires a greater readiness to compromise than has been evident thus far.
APEC was founded in 1989 as a vehicle to promote trans-Pacific economic cooperation. Over time, the organization has grown in both size and scope. At the urging of then-U.S. President George W. Bush, it expanded to take on security issues — an evolution that had been resisted as a dilution and potential distraction — after the September 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States. In truth, a distinction between economic and security issues can be meaningless, given the economic roots of many security problems and the potential for the misuse of liberalization measures — contraband can be moved as easily as legal commerce.
Heightened attention to security risks was inevitable given the terrorist attacks in Paris and Beirut that occurred days before the APEC meeting. Those discussions rekindled the long-standing debate over the best way to counter terror groups — tougher law enforcement and military efforts or the economic growth that deprives such organizations of traction and followers. The declaration from the leaders meeting "strongly condemned all acts, methods and practices of terrorism in all their forms and manifestations," and the attendees pledged that they would not "allow terrorism to threaten the fundamental values that underpin our free and open economies."