Aussie in the middle

Morrison downplays US-China spat as APEC ends in whimper

THE “APEC family” remains committed to cutting trade barriers and working closely together despite tensions between the US and China, according to Prime Minister Scott Morrison.

Papua New Guinea hosted the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting for the first time at the weekend, but it ended without an official statement because the two superpowers could not agree on the wording.

It’s the first time an APEC summit has failed to produce an agreed communique.

Australia was caught in the middle, between its largest trading partner China and its long-time ally the US.

Mr Morrison said there were many difficult issues.

“If the major powers here are not going to agree, we shouldn’t be pretending that they do,” he said yesterday.

“And we shouldn’t be trying to smooth that over for the sake of a communique, and we should call that out.”

However he said there were many areas of agreement, such as the need to improve digital connectedness and the benefits of dropping trade barriers.

“We are all still absolutely committed to stronger trading outcomes because we understand that here in the APEC family we have been able to reduce tariffs, we’ve been able to increase the level and size of our economies,” Mr Morrison said, adding the points of disagreement would be picked up at the G20 summit this month.

Mr Morrison on the weekend announced Australia and the US would jointly expand the Lombrum naval base on Manus Island, opening up a key staging point into the South China Sea. And Australia, the US, Japan and New Zealand will jointly fund an electrification project in PNG.

China and the US could not agree on language about reforms to the World Trade Organisation, and China opposed levelling the playing field against state-owned enterprises.