Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged on Saturday to further open the world's second-largest economy as leaders of Asia-Pacific countries gathered in Peru to find new free-trade options after Donald Trump was elected U.S. president on a protectionist platform.
The annual APEC summit got under way in Lima just over a week after Trump's surprise victory dashed hopes of the largest-ever U.S.-proposed trade deal, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), coming to fruition.
U.S. President Barack Obama has championed the TPP as a way to counter China's rise, but his administration has now stopped trying to win congressional approval for the deal, which was signed by 12 economies in the Americas and Asia-Pacific, excluding China. Without U.S. approval the agreement as currently negotiated cannot be implemented.
Throughout his campaign, Trump strongly criticized U.S. free-trade deals, vowing to pull the world's biggest economy out of the TPP and promising to impose tariffs on imports from trade partners China and Mexico.
China's Xi is selling an alternate vision for regional trade by promoting the Beijing-backed Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), which as it stands excludes the Americas.
"China will not shut its door to the outside world but open more," Xi said in a keynote address.
Chinese attendance at the APEC meeting was its largest ever and delegates from around the region pointed to the possibility of China taking the lead on free trade if the U.S. were to turn towards protectionism.
But the Obama administration has warned that the RCEP would not include strong protections for workers, the environment or intellectual property.
In Lima on his last scheduled trip abroad as president, Obama told students he hoped there would not be major changes in policy towards Latin America in the Trump administration.
The U.S. had worked hard to include labor provisions in a U.S.-Peru free trade agreement in order to lift wages and standards for Peruvian workers, he said.
"That's the kind of attitude that we want to promote in the years going forward and my hope is that policy will continue," he said.
The TPP leaders held a meeting at APEC, where Obama urged them to work together to advance TPP, the White House said in a statement.
The leaders had confirmed the economic and strategic importance of the agreement, Japanese Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Kotaro Nogami told reporters after the meeting on Saturday.
China fills the void?
But with the fate of the TPP uncertain, China's talks on RCEP are seen as perhaps the only viable path to the broader Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP) that APEC aspires to.
"We are going to involve ourselves in economic globalization and we back FTAAP," Xi said. "We're going to...make sure the fruits of development are shared."
New Zealand Prime Minister John Key praised the United States as an important partner in the region, but said China would fill the void if a Trump administration backs away from free trade promotion.
Key said TPP members might be able to incorporate "cosmetic changes" to make the deal more palatable to the real estate magnate and former reality TV star.
"The Trump Pacific Partnership for instance, that'd be fine," Key said laughing.
Despite China's overtures, some APEC members are determined to press on with TPP and held out hopes that the United States would still show leadership on trade.
"Our geopolitical position is with the United States, obviously," Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto said. "That's where our eyes are set and that's what we are working for."
Pena Nieto said the North American Free Trade Agreement between the United States, Mexico and Canada should be "modernized."
Mexico, Japan, Australia, Malaysia, New Zealand and Singapore aim to continue with TPP with or without the United States, Mexico's economy minister, Ildefonso Guajardo, said on Friday.
Japan's Nogami said a TPP without the U.S. had not been discussed at the TPP leaders' meeting.
