When the APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting convenes in Shenzhen on November 18-19, it will be the third time for China to host the event, after the meetings in Shanghai in 2001 and in Beijing in 2014. This year's theme, Building an Asia-Pacific Community to Prosper Together, reaches back to the same bottom line that shaped both earlier meetings: A region this large and marked by such disparities can grow only if it grows together. 

The numbers explain the stakes. The 21 APEC economies generate roughly 60 percent of global GDP and account for nearly half of world trade.  

Two timelines now converge on Shenzhen. One is the APEC one, still being assembled clause by clause. The other is broader and less visible in communiques: the rise of the Global South, which has changed the arithmetic of global governance and left a growing number of Asia-Pacific economies looking for a way to trade with both Washington and Beijing without signing up to either. 

Cui Tiankai, China’s Ambassador to the United States from 2013 to 2021, has watched the APEC evolve from the inside, having attended both the Shanghai and Beijing meetings Beijing Review reporter Frieda Li interviewed him jointly with the Beijing Club for International Dialogue, a think tank based in Beijing, and newsportal Guancha.cn. Edited excerpts of their conversation follow: 

Beijing Review: This will be China’s third time hosting the APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting. From participant to agenda-setter and advocate for an Asia-Pacific community, how has China’s role in multilateral platforms evolved? 

Cui Tiankai: I was in Shanghai for the APEC Leaders' Meeting in 2001. Then I came back to Beijing for the APEC meeting in Beijing in 2014, because then U.S. President Barack Obama was coming, so I came back from Washington, D.C. This time, I don't think I'm going to Shenzhen for the leaders' meeting, but I was in Shenzhen recently for a related conference. So you could see the evolution of the APEC process—and China's role in it. 

Back in 2001, it was about 40 days after the September 11 terrorist attacks. So there was a visible uncertainty internationally over how we should meet the challenges of a new century. Then the Shanghai APEC meeting gave people a very clear and very strong signal that we should work together for common prosperity. That was very important for global confidence in the future, and for regional cooperation and global cooperation to meet the new challenges. 

Also, in 2014, I think the impact of the international financial crisis was still there. And people were worried; internationally we were worried about global governance, having seen the shortcomings and the weaknesses. But how to improve it? People were still thinking. And then the Beijing APEC meeting had the following theme: Shaping the Future Through Asia-Pacific Partnership. So, again, China proposed that we should build up a partnership to go forward. And that also gives people a lot of confidence, a better sense of direction. 

Now, in a few days' time, Shenzhen again. The world is still changing in such a fundamental way, and there's a widespread call for better global governance and for global stability. When people come to Shenzhen, I'm sure China will try to work with others to send a strong signal to the world that we should build a community with a shared future for humanity. Of course, we start with the APEC areas, so we build an APEC community and try to promote common prosperity, because there's a very worrisome rising of unilateralism, protectionism, tariff wars, unilateral sanctions and long-arm jurisdiction. Sometimes I'm amazed by why people put forward these negative words and aren’t as creative in putting forward positive, constructive ideas. But I'm sure the Shenzhen leaders' meeting will send a very positive, a very strong signal. 

After the Beijing summit between Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Donald Trump in May, you were asked in an interview what specific measures the United States would take to implement the consensus on building a “constructive China-U.S. relationship of strategic stability.” Five months on, what measures have you observed? 

I think the most important and most significant progress since the Beijing summit was the Washington summit in late September, because the two leaders agreed that we should aim at a constructive relationship of strategic stability. That's what they did in May in Beijing. In September in Washington, D.C., they added a few words to that concept: “based on respect, fairness and reciprocity.” So this gives more substance to what we mean by a constructive relationship of strategic stability. I think this is a very big step forward. 

Of course, since the May summit, and before the September summit, the two sides have been communicating and talking to each other at different levels and on different issues. The two economic teams had their meetings, and the diplomatic team and the security team are also talking to each other. And there are also specific cases of law enforcement cooperation and the growing number of Americans coming to China, thanks to the initiative of 50,000 young people from America visiting China over the course of five years. We did this in two and a half years. Now President Xi proposed in Washington, D.C., that we will welcome 100,000 American young people to come to China in the next five years. So there is real and specific progress. 

You have said China's role as host is not only about China itself. What does the rise of the Global South mean for global governance—and for a forum like APEC? 

It's a gradual process, but it's getting more and more clear. And China is part of the Global South, of course. So this is changing the global structure. This is changing global governance: We have to make it better, to make it more equal, more responsive to the needs and aspirations of developing countries. 

Some in the developed world are still not used to this. But this is a historical trend. Nobody can resist this, and certainly nobody can stop it. If they can join us, it will be mutually beneficial; it will be better for everybody.  

I think they have to understand: What we advocate in China, what we want to achieve, is not to shift hegemony from the U.S. or Europe to us. No, we don't want to do that. They used to have a term: Pax Americana. Some people are now talking about so-called Pax Sinica. This is not China's goal, and this is not China's intention. Our goal is to build a community of nations with a shared future. That would include everybody--China, the Global South, the United States, Europe--because this is for humankind. 

Many Asia-Pacific economies don't want to choose between China and the U.S. What would genuine non-alignment look like in trade, technology and supply chains? And what responsibilities do Beijing and Washington have to make that possible? 

As far as China is concerned, we never want to force any other country to “take sides” between China and the U.S. As I said earlier, we can and we should build this global community together. We are not excluding anybody. We want to include everybody.  

For economic growth, for regional economic integration and for supply chains, I think we have to understand and respect the logic of economics itself and the logic of technology itself. I don't think people should try to politicize or weaponize the supply chain or economic issues to try to achieve geopolitical or geostrategic objectives. That's impossible. 

You have worked on AI governance in recent years. Developing economies risk becoming rule takers rather than rule makers in a digital economy shaped by a small number of technological powers and companies. What can APEC do to ensure that AI cooperation produces capacity, not merely new forms of dependence? 

Well, I'm not an AI expert, but I think that, for AI, it is still developing—and moving very fast. But the key issue is that we should have a common value. As President Xi said at the 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference and High-Level Meeting on Global AI Governance in Shanghai in July, all countries should take a people-centered approach and develop AI for the positive and for good. So if we can agree on this idea, then we will be able to work together to respond to the new challenges of technology. 

Of course, we should do our best to make sure that there will be no widening gap between countries, or maybe even within countries. A new technology like AI should really serve the common interests of everybody, all countries, no matter big or small, and in particular the Global South. Because there was, and there still is, a wealth gap, a digital gap, we don't want to see another AI divide between the more developed countries and the less developed countries--and within society. 

We are making a lot of efforts at the application of AI technology. Of course, there are good economic reasons and technological reasons, but I think it's about more than that. We have a firm belief in the interests of our people. Any new technology, any new breakthrough in technology, we should make it serve the interests of our people, to make people's lives better, to give people a better tomorrow to expect. That's our fundamental value.  

Copyedited by Elsbeth van Paridon   

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