The Diplomatic Disaster that Was APEC Port Moresby

... Keating, to develop an Asia-Pacific regional cooperative grouping that would not go the way of that discredited and now moribund Cold War relic, SEATO. The focus would be on economic cooperation under a free market framework, but not aggressively so. APEC would be open to all. It was understood that it was desirable to try to bring ASEAN and China and Russia on board as important Asia-Pacific seaboard country members. All this required a subtle and sensitive Australian diplomacy, which in those years Australia had the the skills and political maturity to practice. None of this was in evidence at the diplomatic debacle just ended ...