APEC CEO Summit - Collaborations on a different level

Context

For many of us in San Francisco, this summit was an exciting event for many reasons — it was a chance for our city to show its best to global visitors, an opportunity to explore, discuss, and further topics that matter to our economy and livelihood, an opportunity to voice our political views. And for the world, it was a moment where all eyes were on the resulting postures of world leaders. 

The Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation - APEC - was established in 1989, with 21 member economies located along the Pacific Rim. Today, the APEC region is home to about 3 billion people and over 60% of the world’s GDP. The first time the US hosted the conference was in 1993, under the Clinton administration, marking the unmistakable beginning of “globalization.” The excitement of a better world, a positive sum game via trade and collaboration at the global level, was only tempered by concerns of job losses and entire industry sectors going away due to outsourcing. We hosted it again in 2011 under the Obama administration. Coming out of the war in Iraq and recovering from the 2008 financial crisis, this marked the early stage of a relatively stable period of time, with continued  economic growth.

This 2023 APEC Summit took place in a time when two major wars are raging and amidst worrying geopolitical tension between the world’s two biggest economies, the United States and China. We are observing increasingly frequent and extreme weather and climate events, and the global economy is still reeling in the aftermath of the pandemic, supply chain disruption, and historically high inflation. At the same time, the emergence of new technologies including AI is dazzling and unsettling many with its potential and the risks it presents to many job categories. Suffice to say that the conference was held at a time with uncertainty at its peak.

Top themes

During the summit, the positivity, friendliness, and eagerness to take the first step towards better mutual understanding was palpable. Even with heightened security, people were friendly and at ease. Spontaneous, authentic conversations happened as frequently as scheduled meetings  Out of the packed agenda and panels of distinguished speakers, a few themes clearly stood out: What role does APEC — its governments, public and private sectors, and citizens — play in navigating the treacherous waters of uncertainty, climate change, collaboration vs. conflict, and the breakneck pace of AI? These aren’t easy questions to ponder, and the point of the summit was less about getting an answer, more about serving as the platform to start necessary conversations so we can collectively confront the challenges in front of us.

Highlights and thoughts in my own words

While President Biden had private meetings with China’s President Xi , a number of heads of state shared their perspectives and visions on the current state of geopolitical affairs in their speeches to summit audience.

Prime Minister Ibrahim of Malaysia made it clear that his country’s biggest trading partner position should not be a reason to be put in a difficult situation, with the assumption that this is a zero sum game. “The only way forward,” he advised, “is to look at us as a community,” instead of working as divided, individual actors. 

President Thuong of Vietnam stated that APEC has a key role to play in the face of climate change, protectionism, and geopolitical tension. President Yoon of South Korea noted that connectivity is decreasing,, giving way to the dangerous emergence of distinct economic blocks. He suggested that the way to improve connectivity is to intentionally bring back healthier trades, economics, and supply chain functions.

President Boric of Chile offered the most passionate plea yet — I could feel his frustration at the geopolitical struggle between China and the US as he called for collaboration, not only competition. This resonates at a personal level: In my early days as a Google employee, I was proud of our mission of collectively building a better tech ecosystem and the way we saw other technology players as respectable contributors instead of just competitors. We believed not in zero sum games, but in making the pie bigger—a belief that some might call naïve, but is surprisingly empowering and motivating. 

Ian Bremmer, founder and president of Eurasia Group, gave a fun yet important report on the geopolitical risks we’re facing. He, in agreement with Dr. Condolessa Rice who spoke earlier in the conference, noted that establishing communication channels - especially those between the militaries between the two biggest economies – is by every measure necessary. This would help prevent misreadings of political and economic postures and intentions.

In her session, Dr. Rice stuck to her guns in calling for decoupling between the US and China in national security-related tech areas, like semiconductors, AI, and quantum computing. She noted that the Deng Xiao Ping era’s positive sum game is now breaking down. In a different session, Citi’s CEO Jane Fraser noted that “...retraction in the name of security is not necessarily good, and robust resilience is market driven”, adding that “globalization is far from being done.” As a commercial practitioner, I couldn’t agree more. But this debate is too complex to address in full in this article — more to come another time. 

I was delighted to be able to hear Governor Newsom of California and Presidential Envoy John Kerry talk live about climate-related topics in their respective sessions. I was encouraged to hear Governor Newsom’s conviction that clean energy and a thriving economy are not mutually exclusive, an enlightened by Mr. Kerry’s passionate call for the protection of ocean climates.

To cap it all off, it was fun to hear about technology and AI from Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Google’s Sundar Pichai, Salesforce’s Marc Benioff, and OpenAI’s Sam Altman—arguably some of the greatest technology minds of our generation. While hearing them speak I realized, though, that even with this set of high-caliber tech talents in our mix, the challenge we have in front of us is only solvable if everyone pitches in — the public sector, political leaders, NGOs, and companies with a purpose — and we don’t distract ourselves with  unnecessary divisions, the and geopolitical arm wrestling. As Prime Minister Ibrahim quoted from T.S. Eliot at the start of the summit: “The only wisdom we can hope to acquire is humility.” Indeed.

So what? — on a personal level

It’s easy to get mired in our jobs, our lives, our companies’ milestones, our political parties, our countries’ security… It’s easy to get competitive and find reasons to disagree. At the same time, we don’t live in a vacuum. We all impact our collective future. I encourage you to try the following: Zoom out, look out as far as your vision allows, imagine the future you want. Then ask yourself this: is what you’re doing now aligned with what gives you hope, comfort, and happiness? Do your efforts matter to your friends, family, and communities? Are you nudging this world to a better place, moving it forward?