KEY POINTS:
In the streets of the world's sixth-oldest democracy - a status Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer has been at pains to remind his audiences of for the past week - rhetoric has been matched only by steel wire.
The ministers and leaders of the world's great powers, save
those in Europe and India, are gathered in Sydney, quartered within a cordon of steel and concrete fencing.
Yesterday Prime Minister Helen Clark flew in to join them. Her aim is to steer Apec on to a course that will help to save the planet from its own excesses, while gaining in prosperity by trading in a world of tumbling barriers.
The communique released by Apec's Foreign and Trade Ministers late on Thursday ahead of this weekend's leaders' summit shows Clark will have her work more than cut out. While no one expected nirvana in Sydney, the communique demonstrated that even unity in good intentions is an elusive goal.
For New Zealand, it also presented the challenge of accepting the unpalatable while resisting the urge to preach: regardless of the final wording of the leaders' deliberations, much of the world is going nuclear.
On the other hand, the battle to contain emissions of greenhouse gases has been joined by the planet's biggest polluter. China, choking in its own filth, has begun to seriously push for a cleaner world, even if at a pace held in check by the demands of its ballistic economy.
And while protesters rail against globalisation, Apec leaders appear likely to pledge themselves to a world of diminishing borders through a commitment brokered by New Zealand to place a bomb under negotiators at the World Trade Organisation's moribund talks in Geneva.
The ministers' conclusion essentially is that by nurturing economic growth through open markets, the world can face the challenges of protectionism, urbanisation, demographic changes, energy, food safety, terrorism, crime, governance, women's empowerment, pandemics and "21st century skills".
Easier said than done. With the imbalances and divisions of 21 wildly different countries, the communique is little more than an aspirational agenda for action elsewhere.
Trade Minister Phil Goff was enthused by Wellington's successful bid to include a statement instructing Apec's Geneva WTO negotiators "to work through the Apec caucus to provide active support for [WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy] and the negotiating group chairs in their efforts to broker agreement and bring the negotiations to a successful conclusion".
Apec, as expected, cannot bridge the huge gulfs that splinter the real world. But Goff believes his unanimously accepted amendment is a significant catalyst that could help pull the Doha round back from the brink.
"There is talk that [the Doha round] might be put in the freezer for two years, until 2009-10," he said. "I would deeply regret any outcome from Apec that resulted in that because you can't be certain that if a round is put in the freezer for that long, that when it emerges again it's still going to be capable of revival."
The communique is a familiar wish-list: continued regional economic integration and the ultimate hope of an Apec free-trade area; easier and less costly trade; greater protection of intellectual property; renewed attacks on corruption; structural reform in member economies; and greater economic and technical co-operation.
Other areas included determination to combat terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and to improve food safety.
The communique failed to present any specific goals on climate change, instead fudging around an issue clouded by divergent perspectives of rich and poor, and the determination of the US and Australia to forge a new agreement outside the Kyoto protocols.
Ominously for Wellington, the Bush-Howard plan urges new action to expand nuclear energy and supports Australian membership of the US-backed Global Nuclear Energy Partnership promoting the development of cleaner, more efficient, fast-breeder nuclear reactors.
The ministers' communique skipped quickly around the issue, stating a desire for a diversified mix of energy sources including "nuclear energy for interested economies".
Foreign Minister Winston Peters emerged from the talks content with the limited inclusion of nuclear power, but concerned that Bush and Howard might force through a greater emphasis at this weekend's meeting.
"The paper, as we see it, is fine for New Zealand - it's whether or not any additions are to be made to it later," he said.
For New Zealand, the task will be to reason without resorting to the kind of preaching that many other countries, including Australia, see as po-faced self-righteousness. In Sydney, Goff indicated that the message had been heard.
"New Zealand has made its position clear, that nuclear energy is not for us for reasons of economy, for reasons of safety and for environmental reasons," he said.
"We've also made it clear we are not in the business of dictating to other countries what they might do - but anything that happens on nuclear energy, obviously we'd like to see the necessary safeguards in place."
