it would force countries in the region to choose between the united states and australia - - or maybe between japan and china . and it would collapse whatever promise the newly born asia west financial conference ( asem ) holds as a method to assure american trade connections to the booming oceanic markets . to risk all of this in the name of a good concept is foolish . this is not to deny the administration ' s illogical dissatisfaction with a unreasonably huge domestic trade surplus .
APEC is the newly born Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation.