Leaders of Asia-Pacific economies have been unable to agree on communique at a summit in Papua New Guinea as deep divisions between the United States and China over trade and investment dominated the meeting.
"You know the two big giants in the room," Papua New Guinea (PNG) Prime Minister Peter O'Neill said at a closing news conference on Sunday, when asked which members of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) group could not agree.
When asked about the main issues preventing agreement, O'Neill replied: "The World Trade Organisation and reform of the World Trade Organisation," but said that was outside APEC's remit.
"APEC has got no charter over World Trade Organisation, that is a fact. Those matters can be raised at the World Trade Organisation."
A Leaders' Declaration has been issued after every annual APEC leaders' meeting since the first in 1993, the group's website shows.
O'Neill said as APEC host, he would release a Chairman's Statement later on Sunday.
Competition between the United States and China over the Pacific was also thrown into focus at the meeting in Papua New Guinea with Western allies launching a co-ordinated response to China's Belt and Road program, promising to jointly fund a $US1.7 billion ($A2.3 billion) electrification and internet project in PNG.
Tonga, on the other hand, signed up to the Belt and Road and won deferment on a Chinese loan.
US Vice President Mike Pence, as he left Port Moresby, listed US differences with China, a day after he directly criticised its Belt and Road program.
"They begin with trade practices, with tariffs and quotas, forced technology transfers, the theft of intellectual property. It goes beyond that to freedom of navigation in the seas, concerns about human rights," Pence told reporters travelling with him.
Wang Xiaolong, a senior economic official with China's APEC delegation, said of the failure to agree on a joint statement that it was "not exactly a sticking point between any particular two countries".
Most members affirmed their commitment to preserving the multilateral trading system and supported a robust and well-functioning WTO, he said.
"Frankly speaking, we are in a very early stage of those discussions and different countries have different ideas as to how to take that process forward," Wang said.
One diplomat involved in the negotiations said tension between the US and China, bubbling all week, erupted when China's top diplomat, Wang Yi, objected during a leaders' retreat to two paragraphs in a draft document seen by Reuters.
One mentioned opposing "unfair trade practices" and reforming the WTO, while another concerned sustainable development.
"These two countries were pushing each other so much that the chair couldn't see an option to bridge them," said the diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity.
"China was angered that the reference to WTO blamed a country for unfair trade practices."
PNG Foreign Minister Rimbink Pato earlier told Reuters the multilateral trade system was the sticking point in drafting the communique.
Pato also confirmed to Reuters that Chinese officials had see him on Saturday over the communique, adding they were refused because they had not made "necessary arrangements" for a meeting, but denied media reports they had barged into his office.
Chinese President Xi Jinping stoked Western concern on Friday when he held a meeting with Pacific island leaders in which he pitched the Belt and Road initiative.
Xi insisted that there was no "hidden agenda" to the Belt-and-Road scheme.
Australian Associated Press
